Paris then, as now, although in a lesser degree, since its centralization had lasted only four or five years at the time--Paris was then the brain of France. What Paris accepted, France sanctioned. This was clearly demonstrated when the Girondins unsuccessfully attempted to unite the provinces. Now Paris was divided into forty-eight Sections. These Sections were not royalist; on the contrary, they protested that they were attached to the Republic. Except for two or three, whose reactionary opinions were well-known, none would have fallen into the error of sacrificing so many citizens, among them some truly great men, for a principle, and then have rejected that principle before it had borne fruit. But Paris, terrified at finding herself knee-deep in blood, stopped short three-quarters of the way and roused herself to fight the Terrorists, who wanted the executions to continue, while the city was desirous that they should cease. So that, without deserting the flag of the Revolution, she showed herself unwilling to follow that flag further than the Girondins and the Cordeliers had carried it. This flag would then become her own, since it sheltered the remains of the two parties we have named. It would henceforth be that of the moderate Republic, and would carry the device: "Death to the Jacobins!" But the precautions of the Convention were designed to save those few Jacobins who had escaped the 9th Thermidor, and in whose hands alone the Convention wished to place the holy Ark of the Republic. Without suspecting it, however, the Sections, fearful of a return of the Reign of Terror, served the royalists better than their most devoted friends could have done. Never had so many strangers been seen in Paris. The hotels were crowded from cellar to garret. The Faubourg Saint-Germaine, which had been deserted for six months, was crowded with returned emigrés, Chouans, refractory priests, men who had been employed on the military trains, and divorced women. There was a rumor that Tallien and Hoche had gone over to the royalists. The truth was that the latter had converted Rovère and Saladin, and that there was no occasion for them to hold out inducements to Lanjuinais, Boissy d'Anglas, Henry de Larivière and Lesage, who had always been royalists, even when they wore the Republican masks. It was reported that the royalists had made Pichegru extraordinary offers, and that, although he had refused them at first, he had at last yielded to them, and that, for a million francs in ready money, two hundred thousand francs from the funds, the Château of Chambord, the duchy of Artois, and the government of Alsace, the transaction had been arranged.