The  republic  was  threatened  on  all  sides  by  the  most  war-
like troops  of  Europe.  It  would  soon  have  to  face  forty-five
thousand  Austro- Sardinians  in  the  Alps ;  fifty  thousand
Spaniards  on  the  Pyrenees;  seventy  thousand  Austrians  or  Im-
perialists, reinforced  by  thirty- eight  thousand  Anglo-Batavians,
on  the  Lower  Rhine  and  in  Belgium;  thirty- three  thousand
four  hundred  Austrians  between  the  Meuse  and  the  Moselle;
a  hundred  and  twelve  thousand  six  hundred  Prussians,  Aus-
trians and  Imperialists  on  the  Middle  and  Upper  Rhine.  In
order  to  confront  so  many  enemies,  the  convention  decreed  a
levy  of  three  hundred  thousand  men.  This  measure  of
external  defence  was  accompanied  by  a  party  measure  for
the  interior.  At  the  moment  the  new  battalions,  about  to
quit  Paris,  presented  themselves  to  the  assembly,  the
Mountain  demanded  the  establishment  of  an  extraordinary
tribunal  to  maintain  the  revolution  at  home,  which  the  bat»


THE      FRKNOH   REVOLUTION.  197

talions  were  going  to  defend  on  the  frontiers.  This  tribunal,
composed  of  nine  members,  was  to  try  without  jury  or  ap-
peal. The  Girondists  arose  with  all  their  power  against  so
arbitrary  and  formidable  an  institution,  but  it  was  in  vain;  for
they  seemed  to  be  favouring  the  enemies  of  the  republic  by
rejecting  a  tribunal  intended  to  punish  them.  All  they  ob-
tained was  the  introduction  of  juries  into  it,  the  removal  of
some  violent  men,  and  the  power  of  annulling  its  acts,  as  long
as  they  maintained  any  influence.
The  principal  efforts  of  the  coalition  were  directed  against
the  vast  frontier  extending  from  the  north  sea  to  Huninguen.
