The Constitution of 1791 had failed because it carried the division of powers and the reaction against monarchical centralisation so far as to paralyse the executive. Until the day when a new system should be organised, a series of revolutionary measures were adopted, and by these the Convention governed to the end. Immediately after the death of Lewis XVI. they began to send out representatives with arbitrary powers to the departments. The revolutionary tribunal was appointed in March to judge political cases without appeal; and the Secret Committee of Public Safety in April, on the defeat and defection of Dumouriez. All this time, the Girondins had the majority. The issue of the king's trial had been disastrous to them, because it proved their weakness, not in numbers, but in character and counsel. Roland at once resigned, confessing the defeat. But they stood four months before their fall. During that memorable struggle, the question was whether France should be ruled by violence and blood, or by men who knew the passion for freedom. The Girondins at once raised the real issue by demanding inquiry into the massacres of September. It was a valid but a perilous weapon. There could be no doubt as to what those who had committed a thousand murders to obtain power would be capable of doing in their own defence. The Girondins calculated badly. By leaving crime unpunished they could have divided their adversaries. Almost to the last moment Danton wished to avoid the conflict. Again and again they rejected his offers. Open war, said Vergniaud, is better than a hollow truce. Their rejection of the hand that bore the crimson stain is the cause of their ruin, but also of their renown. They were always impolitic, disunited, and undecided; but they rose, at times, to the level of honest men. Their second line of attack was not better chosen. Party politics were new, and the science of understanding the other side was not developed; and the Girondins were persuaded that the Montagnards were at heart royalists, aiming at the erection of an Orleanist throne. Marat received money from the Palais Royal; and Sieyes to the last regarded him as a masked agent of monarchy. Danton himself assured the young Duc de Chartres that the Republic would not last, and advised him to hold himself in readiness to reap, some day, what the Jacobins were sowing.