Sense of danger made the Assembly the more eager to resort to repressive measures against the emigrants and the nonjurors. The property, real and personal, of the emigrants, was put under charge of the administrative bodies, and their revenues confiscated by the state. A decree, to which, however, the King refused his sanction, authorised the directories of the departments to banish nonjurors who refused to take an oath of fidelity to the nation, the law, and the King (May 27). Sanguine expectations of victory had been rapidly dissipated. In April the Belgian frontier was crossed; but the troops on their first meeting with the enemy fled in disorder, disobeying their officers, whom they accused of treason. Servan, the minister of war, proposed the formation of an armed camp for the protection of Paris. Much opposition was however, raised to the project, and the Assembly decreed (June 6) that 20,000 volunteers, recruited in the departments, should meet at Paris to take part in the celebration of a federal festival on July 14, the third anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. The real object of those who supported the decree was to have a force at Paris with which to maintain mastery over the city should the Allies penetrate into the interior. Louis left the decree unsanctioned, as he had the one directed against nonjurors. The agitators of the sections sought to get up an armed demonstration against this exercise of the King’s constitutional prerogative. Though armed demonstrations were illegal, the municipality offered but a perfunctory and half-hearted resistance. Bailly had resigned office in the autumn of the preceding year. The new mayor, Pétion, was a Girondist. During the winter half of the municipal officers had been re-elected, and of the new members many were ultra-democrats. Lafayette, no longer at the head of the national guard, commanded on the eastern frontier. The officers of the guard were mostly constitutionalists, but there was so little confidence in the King that few were prepared to act with vigour or could answer for the conduct of their men. Louis, irritated at the pressure put on him by Roland, Clavière, and Servan to sanction the two decrees, dismissed the three ministers from office (June 13). Dumouriez, who had quarrelled with his colleagues, supported the King in taking this step, but in face of the hostility of the Assembly himself resigned office (June 15). Three days later a letter from Lafayette was read in the Assembly. The general denounced the Jacobins as the authors of all disorders, called on the Assembly to maintain the prerogatives of the crown, and intimated that his army would not submit to see the constitution violated (June 18). Possibly the dismissal of the ministers and the writing of this letter were measures concerted between the King and Lafayette. In any case the King’s motive was to excite division between the constitutionalists and the Girondists, so as to weaken the national defence.