She spoke like a woman who had predicted the event, and whom fortune does not surprise.

"The burden is heavy," she said to Brissot, "but Roland has a great consciousness of his own powers, and would derive fresh strength from the feeling of being useful to liberty and his country." This choice being made, the Girondists cast their eyes on Lacoste, an active commissioner of the navy, a working man, his mind limited by his duties, but honest and upright; his very candour of nature preserving him from faction.

Put into council to watch over his master, he naturally became his friend.

Duranton, an advocate of Bordeaux, was called to the bureau of justice.

The Girondists, who knew him, boasted of his honesty, and relied on his plasticity and weakness.