During the first two months after the fall of the commune and the Danton party, the Decemvirs, who were not yet divided, laboured to secure their domination: their commissioners kept the departments in restraint, and the armies of the republic were victorious on all the frontiers. The committee took advantage of this moment of security and union to lay the foundation of new manners and new institutions. It must never be forgotten, that in a revolution men are moved by two tendencies, attachment to their ideas, and a thirst for command. The members of the committee, at the beginning, agreed in their democratic sentiments; at the end, they contended for power. Billaud-Varennes presented the theory of popular government and the means of rendering the army always subordinate to the nation. Robespierre delivered a discourse on the moral sentiments and solemnities suited to a republic: he dedicated festivals _to the Supreme Being, to Truth, Justice, Modesty, Friendship, Frugality, Fidelity, Immortality, Misfortune, etc._, in a word, to all the moral and republican virtues. In this way he prepared the establishment of the new worship _of the Supreme Being_. Barrère made a report on the extirpation of mendicity, and the assistance the republic owed to indigent citizens. All these reports passed into decrees, agreeably to the wishes of the democrats. Barrère, whose habitual speeches in the convention were calculated to disguise his servitude from himself, was one of the most supple instruments of the committee; he belonged to the régime of terror, neither from cruelty nor from fanaticism. His manners were gentle, his private life blameless, and he possessed great moderation of mind. But he was timid; and after having been a constitutional royalist before the 10th of August, a moderate republican prior to the 31st of May, he became the panegyrist and the co- operator of the decemviral tyranny. This shows that, in a revolution, no one should become an actor without decision of character. Intellect alone is not inflexible enough; it is too accommodating; it finds reasons for everything, even for what terrifies and disgusts it; it never knows when to stop, at a time when one ought always to be prepared to die, and to end one's part or end one's opinions.