These disasters reacted on the situation in the capital. The hold that the Girondists possessed on the Convention grew feebler every day. They had failed in all they had attempted. Their foreign policy had broken down, and the reproach fell heavily on the ministry of not having suffered Dumouriez to invade Holland when the proposition was first made. They had failed to save the King’s life, so that the whole constitutional party outside the Assembly was as fully estranged from them as from the Mountain. In spite of the fresh municipal elections in Paris, which they had decreed in hope of changing the character of the Commune (p. 128), it was the same criminal band that still exercised authority. To provide for the war expenditure resort was had to new issues of assignats. Prices incessantly rose, and discontent spread rapidly amongst the working population, taught by agitators to regard the right side of the Convention as the cause alike of the prevailing destitution and of military disaster. The deputies of the centre, in alarm for their own safety, and without confidence in the Girondists as leaders, followed a vacillating course, accordingly as they were actuated by their principles, their fears, or their regard for the necessities of the situation. When Miranda’s retreat was known an attempt was made to get up an insurrection directed against the Girondists. It failed, from want of union and support. But the bands at the service of the Jacobins and the Commune gathered round the Convention, filling the galleries and menacing deputies. The Mountain made use of the occasion to obtain the adoption of a law for the creation of an extraordinary criminal court, to judge without appeal conspirators against the state (March 9). The Girondists opposed the measure, but in vain; and thus were Robespierre and Marat provided with a ready weapon with which to strike at the heads of those who had so long menaced their own. ♦Treason of Dumouriez.♦