“Why,” asked Brissot “should we divide ourselves into dangerous denominations? we are all of one opinion.  What do they want who are here hostile to the republicans?  They detest the turbulent assemblies of Athens and Rome; they fear the division of France into isolated federations.  They only want the representative constitution, and they are right.  What do they want who boast of the name of republicans?  They fear, they abhor equally, the turbulent assemblies of Rome and Athens, and equally dread a federated republic.  They desire a representative constitution—­nothing more, nothing less—­and thus, we all concur.  The head of the executive power has betrayed his oath,—­must we bring him to judgment?  This is the only point on which we differ.  Inviolability will else be impunity to all crimes, an encouragement for all treason—­common sense demands that the punishment should follow the offence.  I do not see an inviolable man governing the people, but a God and 25,000,000 of brutes! If the king had on his return entered France at the head of foreign forces, if he had ravaged our fairest provinces, and if, checked in his career, you had made him prisoner, what would you then have done with him?  Would you have allowed his inviolability to have saved him?  Foreign powers are held up before you as a threat; do not fear them:  Europe in arms is impotent against a people who will be free.”

In the National Assembly Muguer, in the name of the joint committees, brought up the report on the king’s flight; he maintained the inviolability of Louis XVI. and the accusation of his accomplices.  ROBESPIERRE opposed the inviolability; he avoided all show of anger in his language; and was careful to veil all his conclusions beneath the cover of mildness and humanity.  “I will not pause to inquire,” he said, “whether the king fled voluntarily, of his own act, or if from the extremity of the frontiers a citizen carried him off by his advice:  I will not inquire either, whether this flight is a conspiracy against the public liberty.  I shall speak of the king as of an imaginary sovereign, and of inviolability as a principle.”  After having combated the principle of inviolability by the same arguments which Girey Dupre and Brissot had applied, Robespierre thus concluded.  “The measures you propose cannot but dishonour you; if you adopt them, I demand to declare myself the advocate of all the accused.  I will be the defender of the three gardes du corps, the dauphine’s governess, even of Monsieur de Bouille.  By the principles of your committees, there is no crime; yet, invariably, where there is no crime there can be no accomplices.  Gentlemen, if it be a weakness to spare a culprit, to visit the weaker culprit when the greater one escapes, is cowardice—­injustice.  You must pass sentence on all the guilty alike, or pronounce a general pardon.”

Gregoire supported the accusation party.  Salles defended the recommendation of the committee.