On the 5th of April, the next day, in the evening, we begin to get those large measures and rapid which came with the new organ of power. And Danton speaks with a kind of joy, and demands at once such measures as only a dictatorship can produce—calling all the people to the defence, fixing a maximum upon the price of bread, even the first mention of a levée _en masse_. The air is full of such a spirit as you get in an army, the certitude that with discipline and unity and authority all things can be done. On the following day, the 6th, the Committee was chosen, and on the 7th the names were read out, which showed that the power had finally passed from the Girondins to those whom they had rejected at the moment when France was forgiving everything for the sake of Jemappes. The Convention, in need of men of action, had been forced to abandon its own leaders and to turn to Danton. The names that they heard read out were Barrère, Delmas, Bréard, Debry, Morvaux, Cambon, Treilhard, Lacroix, and Danton. CHAPTER VI THE TERROR From the 6th April 1793, from the act which was described at the end of the last chapter, we have something new in the course of the Revolution. We have at last an Institution. It is in the nature of the French people (for reasons which might to some extent be determined, but whose discussion has no place in this book) that their history should present itself in a peculiarly dramatic fashion. Their adventures, their illusions, their violence, their despair, their achievements, seem upon a hundred occasions to centre round particular men or certain conspicuous actions, in such a fashion that those men and these actions fit themselves into a story, the plot and interest of which absorb the reader. But if we attempt to connect the whole into a series, even if we attempt to give the causes or the meaning of a few years’ events, the dramatic aspect fails. This quality, which has fascinated so many, has also mistaught us and confused us, and, in the desire to “throw the limelight” upon the centre of action, one historian after another has left in obscurity that impersonal blind force which directs the whole. This force in France is the Institution. Understand the character and methods of her central power, and you find yourself possessed of this great key to the understanding of her history, namely, that events follow each other in the order that the Institution requires, and the nation moves along the lines which the Institution determines. The Institution provides a standpoint from which all falls into perspective, even the details of personality no longer remain in confusion. You find, in a little while, that you are dealing with an organism more simple and of far greater vitality than any man, as truly a living, and much more truly a permanent, force than a monarch or a great minister can be.