For the sake of summary procedure a military commission was instituted, which sat for more than two months, and condemned to death between thirty and forty persons, and as many more to imprisonment or transportation. The proscription of the Mountain comprised in all more than sixty deputies. Of those who formed the Committees of Government during the Terror, Carnot and one other alone were spared. ‘Carnot,’ said a voice, when his arrest was proposed, ‘has organised victory.’ Many of the proscribed effected their escape. A few committed suicide. The remainder suffered transportation or death. CHAPTER XI. THE TREATY OF BASEL AND THE CONSTITUTION OF 1795. ♦Conquest of Holland.♦ While internally France was a prey to bankruptcy, hunger, crime, and civil strife, the triumph of her armies continued uninterruptedly. After the evacuation of Belgium by the English and Austrians, in June 1794, the Prussians, in danger of being outnumbered and isolated, abandoned their positions round Kaiserslautern and fell back on the Rhine. The Austrians retreated to the same river, while the English and Hanoverians, under the Duke of York’s command, withdrew behind the Lower Meuse. One French army invested the great fortress of Mainz, while Pichegru pressed on into North Brabant. Little defence was made. The Dutch army was small, and there was no probability that the country would rise. Not only had the French numerous and influential partisans amongst the political opponents of the House of Orange, but the peasantry, alienated by the brutal and plundering habits of the allied troops, were eager to be relieved of their presence. The invaders were, however, not above 46,000 strong, and short of clothes, arms, and munition for besieging purposes; so that the English army of 30,000 men, competently led, would have been sufficiently strong to hold them in check. But the Duke was a bad general, and his men were demoralised by their retreat. He remained helplessly on the north side of the Meuse, while the fortresses in North Brabant fell one after another. The French, after effecting the passage of the Meuse by a bridge of boats (October 19), found their further advance barred by the mouths of the Rhine, the broad and rapid rivers Waal and Leck. Here, however, the inclement winter came to their aid. By the middle of January 1795, the rivers were covered with ice which bore the passage of men, horses, and cannon. The English forces retreated eastwards, leaving the French masters of the country. The Stadtholder fled to England. A revolutionary movement broke out in the principal towns, and the French were everywhere accepted as friends. The fleet, which was frozen up in the harbours of the Texel, was prevailed on to capitulate by an attack of a body of French cavalry advancing on the ice. The English and Hanoverians finally abandoned the country, and the conquerors left the seven united provinces in possession of nominal independence and