special commission of judges, as it was called--i.e., before a set of
men bound to find them guilty, and whose business it was to do so.
But with the Government the cold fit had succeeded to the hot one;
and the prisoners were brought before a jury at the assizes. There a
fresh blow awaited the Government; for in spite of the judge's
charge, which distinctly instructed the jury to find the prisoners
guilty, they were acquitted, and the jury added to their verdict a
presentment, in which they condemned the action of the soldiery, in
the queer phraseology of the day, as 'rash, unfortunate, and
unnecessary.' The Committee of Public Safety renewed its sittings,
and from thenceforth was a popular rallying-point in opposition to
the Parliament. The Government now gave way on all sides, and made a
show of yielding to the demands of the people, though there was a
widespread plot for effecting a coup d'etat set on foot between the
leaders of the two so-called opposing parties in the parliamentary
faction fight. The well-meaning part of the public was overjoyed,
and thought that all danger of a civil war was over. The victory of
the people was celebrated by huge meetings held in the parks and
elsewhere, in memory of the victims of the great massacre.

"But the measures passed for the relief of the workers, though to the
upper classes they seemed ruinously revolutionary, were not thorough
enough to give the people food and a decent life, and they had to be
supplemented by unwritten enactments without legality to back them.
Although the Government and Parliament had the law-courts, the army,
and 'society' at their backs, the Committee of Public Safety began to
be a force in the country, and really represented the producing
classes. It began to improve immensely in the days which followed on
the acquittal of its members. Its old members had little
administrative capacity, though with the exception of a few self-