The assembly naturally returned to the situation of France, which had not changed. The extraordinary commission of twelve presented, through Pastoret, an unsatisfactory picture of the state and divisions of party. Jean Debry, in the name of the same commission, proposed that the assembly should secure the tranquillity of the people, now greatly disturbed, by declaring that when the crisis became imminent, the assembly would declare _the country is in danger_; and that it would then take measures for the public safety. The debate opened upon this important subject. Vergniaud, in a speech which deeply moved the assembly, drew a vivid picture of all the perils to which the country was at that moment exposed. He said that it was in the name of the king that the emigrants were assembled, that the sovereigns of Europe had formed a coalition, that foreign armies were marching on our frontiers, and that internal disturbances were taking place. He accused him of checking the national zeal by his refusals, and of giving France up to the coalition. He quoted the article of the constitution by which it was declared that "if the king placed himself at the head of an army and directed its force against the nation, or if he did not formally oppose such an enterprise, undertaken in his name, he should be considered as having abdicated the throne." Supposing, then, that Louis XVI. voluntarily opposed the means of defending the country, in that case, said he: "have we not a right to say to him: 'O king, who thought, no doubt, with the tyrant Lysander, that truth was of no more worth than falsehood, and that men were to be amused by oaths, as children are diverted by toys; who only feigned obedience to the laws that you might better preserve the power that enables you to defy them; and who only feigned love for the constitution that it might not precipitate you from the throne on which you felt bound to remain in order to destroy the constitution, do you expect to deceive us by hypocritical protestations? Do you think to deceive us as to our misfortunes by the art of your excuses? Was it defending us to oppose to foreign soldiers forces whose known inferiority admitted of no doubt as to their defeat? To set aside projects for strengthening the interior? Was it defending us not to check a general who was violating the constitution, while you repressed the courage of those who sought to serve it? Did the constitution leave you the choice of ministers for our happiness or our ruin? Did it place you at the head of our army for our glory or our shame? Did it give you the right of sanction, a civil list and so many prerogatives, constitutionally to lose the empire and the constitution? No! no! man! whom the generosity of the French could not affect, whom the love of despotism alone actuates, you are now nothing to the constitution you have so unworthily violated, and to the people you have so basely betrayed!'"