No association in France, indeed, dates farther back, and has an equal prestige. It was born before the Revolution, April 30, 1789.1230 At the assembly of the States-General in Brittany, the deputies from Quimper, Hennebon, and Pontivy saw how important it was to vote in concert, and they had scarcely reached Versailles when, in common with others, they hired a hall, and, along with Mounier, secretary of the States-General of Dauphiny, and other deputies from the provinces, at once organized a union which was destined to last. Up to the 6th of October, none but deputies were comprised in it; after that date, on removing to Paris, in the library of the Jacobins, a convent in the Rue St. HonorÉ, many well-known eminent men were admitted, such as Condorcet, and then Laharpe, ChÉnier, Champfort, David, and Talma, among the most prominent, with other authors and artists, the whole amounting to about a thousand notable personages.—No assemblage could be more imposing—two or three hundred deputies are on its benches, while its rules and by-laws seem specially designed to gather a superior body of men. Candidates for admission were proposed by ten members and afterwards voted on by ballot. To be present at one of its meetings required a card of admission. On one occasion, a member of the committee of two, appointed to verify these cards, happens to be the young Duke of Chartres. There is a committee on administration and a president. Discussions took place with parliamentary formalities, and, according to its status, the questions considered there were those under debate in the National Assembly.1231 In the lower hall, at certain hours, workmen received instruction and the constitution was explained to them. Seen from afar, no society seems worthier of directing public opinion; near by, the case is different. In the departments, however, where distance lends enchantment, and where old customs prevail implanted by centralization, it is accepted as a guide because its seat is at the capital. Its statutes, its regulations, its spirit, are all imitated; it becomes the alma mater of other associations and they its adopted daughters. It publishes, accordingly, a list of all clubs conspicuously in its journal, together with their denunciations; it insists on their demands; henceforth, every Jacobin in the remotest borough feels the support and endorsement, not only of his local, club, but again of the great club whose numerous offshoots reached the entire territory and which extends its all-powerful protection to the least of its adherents. In return for this protection, each associated club obeys the word of command given at Paris, and to and from, from the center to the extremities, a constant correspondence maintains the established harmony. A vast political machine is thus set agoing, a machine with thousands of arms, all working at once under one impulsion, and the lever which the motions is in the hands of a few master spirits in the Rue St. HonorÉ.

No machine could be more effective; never was one seen so well contrived for manufacturing artificial, violent public opinion, for making this appear to be national, spontaneous sentiment, for conferring the rights of the silent majority on a vociferous minority, for forcing the surrender of the government.

"Our tactics were very simple," says GrÉgoire1232. "It was understood that one of us should take advantage of the first favorable opportunity to propose some measure in the National Assembly that was sure to be applauded by a small minority and cried down by the majority. But that made no difference. The proposer demanded, which was granted, that the measure should be referred to a committee in which its opponents hoped to see it buried. Then the Paris Jacobins took hold of it. A circular was issued, after which an article on the measure was printed in their journal and discussed in three or four hundred clubs that were leagued together. Three weeks after this the Assembly was flooded with petitions from every quarter, demanding a decree of which the first proposal had been rejected, and which is now passed by a great majority because a discussion of it had ripened public opinion."

In other words, the Assembly must go ahead or it will be driven along, in which process the worst expedients are the best. Those who conduct the club, whether fanatics or intriguers, are fully agreed on this point.

At the head of the former class is Duport, once a counselor in the parliament, who, after 1788, knew how to turn riots to account. The first revolutionary consultations were held in his house. He wants to plough deep, and his devices for burying the ploughshare are such that SieyÈs, a radical, if there ever was one, dubbed it a "cavernous policy."1233 Duport, on the 28th of July, 1789, is the organizer of the Committee on Searches, by which all favorably disposed informers or spies form in his hands a supervisory police, which fast becomes a police of provocation. He finds recruits in the lower hall of the Jacobin club, where workmen come to be catechized every morning, while his two lieutenants, the brothers Laurette, have only to draw on the same source for a zealous staff in a choice selection of their instruments. "Ten reliable men receive orders there daily;1234 each of these in turn gives his orders to ten more, belonging to different battalions in Paris. In this way each battalion and section receives the same insurrectionary orders, the same denunciations of the constituted authorities, of the mayor of Paris, of the president of the department, and of the commander of the National Guard," everything taking place secretly. These are dark deeds: the leaders themselves call it 'the Sabbath' and, along with fanatics they enlist ruffians. "They spread the rumor that, on a certain day, there will be a great commotion with assassinations and pillage, preceded by the payment of money distributed from hand to hand by subaltern officers among those that can be relied on, and that these bands are to assemble, as advertised, within a radius of thirty or forty leagues."1235—One day, to provoke a riot, "half a dozen men, who have arranged the thing, form a small group, in which one of them holds forth vehemently; at once a crowd of about sixty others gathers around them. Then the six men move on from place to place, to form fresh groups making their apparent excitement pass for popular irritation.—Another day, "about forty fanatics, with powerful lungs, and four or five hundred paid men," scatter themselves around the Tuileries, "yelling furiously," and, gathering under the windows of the Assembly, "move resolutions to assassinate."—"Our ushers," says a deputy to the Assembly, "whom you ordered to suppress this tumult, heard reiterated threats of bringing you the heads of those the crowd wished to proscribe. That very evening, in the Palais-Royal, "I heard a subordinate leader of this factious band boast of having charged your ushers to take this answer back, adding that there was time enough yet for all good citizens to follow his advice."—The watchword of these agitators is, are you true and the response is, a true man. Their pay is twelve francs a day, and when in action they make engagements on the spot at that rate. "From several depositions taken by officers of the National Guard and at the mayoralty," it is ascertained that twelve francs a day were tendered to "honest people to join in with those you may have heard shouting, and some of them actually had the twelve francs put into their hands."—The money comes from the coffers of the Duke of Orleans, and they are freely drawn upon; at his death, with a property amounting to 114,000,000 francs, his debts amount to 74,000,000.1236 Being one of the faction, he contributes to its expenses, and, being the richest man in the kingdom, he contributes proportionately to his wealth. Not because he is a party leader, for he is too effeminate, too nervous; but "his petty council,"1237 and especially one of his private secretaries, Laclos, cherishes great designs for him, their object being to make him lieutenant-general of the kingdom, afterwards regent, and even king,1238 so that they may rule in his name and "share the profits."——In the mean time they turn his whims to the best account, particularly Laclos, who is a kind of subordinate Macchiavelli, capable of anything, profound, depraved, and long indulging his fondness for monstrous combinations; nobody ever so coolly delighted in indescribable compounds of human wickedness and debauchery. In politics, as in romance, his department is "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." Formerly he maneuvered as an amateur with prostitutes and ruffians in the fashionable world; now he maneuvers in earnest with the prostitutes and ruffians of the sidewalks. On the 5th of October 1789, he is seen, "dressed in a brown coat,"1239 foremost among the women starting for Versailles, while his hand1240 is visible "in the RÉveillon affair, also in the burning of barriers and ChÂteaux," and in the widespread panic which aroused all France against imaginary bandits. His operations, says Malouet, "were all paid for by the Duke of Orleans"; he entered into them "for his own account, and the Jacobins for theirs."—At this time their alliance is plain to everybody. On the 21st of November, 1790, Laclos becomes secretary of the club, chief of the department of correspondence, titular editor of its journal, and the invisible, active, and permanent director of all its enterprises. Whether actual demagogues or prompted by ambition, whether paid agents or earnest revolutionaries, each group works on its own account, both in concert, both in the same direction, and both devoted to the same undertaking, which is the conquest of power by every possible means.