The Girondins vs. the Jacobins
How the French Revolution's two leading factions split over war, terror, and the meaning of the republic itself.
Two Visions of the Republic
By 1792, the French Revolution had moved far beyond constitutional monarchy. The king had been discredited, war with Austria and Prussia had begun, and the republic was declared on September 22, 1792. But the new republic immediately faced a question that would tear it apart: what kind of republic should it be?
The Girondins — named after the Gironde department from which several leaders hailed — represented a vision of moderate republicanism. Their leading figures included Jacques-Pierre Brissot, Pierre Vergniaud, and the salonniere Manon Roland. They were broadly federalist, suspicious of Parisian radicalism, and drawn from the provincial bourgeoisie. They championed individual liberty, free trade, and a republic governed through persuasion and law.
The Jacobins — or more precisely, the Montagnards (the Mountain), who sat on the high benches of the Convention — were led by Maximilien Robespierre, Georges Danton, and later Louis Antoine de Saint-Just. They favored a centralized republic, were willing to use emergency measures to defend the Revolution, and derived their support from the Parisian sans-culottes — the urban working class. They believed that liberty required equality, and that equality sometimes required coercion.