blood, and officially he was no more responsible than Roland, who was Minister of the Interior. It was, however, Danton whom the Girondists regarded with most suspicion and distrust, whom they were readiest to attack, and most eager to crush. To them he was vice personified. His language was cynical; he affected to despise scruples of conscience in action; crime could not revolt him; they believed him corrupt and blood-stained, while he despised them as squeamish politicians, who did not comprehend the conditions under which they worked, and who, from being over-scrupulous in their choice of tools, let power slip from their grasp. Nevertheless, he desired reconciliation with them. He recognised the value of their disinterestedness and patriotism, and was aware that the more narrow and criminal the base on which the republic rested, the less would be its power of endurance, and the less room would there be for himself to exert influence. Not easily moved by petty considerations, and devoid of envy and resentment, Danton was the one man on the left, as Vergniaud on the right, whose speeches bore no trace of personal animosity. ♦Policy of the Centre.♦ The Centre of the Convention, often styled the Plain, consisted mainly of new-comers from the departments, who abhorred Marat and his doctrines, and resented the tyranny exercised by the Commune. But in place of giving undisputed victory to the right, they followed the safer course of a temporising policy between the two parties. They feared to come into violent collision with the unscrupulous Commune, and regarded the exaggerated charges brought against Robespierre and Danton as what in fact they were--the fruits of violent party hate. It was, indeed, no wonder that men who accepted the results of the last insurrection should hesitate to send Danton to the scaffold, or should doubt whether the revolution, having gone on thus far, could sustain itself without him. The services that he had rendered in organising the national defence were undoubted. There was no man so capable, with his stentorian voice, his violent gesticulations, his abrupt vigorous language, of rousing popular enthusiasm. The Girondists were no mob orators, but Danton was at home alike in the Convention and in the streets. ♦Re-election of the Commune.♦