While his supporters clamoured for war, Pitt still strove to avert a breach. In the hope of effecting a European peace he made offers of mediation at Berlin and Vienna. His offers were, however, but coldly received, since both the Emperor and the King expected to gain from the continuance of hostilities. War, therefore, became inevitable. The French ministers went to the full length of their tether when, for the sake of the neutrality of England, they left Holland untouched, and offered to defer the settlement of Belgium till the making of peace. To obtain more of the Convention was not in their power, nor was it their wish. To satisfy the demands of England by reclosing the Scheldt and re-establishing the old order of things in Belgium, appeared to the mass of deputies, irrespective of party, as a base and cowardly abandonment of principle. As the hostility of England grew more manifest, the party in the Convention for immediate annexation gained strength; and in the meantime an event happened which caused the balance of power hitherto on the side of the Gironde to fall on the side of the Mountain. ♦Trial and Death of the King.♦ Since the fall of the throne the King and his family had been kept under harsh durance in the Temple, an old keep once belonging to the Knights Templars. The Convention, after long and stormy debates, decreed that Louis should be brought to trial before itself. The charge that could justly be made against him was that, having undertaken to govern in accordance with the constitution, he had sought foreign aid to overthrow it. But for this he had been dethroned, and neither the country nor the Convention had ground or right to take vengeance on him for seeking to free himself from the untenable position which the constituent Assembly had required him to accept. The deputies, however, judged Louis’s conduct in the light of their own theories. They set the nation in the place of the King, and then accused Louis of treason because he had conspired against the will of the sovereign people. None had any doubt of his guilt; few that its due penalty was death. Many, however, even of those who thought his crime merited death, desired not to shed his blood, but merely to give satisfaction to their pride as republicans by passing sentence against him either of banishment or of captivity till the end of the war. The ministers hoped by suspending the sword over his head to put pressure on Prussia, and to induce her to abandon her alliance with Austria, in return for the liberty of the royal family. The Montagnards, or members of the Mountain, however, sought Louis’s life. They were eager to defy the sovereigns of Europe, and to give proof of their passion for equality by sending Louis to the scaffold. ‘Let us,’ said Danton, ‘cast down before Europe, as the gauntlet of battle, the head of a king.’ The Montagnards were determined, moreover, to involve the majority of their fellow deputies