An attempt, headed by the Cordeliers, to get up an insurrection against the Convention and the two committees failed. Hébert and eighteen others were arrested and condemned to death by the revolutionary court on the usual absurd charge of seeking to destroy the Convention and to restore monarchy (March 24). A few days after their execution came the turn of the Dantonists. Danton, Desmoulins, and two other deputies were arrested in the night. The Convention abandoned them on the demand of St. Just, without a voice speaking in their defence (March 31). Danton, forewarned, had made no effort to save himself. Can a man, he replied when urged to fly, take his country with him on the soles of his shoes? By the court which he had himself taken part in instituting, he and his friends were condemned as monarchists and traitors to the Republic. No documents were produced, and the accused were not suffered to make their defence. ‘On such a day,’ said Danton in prison, ‘I caused to be erected the revolutionary court. I ask pardon of God and man.’ Shortly afterwards a new batch of victims was brought to the scaffold, some Hébertists, others Dantonists. Amongst them was the widow of Hébert and the young widow of Desmoulins, with whom, as well as with her husband, Robespierre had lived on terms of close intimacy. CHAPTER IX. THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE. ♦Dictatorship of the Committee of Public Safety.♦ The members of the Committee of Public Safety now concentrated all the powers of government in their own hands. The Mountain was crushed with Danton, the Commune with Hébert. The deputies in mission, who before had joined the Hébertist party, now sought to guard their heads by pursuing whatever line of action was indicated to them by the committee. The Commune was reconstituted and placed under the direction of two men devoted to Robespierre--its mayor, Fleuriot-Lescot, and its national agent, Payan. The partisans of Hébert on civil and revolutionary committees were replaced. The system of popular election was abandoned even in form, and all reappointments were made either by the committee itself, or by the Convention at its dictation. The ministries were abolished, and the ministerial departments divided between twelve commissions, on which new men were placed. ♦Aims of Robespierre.♦