Antagonism between Paris and the provinces created friction among the people that served as a propaganda tool and combat weapon for the two groups. The departments resisted the idea of centralization. They saw this idea being symbolized by the desire to reduce the capital of the Revolution to its one-eighty-third share of influence. Much of the Gironde wished to remove the Assembly from a city dominated by "agitators and flatterers of the people": it did not at the time encourage an aggressive federalism that would have run counter to its political ambitions.