The opening of Parliament on 13th December 1792 took place amidst circumstances that were depressing to friends of peace. Affairs were gyrating in a vicious circle. Diplomacy, as we have seen, had come to a deadlock; but more threatening even than the dispute between Pitt and Lebrun were the rising passions of the two peoples. The republican ferment at Paris had worked all the more strongly since 20th November, the date of the discovery of the iron chest containing proofs of the anti-national intrigues of the King and Queen. Hence the decree (3rd December) for the trial of Louis XVI at the bar of the Convention with its inevitable sequel, the heating of royalist passion in all neighbouring lands. It is one of the many mishaps of the revolutionary movement that its enthusiasm finally aroused an opposite enthusiasm, its fury begot fury, and thus set in a series of cyclones which scarcely spent their force even at Waterloo. An essentially philosophic movement at the outset, the French Revolution was now guided by demagogues and adventurers, whose only hope of keeping erect lay in constant and convulsive efforts forwards. Worst symptom of all, its armies already bade fair to play the part of the Praetorians of the later Roman Empire. Nothing is more singular at this time than the fear of the troops. Amidst the distress prevalent at Paris, much apprehension was felt at the return of the armies of Custine and Dumouriez. In part, of course, this uneasiness arose from a suspicion that these men, especially the latter, might take up the _role_ of Monk and save Louis. But a member of the French Convention assured Miles that the disbanding of those tumultuary forces would bring on a social crisis. War, [he wrote on 9th December] is to a certain extent inevitable, not so much for the purpose of opening the Scheldt, for that is rather a pretext in order to animate the people and preserve their enthusiasm, but to get rid of 300,000 armed vagabonds, who can never be allowed to return without evident risk to the Convention and Executive Council.... It is her opinion [Madame Roland's] and mine that we cannot make peace with the Emperor without danger to the Republic, and that it would be hazardous to recall an army, flushed with victory and impatient to gather fresh laurels, into the heart of a country whose commerce and manufactures have lost their activity, and which would leave the disbanded multitude without resources or employment.[138] These words are noteworthy; for they show that prudential or party motives led some at least of the Girondins, formerly friends of England, to desire an extension of the war.