At the same time tidings of new military disasters arrived, one after the other. Dumouriez ventured a general action at Neerwinden, and lost it. Belgium was evacuated, Dumouriez had recourse to the guilty project of defection. He had conference with Colonel Mack, and agreed with the Austrians to march upon Paris for the purpose of re-establishing the monarchy, leaving them on the frontiers, and having first given up to them several fortresses as a guarantee. He proceeded to the execution of his impractical design. He was really in a very difficult position; the soldiers were very much attached to him, but they were also devoted to their country. He had the commissioners of the Convention arrested by German hussars, and delivered them as hostages to the Austrians. After this act of revolt he could no longer hesitate. He tried to induce the army to join him, but was forsaken by it, and then went over to the Austrian camp with the Duc de Chartres, Colonel Thouvenot, and two squadrons of Berchiny. The rest of his army went to the camp at Famars, and joined the troops commanded by Dampierre. The Convention on learning the arrest of the commissions, established itself as a permanent assembly, declared Dumouriez a traitor, authorised any citizen to attack him, set a price on his head, and decreed the famous Committee of Public Safety. _V.---The Committee of Public Safety_ Thus was created that terrible power which first destroyed the enemies of the Mountain, then the Mountain and the commune, and, lastly, itself. The committee did everything in the name of the Convention, which it used as an instrument. It nominated and dismissed generals, ministers, representatives, commissioners, judges, and juries. It assailed factions; it took the initiative in all measures. Through its commissioners, armies and generals were dependent upon it, and it ruled the departments with sovereign sway. By means of the law touching suspected persons, it disposed of men's liberties; by the revolutionary tribunal, of men's lives; by levies and the maximum, of property; by decrees of accusation in the terrified Convention, of its own members. Lastly, its dictatorship was supported by the multitude who debated in the clubs, ruled in the revolutionary committees; whose services it paid by a daily stipend, and whom it fed with the maximum. The multitude adhered to a system which inflamed its passions, exaggerated its importance, assigned it the first place, and appeared to do everything for it. Two enemies, however, threatened the power of this dictatorial government. Danton and his faction, whose established popularity gave him great weight, and who, as victory over the allies seemed more certain, demanded a cessation of the "Terror," or martial law of the committee; and the commune, or extreme republican municipal government of Paris.