"The natural death of a celebrated man, or of even a public official, was so rare, that historians handed it down to posterity as an event worthy to be remembered in remote ages. The death of so many innocent and worthy citizens seemed less a calamity than the insolence and disgraceful opulence of their murderers and denouncers. Every day the sacred and inviolable informer made his triumphant entry into the palace of the dead, and received some rich heritage. All these denouncers assumed illustrious names, and called themselves Cotta, Scipio, Regulus, Saevius, Severus. To distinguish himself by a brilliant début, the marquis Serenus brought an accusation of anti-revolutionary practices against his aged father, already in exile, after which he proudly called himself Brutus. Such were the accusers, such the judges; the tribunals, the protectors of life and property, became slaughter-houses, in which theft and murder bore the names of punishment and confiscation." Camille Desmoulins did not confine himself to attacking the revolutionary and dictatorial regime; he required its abolition. He demanded the establishment of a committee of mercy, as the only way of terminating the revolution and pacifying parties. His journal produced a great effect upon public opinion; it inspired some hope and courage: Have you read the _Vieux Cordelier_? was asked on all sides. At the same time Fabre- d'Eglantine, Lacroix, and Bourdon de l'Oise, excited the convention to throw off the yoke of the committee; they sought to unite the Mountain and the Right, in order to restore the freedom and power of the assembly. As the committees were all powerful, they tried to ruin them by degrees, the best course to follow. It was important to change public opinion, and to encourage the assembly, in order to support themselves by a moral force against revolutionary force, by the power of the convention against the power of the committees. The Dantonist in the Mountain endeavoured to detach Robespierre from the other Decemvirs; Billaud-Varennes, Collot- d'Herbois and Saint-Just, alone appeared to them invincibly attached to the Reign of Terror. Barrère adhered to it through weakness--Couthon from his devotion to Robespierre. They hoped to gain over the latter to the cause of moderation, through his friendship for Danton, his ideas of order, his austere habits, his profession of public virtue, and his pride. He had defended seventy-three imprisoned Girondist deputies against the committees and the Jacobins; he had dared to attack Clootz and Hébert as ultra-revolutionists; and he had induced the convention to decree the existence of the Supreme Being. Robespierre was the most popularly renowned man of that time; he was, in a measure, the moderator of the republic and the dictator of opinion: by gaining him, they hoped to overcome both the committees and the commune, without compromising the cause of the revolution.