"Citizens," he said, "a conflagration will be kindled . . . to burst forth on the convocation of the primary Assemblies. . . . It is a disastrous measure and may end the Convention, the Republic, and liberty. If you have no choice between voting this convocation and yielding us up to our enemies . . . citizens, do not hesitate between a few men and the commonwealth. . . . Fling us into the abyss, and let the country be saved!"
"This was more than a noble impulse, it was a great action," says Louis Blanc. The Girondins remained silent. Not one of them protested against the stern verdict of their orator, but accepted their doom at his hands. These were the men accused of conspiring with the enemy, of sowing sedition, of federalist proclivities tending to destroy the unity of the Republic: these men who subscribed as one man to Vergniaud's patriotic cry, "Fling us into the abyss, and let the country be saved!"
The Convention, stirred to its depths, condemned the petition against the Gironde. But it had practically lost its authority. The Commune acted as a rival power which often set its decrees at defiance, and the government practically passed into the hands of the members of Public Safety, that famous Committee of Nine, established on the 6th of April 1793, whose sittings were held in secret, and who for a time became the ruling power in France.
Marat, brought to trial, had been absolved by the Revolutionary Tribunal. Smothered in garlands of fresh flowers, crowned with laurel, he was carried in triumph through the streets, followed by a Sanscullote multitude. Loud resounding shouts and vivas warned the Assembly of his approach. "The Friend of the
