al, made an attempt to turn his army against the
Government, and failing, rode over into the Austrian lines. At the
same time, Custine was being driven out of Alsace by the Prussians,
who, on the 14th of April, laid siege to Mainz.

With the Mountain immensely strengthened by the formation of the
Committee of Public Safety, the attack on the Girondins increased in
vigour. Robespierre accused them of complicity with Dumouriez in
treasonable intentions against the Republic. The Gironde retaliated,
and, on the 13th of April, succeeded in rallying a majority of the
Convention in a second onslaught against Marat for his incendiary
articles. It was decreed that the _Ami du peuple_ should be sent to
the Revolutionary {177} Tribunal. It was the last success of the
Girondins, and it did not carry them far. The Jacobins closed their
ranks against this assault. They had the Commune and the Revolutionary
Tribunal under their control. The former body sent a petition to the
Convention demanding the exclusion of twenty-two prominent Girondins as
enemies of the Revolution; and a few days later the Tribunal absolved
Marat of all his sins.

Incidentally to the bitter struggle between the two factions, great
questions, social, political, economic, were being debated, though not
with great results. They could really all be brought back to the one
fundamental question which the course of the Revolution had brought to
the surface. What was to be the position of the poor man, and
especially of the poor man in the modern city and under industrial
surroundings,--what was to be his position in the new form of social
adjustment which the Revolution was bringing about? What about the
price of food? the monopoly of capital? the private ownership of
property? Such were some of the questions that underlay the debates of
the Convention in the spring of 1793.

The food question was dealt with in various {178} ways. The famous law
of the Maximum, passed on the 3rd of May, attempted to regulate the
prices of food by a sliding scale tariff. The measure was economically
unsound, and in many ways worked injustice; it alarmed property holders
and alienated them from the Government. On its own initiative the
Commune made great efforts, and with some success, to maintain the food
supply of the city, and to keep down the price of bread. Spending
about 12,000 francs a day, less than half a sou per head, it succeeded
for the most part in keepin