arrive at the points of assembling only in so far as supplies, munitions, and all that constitutes the material part of the army exist in sufficient proportion. The points of assembling shall be determined by circumstances, and designated by the representatives of the people dispatched for the execution of the present decree, upon the advice of the generals, in co-operation with the Committee of Public Safety and the provisional Executive Council. The battalion organized in each district shall be united under a banner bearing the inscription: The French people risen against tyrants. Such battalions shall be organized according to established decrees, and their pay shall be the same as that of the battalions at the frontiers. In order to collect supplies in sufficient quantity, the farmers and managers of national property shall deposit the produce of such property, in the form of grain, in the chief town of their respective districts. Owners, farmers, and others possessing grain shall be required to pay, in kind, arrears of taxes, even the two-thirds of those of 1793, on the rolls which have served to effect the last payment. [Articles 15 and 16 name assistants to the Deputies on Mission—among them Chabot and Tallien—and give orders to the envoys of the primary assemblies concerning the mission assigned to them.] The Minister of War is responsible for taking all measures necessary for the prompt execution of the present decree; a sum of 50,000,000 from the 498,000,000 livres in assignats on the “Fund of the Three Keys,” shall be placed at his disposal by the National Treasury. The present decree shall be conveyed to the departments by special messengers. Conscription According to historian Howard G. Brown, “The French state’s panicky response to a crisis of its own making soon led to an excessive military build-up. Enemy forces consisted of no more than 81,000 Austrians and Prussians, supported by 6,000 Hessians and a few thousand émigrés. Against these paltry forces France decided to mobilize an army of 450,000 men, larger than any army Europe had ever seen.” Depending on the source, the exact number of those conscripted ranges from 750,000 to around 800,000. However, the values cannot be verified and is a reconstructed estimate because the French Government was in no position to give accurate figures at the time. One source states the official numbers in February 1793, were 361,000 men, in January 1794, were 670,900 men,