On being forced to declare war he requires beforehand the signed advice of all his ministers.

He does not utter the fatal words, until he, "with tears in his eyes" and in the most dire straits, is dragged on by an Assembly qualifying all caution as treason and which has just dispatched M.Delessart to appear, under a capital charge, before the supreme court at Orleans.
It is the Assembly then which launches the disabled ship on the roaring abysses of an unknown sea, without a rudder and leaking at every seam.
It alone slips the cable which held it in port and which the foreign powers neither dared nor desired to sever.

Here, again, the Girondists are the leaders and hold the axe; since the last of October they have grasped it and struck repeated blows.[2345]--As an exception, the extreme Jacobins, Couthon, Collot d'Herbois, Danton, Robespierre, do not side with them.

Robespierre, who at first proposed to confine the Emperor "within the circle of Popilius,"[2346] fears the placing of too great a power in the King's hands, and, growing mistrustful, preaches distrust .-- But the great mass of the party, led by clamorous public opinion, impels on the timid marching in front.

Of the many things of which knowledge is necessary to conduct successfully such a complex and delicate affair, they know nothing.