vacillating between support of the conservative Girondists and the radical Montagnards. In the first major test of strength, a majority approved the Montagnard proposal that Louis be brought to trial before the convention for treason. On January 15, 1793, by an almost unanimous vote, the convention found the monarch guilty as charged, but on the following day, when the nature of the penalty was determined, factional lines were sharply drawn. By a vote of 387 to 334, the delegates approved the death penalty. Louis XVI went to the guillotine on January 21. Girondist influence in the National Convention diminished markedly after the execution of the king. The lack of unity within the party during the trial had irreparably damaged its national prestige, long at low ebb among the Parisian populace, who favored the Jacobins. The Girondists lost influence as a consequence of the military reverses suffered by the French armies after the declaration of war against Great Britain and the United Netherlands (February 1, 1793) and against Spain (March 7), which, with several smaller states, had entered the counterrevolutionary coalition against France. Jacobin proposals designed to strengthen the government for the crucial struggles ahead met fierce resistance from the Girondists. Early in March, however, the convention voted to conscript 300,000 men and dispatched special commissioners to the various departments for the purpose of organizing the levy. Royalists and clerical foes of the Revolution stirred the anti-conscription feelings of peasants in the Vendee into open rebellion. Civil war quickly spread to neighboring departments. On March 18, the Austrians defeated the army of Dumouriez at Neerwinden, and Dumouriez deserted to the enemy. The defection of the leader of the army, mounting civil war, and the advance of enemy forces across the French frontiers inevitably forced a crisis in the convention between the Girondists and the Montagnards, ...
