Through the outrages committed in May and June, the Convention had
lost its legitimacy; through the maneuvers of July and August it
recovered the semblance of it. The Montagnards still hold their slave
by his lash, but they have restored his prestige so as to make the
most of him to their own profit.



VII.

Effect of this maneuver. -- Extent and Manifesto of the departmental
insurrection. -- Its fundamental weakness. -- The mass of the
population inert and distrustful. -- The small number of Girondists.
-- Their lukewarm adherents. -- Scruples of fugitive deputies and
insurgent administrators. -- They form no central government. --
They leave military authority in the hands of the Convention. --
Fatal progress of their concessions. -- Withdrawal of the departments
one by one. -- Retraction of the compromised authorities. -- Effect
of administrative habits. -- Failings and illusions of the Moderates.
-- Opposite character of the Jacobins.

With the same blow, and amongst the same playacting, they have nearly
disarmed their adversaries. -- On learning the events of May 31 and
June 2, a loud cry of indignation arose among republicans of the
cultivated class in this generation, who, educated by the
philosophers, sincerely believed in the rights of man.[48] Sixty-nine
department administrations had protested,[49] and, in almost all the
towns of the west, the south, the east and the center of France, at
Caen, Alençon, Evreux, Rennes, Brest, Lorient, Nantes and Limoges, at
Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier, Nîmes and Marseilles, at Grenoble,