Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 7.djvu/186



Committee of Public Safety charged me to apprise you yesterday of the condition of the Republic at the time of its establishment and of its actual condition, as well as to give you a summary of the operations it has conducted. I have just finished this task.

I will first remind you that, at the period of the establishment of the committee, the Republic was betrayed. Dumouriez had disorganized the army of the North and the Ardennes, and there remained but about two thousand five hundred men in the garrisons of that whole frontier; the forts lacked provisions and munitions to sustain a siege, and this perfidious general, after having delivered to the Austrians the