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to so impudent an attack, when he declared such uncompromising war on men with whom we had long ago seen it was impossible to be at peace, when he, so to speak, burned his boats to deprive himself of any chance of changing his mind, we were transported with a sort of electric enthusiasm; we looked at Danton's unexpected resolution as the signal of certain victory. As soon as he left the tribune a great number of Deputies ran to embrace him, and the hall rang with cheer after cheer. However here the incident ended. Lasource having made no formal motion the Convention simply resumed business. But if Danton's oration had no immediate result it had an immense influence on men's minds. We felt sure of the future, and the Girondins no longer seemed formidable now he had determined to fight. The acquisition of him was in our eyes worth an army.

CHAPTER XIX

1793-continued

" SANS-CULOTTE 'ARMY-COMMITTEE OF SAFETY-SCENES IN THE CONVENTION-DANTON'S SPEECH-GUADET ATTACKS DANTON AND MARAT-DANTON ON ORLEANS-RETRACTATION OF DOCTRINE OF PROPAGANDA-THE RICH TO PAY FOR THE WAR- VIOLENCE OF

FACTION

'PLUS de trêve. Plus de composition.' This seemed to be indeed throwing away the scabbard-the voice of 'the strongest and the fiercest spirit,' of the Assembly, 'now fiercer by despair,' declaring irrevocably, 'My sentence is for open war.' But though henceforward Danton's demeanour to the Right was never what it had been before, his fierceness' was that of an impetuous, not a revengeful nature, and if his hand could have averted them there would have been no proscriptions. On the very day of his speech Dumouriez had arrested the Convention's Commissioners, and in view of the common danger he again appealed for concord, interposing as peacemaker on April 4, after a scene of altercation provoked by a speech by Marat. Rapprochonsnous, rapprochons fraternellement,' he cried, il y va du salut de tous.'

None the less did he prepare for the coming struggle. On the 5th he proposed the formation of an armed and paid body of sans-culottes to keep aristocratic citizens 'sous la pique,' and the regulation of the price of bread by the rate of workmen's wages, any loss to the vendor to be made good by the rich. The abstract defensibility

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of this enlistment of physical force, and of this rough and ready poor law, is open to criticism, but there can be no doubt of their efficacy in identifying the people with the revolutionary party; nor did he conceal his object. By this decree alone,' he said, 'you will ensure means of subsistence to the people without wounding its self-respect, and will attach it to the Revolution.' When the Army of the North was in retreat, when the Rolandists were stirring up the Departments, when La Vendée was in flames, there was no choice left. The people must be attached to the Revolution,' or the cause of the Revolution was lost.

Never, in fact, had it been in greater peril than when on the 7th Danton's name was announced as one of the newly appointed Committee of Public Safety. This famous Committee, nominally proposed by Isnard, as Reporter of the Committee of General Defence, was really due to Danton, who, also a member of that Committee, must have had much to do with the verbal definition of its powers. What it signified as to the past was the failure of Government by the Conventionthat is, by its Girondin majority. What it heralded was government by Danton, who, as he had stemmed the tide of disaster in 1792, now stood in the breach again, and laid the foundation of the system by which the military reverses of the next two months were to be changed into the victories of September. The Girondins suspected then, but no one would assert now, that Danton aimed at becoming a Dictator. He had no such personal ambition. But the logic of events had taught him that there must be a responsible Executive; that a Republic, while proscribing dictators and triumvirs, had none the less the power, as it was indeed its duty, to create an authority which would be feared.' This

was the policy which Danton advocated, at first in vain, in the Convention. It took concrete form in the Committee of Public Safety. He looked on it not as desirable in itself, but as a necessity-just as he had regarded the Revolutionary Tribunal, not as a good institution, but as the least bad' one possible.

While this great engine was being forged violent altercations went on in the Assembly. On the 10th Pétion proposed that the authors of a petition demanding Roland's arraignment and using dictatorial language to the Convention should be sent before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Danton rose to a point of order, and as he dashed towards the rostrum a number of Deputies from each party followed him, almost coming to blows. You are a set of scoundrels,' cried Danton. 'Down with the Dictator!' retorted his antagonists. At last Pétion was allowed to proceed, though a few minutes later David grotesquely showed how electric the air was by suddenly, on Pétion's using the word scélérats,' stepping solemnly into the middle of the hall and saying, 'I offer my life and my conduct for examination. You are not in possession of the House, Pétion is,' curtly remarked Thuriot, the President. Pétion then introduced that perpetual bone of contention, the name of Marat, who, he said, was an Orleanist, and, far worse, was allowed to occupy the rostrum far oftener than a certain man noted for his probity and principles' whom Pétion did not name, though he clearly thought him as pretty a piece of flesh as any in Messina.' 'Que dira-t-on dans les départements?' he said before he sat down-words which, even from lips no longer looked on as reverend, must have seemed grave and ominous.

6

Danton on another occasion pleaded for the utmost

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possible latitude being allowed to the wording of a petition as being at once dignified and more politic. He now declared

that it was only natural that there should be feverish effervescences among the people when they saw the Assembly perpetually a gladiatorial arena. Pétion's proposal was frivolous. Petitions more or less exaggerated were presented every day. The wisdom of the Assembly was to take a hint from such exaggerations. If they reached the point of illegality there were laws and tribunals to which those who thought it their duty might appeal. What a sea the Assembly would embark on if it prosecuted them all itself. It ought to be thinking how to conquer the Austrians, how to pacify La Vendée, how to frame a Constitution, and not to allow its time to be wasted on these pitiful squabbles.

Two days later, on the 12th, Guadet, in answering Robespierre, taunted Danton with being at the Opera with Dumouriez, and attempted to work on Robespierre's jealousy by saying Danton only counted him. 'third' among his agents. Danton rejoined that Guadet was at the Opera too, and that he would prove Guadet's criminality.

By such petty strategy the Girondins played into the hands of their enemies, and they were still worse advised in choosing this particular moment for measuring swords with Marat. Marat had expressed confidence in Dumouriez just before his treason, but on previous occasions he had denounced him, and the people, judging him as they might a weather-prophet, remembered only his true and forgot his false predictions. He was, therefore, never more formidable than

Pétion had charged him with being an Orleanist. Guadet clinched the accusation by saying Dumouriez

P