Girondin faction
Created: 1791
The Girondin faction was a loose coalition of deputies in the National Convention who stood in opposition to the Montagnard faction. The Girondins expressed caution and even open hostility towards the Paris popular movement's growing influence over the Revolution in the autumn of 1792. They were also hesitant about sending the deposed king Louis XVI to the guillotine. The faction had a concentration of deputies from the Gironde department in south-west France—hence the name. Brissot was one of its most prominent figureheads, and this added his longstanding personal rivalry with Robespierre (which had first flowered in the Paris Jacobin Club) to the factional equation. An alliance between the Montagnards and the Paris popular movement in the sections and Commune purged leading Girondins from the Convention on 2 June 1793. Further Girondin arrests followed later that summer. The trial and execution of Brissot and twenty-one others (one, Dufriche-Valazé, was guillotined despite having already committed suicide) took place at the end of October 1793 and was a key moment in the escalation of political Terror in Revolutionary France.
Wikipedia
Appears in these Letters:
1793
21 January: The Execution of Louis XVI
The deposed king's trial before the nation's elected representatives in the National Convention began on 11 December 1792. A guilty verdict was never...
29 May - 31 May: Purge of the Girondins. Part 1
Another entry which speaks to the possible political implications of the military pressure the Republic was under. The duchess believes this to be the...
1 June - 3 June: Purge of the Girondins. Part 2
Popular pressure finally secured the ‘Purge of the Girondins’ from the National Convention on 2 June 1793. A total of twenty-nine deputies were...
5 June: Purge of the Girondins. Part 3
The political implications of the Purge of the Girondins began to be felt immediately, and the duchess emphasises the political importance of the...
5 June: Reflections on Political Repression
The duchess explains how the balance of political power in the capital has recently shifted in a more radical direction, and considers the...
6 November: The Terror Gathers Pace
The duchess describes the execution of Brissot and a group of his fellow Girondin deputies. She combines this with broader reflections on the...