MINISTER TO FRANCE.                 287
ity and intelligence had long agreed that as yet
republican virtues were not of Gallic growth ; "
and so the power slipped naturally into the
grasp of the lowest and most violent, of those
who were loudest to claim the possession of
republican principles, while in practice show-
ing that they had not even the dimmest idea
of what such principles meant.
The leaders were quite at the mercy of the
gusts of fierce passion that swayed the breasts
of their brutal followers. Morris wrote home
that the nominal rulers, or rather the few by
whom these rulers were directed, had finally
gained very just ideas of the value of popular
opinion ; but that they were not in a condition
to act according to their knowledge ; and that if
they were able to reach harbor there would be
quite as much of good luck as of good manage-
ment about it, and, at any rate, a part of the
crew would have to be thrown overboard.
Then the Mountain rose under Danton and
Marat, and the party of the Gironde was en-
tirely put down. The leaders were cast into
prison, with the certainty before their eyes that
the first great misfortune to France would call
them from their dungeons to act as expiatory
victims. The Jacobins ruled supreme, and un-
der them the government became a despotism
in principle as well as in practice.    Part of the