Robespierre came down from the chair and spoke. The even, certain voice which carried away his admirers, which terrified his opponents, succeeded, and the law was passed. Those who find it easy to judge the time, who think it may all be explained by the baseness or the pusillanimity of the Parliament, should note the appeal which he made to the _Moderates_ even then—an appeal which had always been successful, which, when his death drew near, he made at last (and for the first time) in vain. For the Moderates, the Plain, the “Marsh,” saw in him a kind of saviour, the just man, the slayer of the Mountain, the master who would be terrible only for a little time, and would soon restore peace when he had established a dogma of moral order. Were Moderates ever slow to give full power for the sake of order? The next day some one saw that the new law touched the Parliament itself. Self-defence, the most sacred, perhaps the only, right of a prince, occurred to them, and they protested. They passed a resolution that no member could be taken before the Revolutionary Tribunal without their consent. The following day Robespierre again appears, again appeals to the “Marsh.” The men of order saw at once that no danger applied to them, that the disorderly fellows up on the benches of the Left alone were in danger. The resolution was repealed. On that day, the 24th of Prairial of the year II.—12th of June 1794—the whole of France was at his feet, save the armies. The France which had made the Revolution, and which Danton had loved, defended, and saved, was in the Ardennes and before Ypres. There were two main bodies. One, on the left, in the plains by the frontier towns, was opposed to a united force of English and Austrians; the other, on the right, in the woods and deep ravines of the Ardennes, was opposed to a strong series of Austrian posts. These armies were not separated, but the enemy held the angle between them. Away on the extreme right Jourdan held the Moselle valley. Pichegru had come back to the army of the left, which in his absence had won Turcoing, and at whose head Soudham, Moreau, and Macdonald had fought and succeeded. On the right St. Just was throwing into the attack upon the Sambre all the energy which had saved, before this, the army of Alsace. Five times the attempt had been made to pierce the Austrian lines, and five times it had failed. Coburg lay on both sides of the river; Charleroy, on the right bank, was his strong place. The Deputies on mission, St. Just and Lebas, the same whom we shall see standing by Robespierre at the end, were present at the last decisive check before Charleroy itself. With the Sambre thus held, the southern army was immobilised; the successes of the army of the north seemed almost valueless, for Coburg held the angle between the two. Nevertheless, Turcoing bore great fruit, for it convinced the Austrians that reinforcements were needed to meet the French advance in the north.