Girondists (Fr. Girondins), the moderate republican party during the French Revolution.
From the first they formed the Left in the Legislative Assembly, which met in October 1791, and though inclined towards republicanism were yet devoted to the new constitution as it stood. The name was due to the fact that its earliest leaders, Vergniand, Guadet, Gensonné, Grangeneuve, and the young merchant, Ducos, were sent up as representatives by the Gironde department. Early in 1792 the reactionary policy of the court and the dark clouds lowering on the horizon of France made the king's ministers so unpopular that Louis was fain to form a Girondist ministry, with Roland and Dumouriez as its chiefs. Ere long, however, they were dismissed—a measure which led to the insurrection of the 20th June 1792. The advance of the Austrian and Prussian invaders threw the influence into the hands of the Jacobins, who alone possessed vigour enough to 'save the revolution.' The great émeute of the 10th August finally assured their triumph, which vented itself in such infamies as the September massacres. Next followed the National Convention and the trial of the king. The Girondists tried to save the king's life by appealing to the sovereign people. The fall of Roland and the ascendancy of Robespierre followed. Dumouriez, to save his head, rode over into the Austrian camp, and the famous Committee of Public Safety was created. Of its members not one was a Girondist. The last effort of the party was an ineffectual attempt to impeach Marat, who, however, on the 2d July overthrew the party, arresting as many as thirty-one deputies. The majority had already escaped to the provinces. In the departments of Eure, Calvados, all through Brittany, and at Bordeaux and elsewhere in the south-west the people rose in their defence, but the movement was soon crushed by the irresistible energy of the Mountain, now triumphant in the Convention.
On the 1st October 1793 the prisoners were accused before the Convention of conspiring against the republic with Louis XVI., the royalists, the Duke of Orleans, Lafayette, and Pitt, and it was decreed that they should be brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. On the 24th their trial commenced. The accusers were such men as Chabot, Hébert, and Fabre d'Eglantine. The Girondists defended themselves so ably that the Convention on the 30th was obliged to decree the closing of the investigation. That very night, Brissot, Vergniaud, Gensonné, Ducos, Fonfrede, Lacaze, Lasource, Valazé, Sillery, Fauchet, Duperré, Carra, Lehardy, Duchâtel, Gardien, Boileau, Beauvais, Vigée, Duprat, Mainvielle, and Antiboul were sentenced to death, and, with the exception of Valazé, who stabbed himself on hearing his sentence pronounced, all perished by the guillotine. On their way to the Place de Grève, in the true spirit of French republicanism, they sang the Marseillaise. Coustard, Manuel, Cussy, Noel, Kersaint, Rabaut St Etienne, Bernard, and Mazuyer went later to the same fate. Biroteau, Grangeneuve, Guadet, Salles, and Barbaroux ascended the scaffold at Bordeaux; Lidon and Chambon at Brives; Valady at Pérignoux; Dechézeau at Rochelle. Rebecqui drowned himself at Marseilles, Pétion and Buzot stabbed themselves, and Condorcet poisoned himself. Sixteen months later, after the fall of the Terrorists, the outlawed members, including the Girondists Lanjuinais, Defermont, Pontécoulant, Louvet, Isnard, and La Rivière, again appeared in the Convention. See Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins (8 vols. Paris, 1847); and Guadet's Les Girondins (new ed. 1889).