Dumouriez’ treachery increased the violence of the party struggle at Paris, where Girondists and Montagnards strove to cast on each other the odium of being the traitor’s accomplices. It was against Danton that the Girondists directed their most vehement attacks. They made charges in support of which they had no evidence to bring, and which have never been proved. According to them Danton had been bribed by Louis; he had misapplied public money; in Belgium he had plundered state property. They even accused him of plotting with Dumouriez the restoration of the throne, because he had praised that general’s talent in the Convention. Danton turned fiercely on his assailants, threatening irreconcilable war. Counter accusations and menaces were hurled from right to left, from left to right. Robespierre came forward to represent the entire public life of the Girondists as forming a long series of crimes directed against liberty and the republic, and concluded with a formal proposal to send Brissot, Vergniaud, Gensonné and Guadet, along with Marie Antoinette and the Duke of Orleans, as Dumouriez’ accomplices, before the new criminal court (April 9). ♦Committee of Public Safety.♦ Though the ascendancy which the Girondists once held was lost, their eloquence was still a power, and the first deputy who was sent before the court was a Montagnard, Marat, on the charge of inciting the people to insurrection (April 14). But this isolated party victory served only to irritate without weakening their adversaries. The court, composed of judges and jurymen, both elected in Paris, acquitted the accused, and his partisans restored him in triumph to his seat. The direction of the government, possessed by the Girondists at the opening of the convention, passed into other hands. The ministry had been broken up. Roland had resigned, complaining that he had not the support of the Convention. The Mountain and the Gironde struggled to obtain appointments for their own candidates, and the ministers, fearful of having their acts misinterpreted, refused to take a step on their own responsibility. Hence the wheels of government, when expedition and secrecy were most requisite, threatened to come to a standstill. Under the influence of the alarm excited by the treason of Dumouriez, the Convention established a Committee of Public Safety, composed of nine members, but subsequently enlarged to twelve, who were subject to re-election every month, and were empowered to deliberate in secret, to superintend the action of the ministry, and to take provisionally whatever measures were requisite for the national defence (April 6). The deputies entrusted with these large powers were Danton and eight others belonging to the Mountain and the Plain. From this time the ministers sank into the position of chief clerks of their respective departments, while the Committee of Public Safety stood at the head of the executive government. ♦Committee of General Security.♦