Tribunal which in those days was equivalent, without further ado, to a sentence of death.
But in all this bloody litigation it must not be believed that the Terror came from above, except for the terror practiced by certain individual persons. During this period, the Terror was dictated from below. In the winter of 1793, with famine raging in Paris, the masses were ready to see traitors and speculators in every corner. The Convention was besieged day and night by delegations demanding the institution of the Terror, the sending out of armies of requisition, each of which was to be accompanied by a portable guillotine. The Girondistes should be sent to the guillotine and the ten thousand women who had signed the petitions for mercy should be murdered at once. Robespierre was at that time Chairman of the Convention and opposed this madness. He said: "The point for us is not only to murder, but to gain the victory by this means!" Owing to his authority, to the boundless confidence the masses had in him, he succeeded in saving thousands from a certain death. He declared that it was necessary to organize this paroxysm of rage, to mold it into talents and energies to be put into the service of the Revolution. Against the will of the Convention he then saved eighty-three members of the Right side of the house from certain death. The Convention was about to draw up its
