of Dumouriez, nor was this tribunal perfected before Danton gave way to
the Committee of Public Safety, when French revolutionary society became
incandescent, through universal attack from without and through
insurrection within.

Danton, though an orator and a lawyer, possibly even a statesman, was
not competent to cope with an emergency which exacted from a minister
administrative genius like that of Carnot. Danton's story may be briefly
told. At once after Valmy the Convention established the Republic; on
January 21, 1793, Louis was beheaded; and between these two events a new
movement had occurred. The Revolutionists felt intuitively that, if they
remained shut up at home, with enemies without and traitors within, they
would be lost. If the new ideas were sound they would spread, and Valmy
had proved to them that those ideas had already weakened the invading
armies. Danton declared for the natural boundaries of France,--the
Rhine, the Alps, and the ocean,--and the Convention, on January 29,
1793, threw Dumouriez on Holland. This provoked war with England, and
then north, south, and east the coalition was complete. It represented
at least half a million fighting men. Danton, having no military
knowledge or experience, fixed his hopes on Dumouriez. To Danton,
Dumouriez was the only man who could save France. On November 6, 1792,
Dumouriez defeated the Austrians at Jemmapes; on the 14th, he entered
Brussels, and Belgium lay helpless before him. On the question of the
treatment of Belgium, the schism began which ended with his desertion.
Dumouriez was a conservative who plotted for a royal restoration under,
perhaps, Louis Philippe. The Convention, on the contrary, determined to
revolutionize Belgium, as France had been revolutionized, and to this
end Cambon proposed to confiscate and sell church land and emit
assignats. Danton visited Dumouriez to attempt to pacify him, but found
him deeply exasperated. Had Danton been more sagacious he would have
been suspicious. Unfortunately for him he left Dumouriez in command. In
February, Dumouriez invaded Holland and was repulsed, and he then fell
back to Brussels, not strong enough to march to Paris without support,
it is true, but probably expecting to be strong enough as soon as the
Vendean insurrection came to a head. Doubtless he had relations with the
rebels. At all events, on March 10, the insurrection began with the
massacre of Machecoul, and on March 12, 1793, Dumouriez