Motives of public safety, it must be admitted, mingled with these combinations of party. At this period of general fury against the republic, and of victories not yet definitive on its part, the committees did not think the moment for peace with Europe and the internal dissentients had arrived; and they considered it impossible to carry on the war without a dictatorship. They, moreover, regarded the Hébertists as an obscene faction, which corrupted the people, and served the foreign foe by anarchy; and the Dantonists as a party whose political moderation and private immorality compromised and dishonoured the republic. The government accordingly proposed to the assembly, through the medium of Barrère, the continuation of the war, with additional activity in its pursuit; while Robespierre, a few days afterwards, demanded the continuance of the revolutionary government. In the Jacobins he had already expressed himself opposed to the _Vieux Cordelier_, which he had hitherto supported. He rejected legal government in the following terms:-- "Without," said he, "all the tyrants surround us; within, all the friends of tyranny conspire against us; they will continue to conspire till crime is left without hope. We must destroy the infernal and external enemies of the republic or perish with it. Now, in such a situation, the first maxim of your policy should be, to lead the people by reason, and the enemies of the people by terror. If, during peace, virtue be the mainspring of a popular government, its mainspring in the times of revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror becomes fatal, terror, without which virtue is powerless. Subdue, then, the enemies of liberty by terror; and, as the founders of the republic, you will act rightly. The government of the revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny." In this speech he denounced the _moderates_ and the _ultra- revolutionists_, as both of them desiring the downfall of the republic. "They advance," said he, "under different banners and by different roads, but they advance towards the same goal; that goal is the disorganization of the popular government, the ruin of the convention, and the triumph of tyranny. One of these two factions reduces us to weakness, the other drives us to excesses." He prepared the public mind for their proscription; and his speech, adopted without discussion, was sent to all the popular societies, to all the authorities, and to all the armies.