Let us consider what the situation was at this moment. The Republic had lost every man upon whose ability she could rely in the leadership of armies. Of all the school of generals who had grown up under the old regime, Lafayette alone in his weak way had loved freedom, and Dumouriez alone had remained on the side of the French. Spain, England, the German Powers—nine allies—were threatening the territory of the Republic and the very existence of the new regime; the civil war, which was soon to take such gigantic proportions, had already made its successful beginning at Machecoul. Between the Convention and immediate disaster there lay only the personality of Dumouriez. When the news of his desertion, following on the news of his defeat, reached Paris, the Girondins were hopelessly discredited, and the line of their political retreat, the pursuit of their enemies, ran in a direction that Danton’s speeches had prepared. For several days he had himself been the object of the most violent attacks, especially for his friendship with Dumouriez and on the question of the Belgian accounts. For he had just returned from a third mission to the army, and had been close to the general. On the 1st of April practically the whole sitting was devoted to an attack upon him and to his defence. Had you been sitting in the house that night, you would have said that a violent demagogue, surrounded by a little group of yet more violent friends, was resisting with some difficulty the attacks of an honest and loyal majority. But this demagogue was so far-seeing, was so much the greatest of all those in the hall, that when three days afterwards the Parliament was brought face to face with the reality, Danton’s method becomes the only solution. They hear of Dumouriez’ treason, and on the night of the 4th of April, Isnard, himself a Girondin, proposed the creation of the Committee. Danton supported him at midnight with a definite speech such as no Girondin would have dared to make. He said practically, “This Committee is precisely what we want, a hand to grasp the weapon of the Revolutionary Tribunal.” It was Isnard that formulated the idea, but it was Danton that baptised it “A Dictator.” It was at midnight that he spoke, and he closed his short speech just on the turn of the morning of the 5th of April. That very day a year later the Dictator seized him, and his own Tribunal put him to death.