of civism," are arrested, subject to the decision one by one
of their section.--Not only does the lightning flash, but already the
bolt descends in isolated places.[3438] On the 31st of December a man
named Louvain, formerly denounced by Marat as Lafayette's agent, is
slain in the faubourg St. Antoine, and his corpse dragged through the
streets to the Morgue. On the 25th of February, the grocer shops are
pillaged at the instigation of Marat, with the connivance or sanction of
the Commune. On the 9th of March the printing establishment of Gorsas
is sacked by two hundred men armed with sabers and pistols. The same
evening and on the next morning the riot extends to the Convention
itself; "the committee of the Jacobin club summons every section in
Paris to arms to "get rid" of the appelant deputies and the ministers;
the Cordeliers club requests the Parisian authorities "to take
sovereignty into their own hands and place the treacherous deputies
under arrest"; Fournier, Varlet, and Champion ask the Commune "to
declare itself in insurrection and close the barriers"; all the
approaches to the Convention are occupied by the "dictators of
massacre," Petion[3439] and Beurnonville being recognized on their
passing, pursued and in danger of death, while furious mobs gather on
the Feuillants terrace "to award popular judgment," "to cut off heads"
and "send them into the departments."--Luckily, it rains, which always
cools down popular effervescence. Kervelegan, a deputy from Finistere,
who escapes, finds means of sending to the other end of the faubourg St.
Marceau for a battalion of volunteers from Brest that had arrived a few
days before, and who were still loyal; these come in time and save the
Convention.--Thus does the majority live under the triple pressure of
the "Mountain," the galleries and the outside populace, and from month
to month, especially after March 10, the pressure gets to be worse and
worse.

III. Physical fear and moral cowardice.

Defection among the majority.--Effect of physical fear.
--Effect of moral cowardice.--Effect of political necessity.
--Internal weakness of the Girondins.--Accomplices in
principle of the Montagnards.

Month by month the majority relents under this pressure.--Some are
simply overcome by physical fear. On the King's trial, at the third call
of the House, as the deputies on the upper benches voted one by one
for his death, the deputy alongside Daunou "sho