After the allies had been thus driven from Belgium, all danger of invasion was over, and men would be more ready to call in question the authority of a Government which it might soon be possible to resist without rendering France weak in the presence of a dangerous enemy. Robespierre had ever been keenly alive to the possibility of the Government being overthrown by some victorious general, and he followed the successes of the armies with an excessively jealous eye. At this time, although he occupied the first place in the Committee of Public Safety, he was not content with his position, but was seeking to draw the reins of government more closely into his own grasp, and to make himself independent of his colleagues. They had no means of combating him. The Commune and the Jacobins, the two main wheels by which the revolutionary Government was kept in action, were now under his control. He established a special police office, which encroached on the functions of the Committee of General Security. He sent special agents into the departments as spies on the conduct of the deputies in mission, who were to make private reports to himself. Above all, he sought to obtain a basis to his authority wanting to his rivals, by asserting the necessity of laying the foundations of morality and duty in spiritual beliefs. In thus acting, if Robespierre was instigated by personal ambition, he was instigated also by the desire to put into practice, at whatever risk to himself, the principles which he had learned of Rousseau. ♦The worship of the Supreme Being.♦ Under his inspiration the Convention decreed that the French people recognised a Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul. A new worship was inaugurated by a festival in honour of the Supreme Being, held in the Champ de Mars. The Convention took part in the ceremonies. Robespierre, at the time president, walked first, dressed in a sky-blue coat, and holding in his hand a large bunch of flowers, fruits, and corn. Arrived at the Champ de Mars he set fire to figures representing atheism and egoism. As they burnt, the figure of wisdom rose out of the flames. Hymns were sung, and the ground strewn with flowers by children (June 8). ♦Revolutionary Court reorganised.♦