derate? This Convention must be purged.

"Set up a swift Tribunal for Traitors, a Maximum for Grains:" thus
speak with energy the Patriot Volunteers, as they defile through the
Convention Hall, just on the wing to the Frontiers;--perorating in
that heroical Cambyses' vein of theirs: beshouted by the Galleries and
Mountain; bemurmured by the Right-side and Plain. Nor are prodigies
wanting: lo, while a Captain of the Section Poissonniere perorates with
vehemence about Dumouriez, Maximum, and Crypto-Royalist Traitors, and
his troop beat chorus with him, waving their Banner overhead, the eye of
a Deputy discerns, in this same Banner, that the cravates or streamers
of it have Royal fleurs-de-lys! The Section-Captain shrieks; his troop
shriek, horror-struck, and 'trample the Banner under foot:' seemingly
the work of some Crypto-Royalist Plotter? Most probable; (Choix des
Rapports, xi. 277.)--or perhaps at bottom, only the old Banner of the
Section, manufactured prior to the Tenth of August, when such streamers
were according to rule! (Hist. Parl. xxv. 72.)

History, looking over the Girondin Memoirs, anxious to disentangle the
truth of them from the hysterics, finds these days of March, especially
this Sunday the Tenth of March, play a great part. Plots, plots: a plot
for murdering the Girondin Deputies; Anarchists and Secret-Royalists
plotting, in hellish concert, for that end! The far greater part of
which is hysterics. What we do find indisputable is that Louvet and
certain Girondins were apprehensive they might be murdered on Saturday,
and did not go to the evening sitting: but held council with one
another, each inciting his fellow to do something resolute, and end
these Anarchists: to which, however, Petion, opening the window, and
finding the night very wet, answered only, "Ils ne feront rien," and
'composedly resumed his violin,' says Louvet: (Louvet, Memoires, p. 72.)
thereby, with soft Lydian tweedledeeing, to wrap himself against eating
cares. Also that Louvet felt especially liable to being killed; that
several Girondins went abroad to seek beds: liable to being killed;
but were not. Further that, in very truth, Journalist Deputy Gorsas,
poisoner of the Departments, he and his Printer had their houses broken
into (by a tumult of Patriots, among whom red-capped Varlet, American
Fournier loom forth, in the darkness of the rain and riot); had their
wives put in fear; their presses, types and circumjacent equipments