Beaten upon the Protectorate, the Republicans fell back upon the second House, the existence of which they called into question. The debate was long and stormy: all the friends and followers of Cromwell sat in that assembly which overshadowed the Commons; but there again, Haslerig, Vane, and their friends were defeated. The second House remained as it had been constituted by Cromwell; the attacks directed against the internal and external policy of the dead Protector also failed. The great name of Cromwell still protected his work and his son. Then began a fresh toil; two powers were in opposition, Parliament and the army. In their blind hatred of the Protectorate, which claimed, they said, to oppress them, the Republican leaders undertook to foment the natural jealousy which existed between the politicians and the soldiers, in order to compel the Protector to lean for support upon one of the two parties, thus destroying beforehand all equilibrium in the government. The situation could not possibly be sustained; a catastrophe was rapidly approaching. Cromwell had been able, although with great difficulty, to caress and misuse in turns the revolution which he had accomplished, and the army which he had conducted to victory; neither to Parliament nor to the army was Richard anything. He still possessed the majority in the House; but when, by the aid of the alarm of the moment and the services of the adherents of his father, he triumphed over his enemies, it was for him a barren victory: the day was coming when, placed between the army and Parliament as a powerless moderator, he was to fall a victim to the blows which were aimed at each other by these two great enemies, for he could neither conciliate them nor choose between them without peril. {288}