On 3 September, the second day of the massacres, the Committee of Surveillance of the Commune published a circular that called on provincial Patriots to defend Paris and asked that, before leaving their homes, they eliminate counter-revolutionaries. Authored by Marat as head of the Committee, signed by him and circulated to the provinces, it hailed the rounding up and killing of political enemies going on in Paris as a model for the provinces. While the estimable Lefebvre maintains collective mentality is sufficient explanation for the mass killing, Stanley Loomis says this "is their excuse or justification": Marat was at the center of the violence: he agitated for it in print before and during, voted for it when empowered as self-appointed head of the Committee on Surveillance, thought through how to enact the massacres, then defended the extraordinary, extra-legal killings in the National Convention, to others' horror.