ch took place in February and
March. Eight hundred million of _assignats_ were voted at once, to be
secured on the confiscated property of the _emigres_. France, at that
moment, had only 150,000 soldiers in the field. On February 24, a
decree called out 300,000 men, and obliged each department to raise
its due proportion. The French army that was to accomplish such
marvels in the next twenty years, begins on that day. But the first
consequence was an extraordinary diminution in the military power of
the State. The Revolution had done much for the country people, and
had imposed no burdens upon them. The compulsory levy was the first.
In most places, with sufficient pressure, the required men were
supplied. Some districts offered more than their proper number.

On March 10, the Conscription was opened in the remote parishes of
Poitou. The country had been agitated for some time. The peasants, for
there were no large towns in that region, had resented the overthrow
of the nobility, of the clergy, and of the throne. The expulsion of
their priests caused constant discontent. And now the demand that they
should go out, under officers whom they distrusted, and die for a
government which persecuted them, caused an outbreak. They refused to
draw their numbers, and on the following day they gathered in large
crowds and fell upon the two sorts of men they detested--the
government officials, and the newly established clergy. Before the
middle of March about three hundred priests and republican officials
were murdered, and the war of La Vendee began. And it was there, and
not in Paris, that liberty made its last stand in revolutionary
France.

But we must see first what passed in the Convention under the shadow
of the impending struggle. A committee had been appointed, October 11,
to draw up a constitution for the Republic. Danton was upon it, but
he was much away, with the army in Belgium. Tom Paine brought
illumination from America, and Barere, generally without ideas of his
own, made others' plausible. The majority were Girondins, and with
them Sieyes was closely associated. On February 15, Condorcet produced
the report. It was the main attempt of the Girondins to consolidate
their power, and for three months it occupied the leisure of the
Convention. The length of the debate proved the weakness of the party.
Robespierre and his friends opposed the work of their enemies, and
talked it out. They devoted their arguments to the p