The act of king-killing and of queen-killing alienated all sympathy among the nations ruled by kings. They made a solid ring around republican France, and France herself fell more and more into the hands of the extremists, governing by terror and by executions. All suspected of sympathy with the aristocrats fell by the guillotine. Even the deposed revolutionary leaders themselves, who had not gone far enough to please the yet more murderous leaders that followed them, were arraigned and executed. {161} The Reign of Terror, as it was well named, reached its terrible height when Robespierre was chief man in the Government, and after he too, failing in an attempt to commit suicide, had suffered the death to which he had consigned a thousand others, the murders committed in the name of justice and patriotism abated. The worst of the Terror passed. [Sidenote: France and her foes] So here was this poor vexed country, thus cruelly misgoverned, ringed round by the kings under arms. What chance had she? Perhaps her best chance lay in the fact that in spite of the misery there was much enthusiasm in the people. After Robespierre's death in 1794 they might draw breath and consider what all the bloodshed had meant, and they might conclude that it meant that they had won France for themselves, for the French people, out of the hands of the king. Therefore it was their own France, their own country, that they saw now menaced by the ring of monarchs. England, Prussia, Austria Spain--in whichever direction France looked she saw an enemy. She had, as before in the days of the Habsburg menace, the advantage of her central position. Moreover, she had the advantage of one single purpose, namely, her very existence, over those enemies who, although they might coalesce against her, yet had their own rivalries and jealousies. On the northern frontier, where the troops of Austria, Prussia, England, and Holland were gathered, the fortunes of war went badly, for a time, for France. There was a moment when the Allies, if they had shown unity of purpose and determination, might have marched on Paris with but little opposition. Besides the enemy on the frontier, the republic had her own enemies, who were still in favour of the monarchy, within, especially in the district of La Vendée in the west and in some of the large towns of the south. The indecision of the Allies allowed France a {162} breathing space, and she made wonderful use of her opportunity. We have to realise two points in particular, first the singular and tragic condition of the French armies at the moment--short of pay, short of equipment, short of seasoned soldiers, and especially short of experienced leaders, because most of those who should have led them had been executed or were in prison expecting execution--and secondly the fact that the methods of making war and of fighting battles were in a transition state, from the old fashion to the new.