<P> The Committee was also responsible for interpreting and applying the decrees of the National Convention, and thus for implementing some of the most stringent policies of the Terror--for instance, the levée en masse, passed on 23 August 1793, the Law of Suspects, passed on 17 September 1793, and the Law of the Maximum, passed on 29 September 1793 . The broad and centralized powers of the Committee were codified by the Law of 14 Frimaire (also known as the Law of Revolutionary Government) on 4 December 1793 . </P> <P> On 5 December 1793, journalist Camille Desmoulins began publishing Le Vieux Cordelier, a newspaper initially aimed--with the approval of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety--at the ultra-revolutionary Hébertist faction, whose extremist demands, anti-religious fervor, and propensity for sudden insurrections were problematic for the Committee . However, Desmoulins quickly turned his pen against the Committee of Public Safety and the Committee of General Security, comparing their reign to that of the Roman tyrants chronicled by Tacitus, and expounding the "indulgent" views of the Dantonist faction . </P> <P> Consequently, though the Hébertists were arrested and executed in March 1794, the Committee of Public Safety and the Committee of General Security ensured that Desmoulins and Danton were also arrested . Hérault de Séchelles--a friend and ally of Danton--was expelled from the Committee of Public Safety, arrested, and tried alongside them . On 5 April 1794, the Dantonists went to the guillotine . </P> <P> The elimination of the Hébertists and the Dantonists made evident the strength of the committees, as had their ability to control and silence opposition . The creation, in March 1794, of a "General Police Bureau"--reporting nominally to the Committee of Public Safety, but more often directly to Robespierre and his closest ally, Louis Antoine de Saint - Just--served to increase the power of the Committee of Public Safety, and of Robespierre himself . </P>

Who made up the committee of public safety