For months past the extremists among his followers openly threatened that, if by any mishap Venizelos did not win the day after all, they would make a _coup d'etat_ and strike terror into the hearts of their adversaries. This threat, which primarily presented itself as an extravagance of irresponsible fanaticism, was on 7 September officially espoused by M. Venizelos, who declared in Parliament that, should perchance his adversaries obtain a majority in the new Assembly, and should that Assembly decide {224} to convoke a Constituent Assembly, and should this Constituent Assembly invite King Constantine back, the "Reaction" would find itself confronted with the hostility of a large political party which had become the mortal enemy of the ex-king; and he went on to foreshadow a fresh schism in the army: that is, civil war. Encouraged by so solemn a sanction, Venizelist candidates--notably at Tyrnavo in Thessaly and Dervenion in Argolis--told their constituents without any circumlocution that, in the event of a defeat at the polls, the Government would not surrender its power, but would maintain it through the Army of National Defence, which was pledged to a new Revolution: the Parliamentary system would cease to function even in name, and many a malignant would swing. These appeals to the sovereign people, published in the Royalist and not contradicted by the Venizelist Press, will doubtless seem startling for a Government whose mission was to establish democratic liberties. But they were justified by necessity. M. Venizelos and his partisans could not afford to be very fastidious: their political existence was at stake: they must make every effort, and summon every resource at their command. Anyone who was in Athens at that time and saw the Cretan guards, often with the Premier's photograph pinned on their breasts, assault such citizens as displayed the olive-twig (emblem of the Opposition), or saw the gendarmes, who patrolled the streets with fixed bayonets, protect the excesses of Venizelist bravoes, would appreciate how far the Government was prepared to stoop in order to survive.