FLING US INTO THE ABYSS.
On a freezing day of January took place the execution of Louis XVI. His death, as subsequent events amply proved, did not help to cement the future stability of the Republic. Better to have followed the opinion of Condorcet and many of the Girondins, and have sent him into banishment. You can decapitate a man, but not a principle, and the King dead there will still be the cry of "Long live the King!" The founders of liberty, instead of imitating the methods of despotism, should have left something, as Danton said at a later stage, to the guillotine of opinion. Force begets force, and violence violence: here lies the justification of Marat, Robespierre, Saint Just, Tallien, and the most furious of the Cordeliers. But were this the only law mankind would be revolving in a vicious circle of retribution. The apostles of humanitarian principles should have taken their stand on a higher platform, and have cast a veil over wrongs never to be righted by fresh wrongs in a new direction.
Vergniaud, in replying to Robespierre's denunciation of the Girondins, gave the loftiest interpretation to the principles which his party represented. "We are called Moderates," said he, "and for whose benefit?
