"During its first era the Convention was constantly divided between the parties of the Mountain and the Gironde.
"Danton, Robespierre, Marat, Collot-d’Herbois, Billaud-Varennes, Carnot, Heraut de Sechelles, were the leaders of the party of the Mountain.
"Brissot, Condorcet, Vergniaud[Vergniaud], Gaudet, Gensonnè, Péthion, Lasource, Barbaroux, headed the party of the Gironde.
"The two parties were equally hostile to the Bourbons and the royalists.
"The men of the first were distinguished for superior energy, those of the second for superior talents. They were both the partisans of a republican establishment. The Mountaineers were desirous of a Republic, for the purpose of destroying what was in existence before the Revolution, both men and things. The Girondists were animated by the infatuation of youthful feeling, which presented at once Athens and Rome to their view, and revived recollections of sublime antiquity.
"The existence of the mountaineers may be dated from the time of the Constituent Assembly. They were the firebrands of the clubs so generally known by the name of Jacobin. The insurrection of the Field of Mars was planned by them.
"This party did not obtain admission into the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies.
"The Girondists, who predominated in the legislative, were hostile to the Constitution of 1794 and to the King. They would not undertake his defence, and suffered him to be sacrificed to the efforts of the Mountain, which, however, was also their enemy. It was the Mountaineers who caused the atrocities of the 20th of June, of the 10th of August, and of the 2nd of September; they had then no party in the assembly; but they compelled the Girondists to join them after their victory.
"The first era of the Convention presents the struggle of the Girondists and Mountaineers; the Girondists prevailed at that time in consequence of their superior talents, their eloquence, and their already acquired reputation. The presidents were nearly all Girondists; they charged the Mountain with the design of destroying the National Assembly, and substituting in its place a Parisian Dictatorship. They also reproached it with the massacre of September.
"The Mountain, in its turn, charged them with wishing for a federative republic like Switzerland, with being hostile to the capital, and with having, without cause, placed the republic in a state of warfare with the whole of Europe.