GIRON'DISTS (Fr. Girandins), the name given during the French revolution to the moderate republican party. When the legislative assembly met in Oct., 1791, the Gironde department chose for its representatives the advocates Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne, Grangeneuve, and a young merchant named Ducos, all of whom soon acquired great influence by their rhetorical talents and political principles, which were derived from a rather hazy notion of Grecian republicanism. They were joined by Brissot's party and the adherents of Roland, as well as by several leaders of the center, such as Condorcet, Fauchet, Lasource, Isnard, and Henri La Riviere, and for some time had a parliamentary majority. They first directed their efforts against the reactionary policy of the court, and the king saw himself compelled to select the more moderate of the party, Roland, Dumouriez, Claviere, and Servan, to be ministers. Ultimately, how ever, he dismissed them, a measure which led to the insurrection of June 20, 1792. The encroachments of the populace, and the rise of the Jacobin leaders, compelled the Girondists to assume a conservative attitude; but though their eloquence still prevailed in the assembly, their popularity and power out-of-doors were wholly gone, and they were quite unable to prevent such hideous crimes as the September massacres. The principal things which they attempted to do after this—for they never succeeded in accomplishing anything—were to procure the arrestment of the leaders of the September massacres, Danton, etc.; to overawe the mob of Paris by a guard selected from all the departments of France; to save the king's life by the absurdest of all possible means, viz., by first voting his death, and then by intending to appeal to the nation; and, finally, to impeach Murat, who, in turn, induced the various sections of Paris to demand their expulsion from the assembly and their arrestment. This demand, backed up as it was by 170 pieces of artillery under the disposal of Henriot (q.v.), leader of the sans culottes, could not be resisted; thirty of the Girondists were arrested on a motion of Couthon, but the majority had escaped to the provinces. In the departments of Eure, Calvados, and all through Brittany, the people rose in their defense, and under the command of gen. Wimpfen, formed the so-called " federalist" army, which was to res cue the republic from the hands of -the Parisian populace. Movements for the cause of the Girondists took place likewise at Lyons, Marseilles, and Bordeaux. The progress of the insurrection was, however, stopped by the activity of the convention. On July 20, the revolutionary army took possession of Caen, the chief station of the insurgents, whereupon the deputies of the convention, at the head of the sans-culottes, forced their way into the other towns, and commenced a fearful retribution.
On Oct. 1, 1793, the prisoners were accused before the convention by Amar, as the mouthpiece of the committee of public safety, 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, Hebert, and Fahre d'Eglantine. The Girondists, however, defended themselves so effectually, that the convention on the 30th was obliged to come forward and decree the closing of the investigation. That very night, Brissot, Vergniaud, Gensonne, Ducos, Fonfrede, Lacaze, Lasource, Valaze, Sillery, Fauchet, Duperret, Carra, Lehardy, Duclltel, Gardien, Boileau, Beauvais, Vigee, Duprat, Mainvielle, and Antiboul, were sentenced to death, and, with the excep tion of Valaze, who stabbed himself on hearing his sentence pronounced, all perished by the guillotine. On their way to the place de Greve, in the true spirit of French republicanism, they sang the Atarseillaise. Coustard, Manuel, Cussy, Noel, Kersaint, Rabaut St. Etienne, Bernard, and Mazuyer, were likewise afterwards guillotined. Biro teat', Grangeneuve, Guadet, Salles, and Barbaroux ascended the scaffold at Bordeaux; Lidon and Cliambou, at Brives; Valady, at Perigueux; Dechezeau, at Rochelle. Rehecqui drowned himself at Marseilles, Petion and Buzot stabbed themselves, amid Con dorcet poisoned himself. Sixteen months later, after the fall of the terrorists, the out lawed members, including the Girondists Lanjuinais, Defermon, Pontecoulant, Louvet, Isnard, and La Riviere, again appeared in the convention. A rather flattering picture. of the party has been drawn by Lamartine, in his Histoire des Gironclins (8 vols., 1847).
GIRONNt, GYRONNE, GYItONNY (Lat. gyms, a circle), terms used in heraldry to indicate that the field (q.v.).is divided into six, eight, or more triangular portions, of different tinctures, the points of the triangles all meeting in the center of the shield. Nisbet (i. 28) objects to this as a Vulgar mode of blazoning, and, in speaking of the " paternal ensign of the ancient surname of Campbell," he says (p. 31) that it is " com posed of the four principal partition lines, parti, coupe, traunche, which divide: the field into eight gironal segments, ordinarily blazoned with us, girony of eight, or,, and sable." The triangle in dexter-chief has been called a giron or gyron.