On the very day that the Norman insurrection was crushed at Vernon, a Norman girl stabbed Marat. It is not within the scope of this book to deal at any great length with the fate of the man whom Danton had called “l’individu.” That most striking and picturesque episode concerns us only in this matter, that it was a powerful impetus to the system of the Terror, and such an one as Danton, with all his judgment, could not possibly have foreseen. Moreover, on the very day that Marat was killed, the allied forces entered Warsaw, and there can be no doubt that the success of this infamy gave them a freer hand morally, at least upon the French frontier. Mayence fell, and its fall cost the life of Josephine’s first husband. The Allies had crossed the Rhine. Five days later, on the 28th of July, Valenciennes fell. At the same moment the Spaniards were pouring in east and west of the Pyrenees, and the Piedmontese had crossed the Alps. From a little press in Newcastle (the family of the printer yet remain to tell the tale), Pitt was drawing the thousands of forged assignats to ruin the Republic. Five foreign armies were occupying the territory of France, and late in the following month the Spanish and English fleets were admitted to the harbour and arsenal of Toulon. Let it then be granted that, with the possible exception of the Roman power after Cannæ, no power in history was ever so near destruction as was Revolutionary France in that summer. Let us see how the misfortunes of the country reacted upon the position of Danton. Already, with early July, he felt himself pressed and constrained by the growing power of the Jacobin doctrine and of its high priest. His system of conciliation, his attempts (in large part successful) to coax rather than to defeat the insurrection, were violently criticised in the debate of the 4th. The anger against the Girondins, which the death of Marat was to increase to so violent a degree, produced the report of St. Just upon the 8th of July, which, though history has called it moderate, yet mentions the accusation of Vergniaud and of Gaudet, and to this Danton was forced reluctantly to put his name. Two days afterwards the old Committee to which he had belonged was dissolved and a new one was elected.