as the stress upon the new-born republic increased.  Nothing more awful can be imagined than the ordeal which France endured between the meeting of the Convention in September, 1792, and the completion of the Committee of Public Safety in August, 1793.  Hemmed in by enemies, the revolution glowed in Paris like molten lava, while yet it was torn by faction.  Conservative opinion was represented by the Girondists, radical opinion by the Mountain, and between the two lay the Plain, or the majority of the Convention, who embodied the social centre of gravity.  As this central mass swayed, so did supremacy incline.  The movement was as accurate as that of any scientific instrument for registering any strain.  Dumouriez’s treason in April left the northern frontier open, save for a few fortresses which still held out.  When those should fall the enemy could make a junction with the rebels in Vendee.  Still the Girondists kept control, and even elected Isnard, the most violent among them, President of the Convention.  Then they had the temerity to arrest a member of the Commune of Paris, which was the focus of radicalism.  That act precipitated the struggle for survival and with it came the change in equilibrium.  On June 2, Paris heard of the revolt of Lyons and of the massacre of the patriots.  The same day the Sections invaded the Convention and expelled from their seats in the Tuileries twenty-seven Girondists.  The Plain or Centre now leant toward the Mountain, and, on July 10, the Committee of Public Safety, which had been first organized on April 6, 1793, directly after Dumouriez’s treason, was reorganized by the addition of men like Saint-Just and Couthon, with Prieur, a lawyer of ability and energy, for President.  On July 12, 1793, the Austrians took Conde, and on July 28, Valenciennes; while on July 25, Kleber, starving, surrendered Mayence.  Nothing now but their own inertia stood between the allies and La Vendee.  Thither indeed Kellermann’s men were sent, since they had promised not to serve against the coalition for a year, but even of these a division was surrounded and cut to pieces in the disaster of Torfou.  A most ferocious civil war soon raged throughout France.  Caen, Bordeaux, Lyons, Marseilles, declared against the Convention.  The whole of the northwest was drenched in blood by the Chouans.  Sixty departments were in arms.  On August 28 the Royalists surrendered Toulon to the English, who blockaded the coasts and supplied the needs of the rebels.  About Paris the people were actually starving.  On July 27 Robespierre entered the Committee of Safety; Carnot, on August 14.  This famous committee was a council of ten forming a pure dictatorship.  On August 16, the Convention decreed the Levee en Masse.