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.