The amendment of Merlin was revoked as insulting to the committee of public safety, and the whole law was adopted. From that time executions took place in batches; and fifty persons were sent to death daily. This _Terror_ within terror lasted about two months. But the end of this system drew near. The sittings of Prairial were the term of union for the member of the committees. From that time, silent dissensions existed among them. They had advanced together, so long as they had to contend together; but this ceased to be the case when they found themselves alone in the arena, with habits of contest and the desire for dominion. Moreover, their opinions were no longer entirely the same: the democratic party were divided by the fall of the old commune; Billaud- Varennes, Collot-d'Herbois, and the principal members of the committee of general safety, Vadier, Amar, Vouland, clung to this overthrown faction, and preferred _the worship of Reason_ to that of _the Supreme Being_. They were also jealous of the fame, and anxious at the power of Robespierre, who, in his turn, was irritated at their secret disapprobation and the obstacles they opposed to his will. At this period, the latter conceived the design of putting down the most enterprising members of the Mountain, Tallien, Bourdon, Legendre, Fréron, Rovère, etc., and his rivals of the committee. Robespierre had a prodigious force at his disposal, the common people, who considered the revolution as depending on him, supported him as the representative of its doctrines and interests; the armed force of Paris, commanded by Henriot, was at his command. He had entire sway over the Jacobins, whom he admitted and ejected at pleasure; all important posts were occupied by his creatures; he had formed the revolutionary tribunal and the new committee himself, substituting Payan, the national agent, for Chaumette, the attorney-general; and Fleuriot for Pache, in the office of mayor. But what was his design in granting the most influential places to new men, and in separating himself from the committees? Did he aspire to the dictatorship? Did he only seek to establish his democracy _of virtue_ by the ruin of the remaining _immoral_ members of the Mountain, and the _factious_ of the committee? Each party had lost its leaders: the Gironde had lost the _twenty-two_; the commune, Hébert, Chaumette, and Ronsin; the Mountain, Danton, Chabot, Lacroix, and Camille Desmoulins. But while thus proscribing the leaders, Robespierre had carefully protected the sects. He had defended the _seventy-three prisoners_ against the denunciations of the Jacobins and the hatred of the committees; he had placed himself at the head of the new commune; he had no longer reason to fear opposition to his projects, whatever they might be, except from a few of the Mountain and the members of the conventional government. It was against this double obstacle that he directed his efforts during the last moments of his career.