The Assembly began harmoniously, but within a few days the Girondins launched a bitter attack on their Montagnard opponents. Conflict continued without interruption until the expulsion of the Girondin leaders from the Convention on 2 June 1793. The Girondins had relied on votes from the majority of the deputies, many of whom were alarmed as well as scandalized by the September massacres, but their insistence on monopolizing all positions of authority during the Convention, and their attacks on the Montagnard leaders, soon irritated them, causing them to regard the party as a faction. One by one, able deputies such as Couthon, Cambon, Carnot, Lindet and Barère began to gravitate towards the Montagnards, while the majority—the , as it was called—held itself aloof from both sides.