The next day was the 9th of Thermidor. St. Just made a bold attempt to control the situation. Early in the morning he met his colleagues of the Committee of Public Safety and, making advances to them, promised to lay before them a scheme that would reconcile all the divergent interests of the Convention. While the Committee awaited his arrival he proceeded to the body of the Convention, obtained the tribune, and began a speech. Realizing how far the temper of the assembly was against him, he boldly opened by denouncing the personal ambitions of Robespierre, and by advocating moderate courses--but he had not gone far when the members of the Committee, discovering the truth, returned to the Convention, and set to work with the help of the revolted members, to disconcert him. St. Just had perhaps only one weakness, but it was fatal to him on the 9th of Thermidor, for it was a weakness of voice. He was silenced by interruptions that constantly grew stormier. Billaud followed him {220} and made an impassioned attack on the Jacobins. Robespierre attempted to reply. But Collot d'Herbois was presiding, and Collot declined to give Robespierre the tribune. The din arose; shouts of "Down with the tyrant, down with the dictator," were raised. Tallien demanded a decree of accusation. Members pressed around the Jacobin leader, who at this last extremity tried to force his way to the tribune. But the way was barred; he could only clutch the railings, and, asking for death, looking in despair at the public galleries that had so long shouted their Jacobin approval to him, he kept crying: "La mort! la mort!" He had fallen. The whole Convention was roaring when Collot from the presidential chair announced the vote whereby Robespierre, St. Just, Couthon, Hanriot, and several others, were ordered under arrest. Hanriot at this crisis again displayed his qualities of action. While the members of the Convention were wasting time in talk and self-congratulation, he was getting his forces together. He succeeded in freeing the accused deputies from their place of temporary arrest, and by the evening, all were gathered together at the Hotel de Ville. The Jacobins declared for Robespierre. The party made determined {221} efforts through the evening to raise insurrection. But only small bodies of national guards could be kept together at the Hotel de Ville, and these began to dwindle away rapidly late in the evening when heavy rain fell.