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JACOBINS, THE
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See also:JACOBINS, THE , the most famous of the See also:political clubs of the See also:French Revolution. It had its origin in the See also:Club See also:Breton, which was established at See also:Versailles shortly after the opening of the States See also:General in 1789. It was at first composed exclusively of deputies from See also:Brittany, but was soon joined by others from various parts of See also:France, and counted among its See also:early members See also:Mirabeau, Sieyes, See also:Barnave, Potion, the See also:Abbe See also:Gregoire, See also: At the same time the rules of See also:order and forms of See also:election were settled, and the constitution of the club determined. There were to be a president, elected every See also:month, four secretaries, a treasurer, and committees elected to super-intend elections and presentations, the See also:correspondence, and the See also:administration of the club. Any member who by word or See also:action showed that his principles were contrary to the constitution and the rights of man was to be expelled, a See also:rule which later on facilitated the " See also:purification " of the society by the See also:expulsion of its more moderate elements. By the 7th See also:article the club decided to admit as associates similar societies in other parts of France and to maintain with them a See also:regular correspondence.
This last See also:provision was of far-reaching importance. By the loth of See also:August 1790 there were already one See also:hundred and fifty-two affiliated clubs; the attempts at See also:counter-revolution led to a See also:great increase of their number in the See also:spring of 1791, and by the See also:close of the See also:year the Jacobins had a network of branches all over France. It was this widespread yet highly centralized organization that gave to the Jacobin Club its formidable See also:power.
At the outset the Jacobin Club was not distinguished by extreme political views. The somewhat high subscription confined its membership to men of substance, and to the last it was—so far as the central society in Paris was concerned—composed almost entirely of professional men, such as Robespierre, or well-to-do See also:bourgeois, like See also:Santerre. From the first, however, other elements were See also:present. Besides See also: But the See also:character and extent of the club's See also:influence cannot be gauged by its official acts alone, and See also:long before it emerged as the See also:principal See also:focus of the Terror, its character had been profoundly changed by the See also:secession of its more moderate elements, some to found the Club of 1789, some in 1791—among them Barnave, the Lameths, See also:Duport and See also:Bailly " When I first sat among you I heard so many beautiful speeches that I might have believed myself in See also:heaven, had there not been so many lawyers present." Instead of See also:practical questions " we have become involved in a galimatias of Rights of Man of which I under-stand mighty little but that it is See also:worth nothing." See also:Motion du Pere Gerard in the Jacobins of the 27th of See also:April 1790 (See also:Aulard i. 63). to found the club of the Feuillants scoffed at by their former See also:friends as the club monarchique. The See also:main cause of this See also:change was the admission of the public to the sittings of the club, which began on the 14th of October 1791. The result is described in a See also:report of the See also:Department of Paris on " the See also:state of the See also:empire," presented on the 12th of June 1792, at the See also:request of See also:Roland, the See also:minister of the interior, and signed by the duc de La Rochefoucauld, which ascribes to the Jacobins all the woes of the state. " There exists," it runs, " in the midst of the See also:capital committed to our care a public See also:pulpit of See also:defamation, where citizens of every See also:age and both sexes are admitted See also:day by day to listen to a criminal propaganda. . . . This establishment, situated in the former house of the Jacobins, calls itself a society; but it has less the aspect of a private society than that of a public spectacle: vast tribunes are thrown open for the See also:audience; all the sittings are advertised to the public for fixed days and See also:hours, and the speeches made are printed in a See also:special See also:journal and lavishly distributed." l In this society—the report continues—See also:murder is counselled or applauded, all authorities are calumniated and all the See also:organs of the See also:law bespattered with abuse; as to its power, it exercises " by its influence, its affiliations and its correspondence a veritable ministerial authority, without title and without responsibility, while leaving to the legal and responsible authorities only the See also:shadow of power " (See also:Schmidt, Tableaux i. 78, &c.). The See also:constituency to which the club was henceforth responsible, and from which it derived its power, was in fact the peuple bete of Paris; the sans-culottes—decayed lackeys, See also:cosmopolitan ne'er-do-weels, and starving workpeople—who crowded its tribunes. To this audience, and not primarily to the members of the club, the speeches of the orators were addressed and by its See also:verdict they were judged. In the earlier stages of the Revolution the See also:mob had been satisfied with the See also:fine platitudes of the philosophes and the vague promise of a political See also:millennium; but as the See also:chaos in the See also:body politic See also:grew, and with it the appalling material misery, it began to clamour for the See also:blood of the " traitors " in See also:office by whose corrupt machinations the millennium was delayed, and only those orators were listened to who pandered to its suspicions. Hence the elimination of the moderate elements from the club; hence the ascendancy of See also:Marat, and finally of Robespierre, the secret of whose power was that they really shared the suspicions of the populace, to which they gave a See also:voice and which they did not shrink from translating into action. After the fall of the monarchy Robespierre was in effect the Jacobin Club; for to the tribunes he was the oracle of political wisdom, and by his See also:standard all others were judged? With his fall the Jacobins too came to an end. Not the least singular thing about the Jacobins is the very slender material basis on which their overwhelming power rested. France groaned under their tyranny, which was compared to that of the See also:Inquisition, with its See also:system of espionage and denunciations which no one was too illustrious or too humble to See also:escape. Yet it was reckoned by competent observers that, at the height of the Terror, the Jacobins could not command a force of more than 3000 men in Paris. But the secret of their strength was that, in the midst of the general disorganization, they alone were organized. The See also:police See also:agent Dutard, in a report to the minister See also:Garat (April 30, 1%793), describing an See also:episode in the Palais tgalite (Royal), adds: " Why did a dozen Jacobins strike terror into two or three hundred aristocrats? It is that the former have a rallying-point and that the latter have none." When the jeunesse doree did at last organize themselves, they had little difficulty in flogging the Jacobins out of the cafes into See also:comparative silence. Long before this the Girondin See also:government had been urged to meet organization by organization, force by force; and it is clear from the daily reports of the police agents that even 1 i.e. Journal des debats et de la correspondance de la Societe, &c. For the various See also:newspapers published under the auspices of the Jacobins see Aulard i. p. cx., &c. 2 In the published reports only the speeches of members are given, not the interruptions from the tribunes. But see the report (May 18, 1793) of Dutard to Garat on a See also:meeting of the Jacobins (Schmidt, Tableaux ii. 242).a moderate display of See also:energy would have saved the National See also:Convention from the humiliation of being dominated by a club, and the French Revolution from the blot of the Terror. But though the Girondins were fully conscious of the evil, they were too timid, or too convinced of the ultimate See also:triumph of their own persuasive eloquence, to See also:act. In the session of the 3oth of April 1793 a proposal was made to move the Convention to Versailles out of reach of the Jacobins, and See also:Buzot declared that it was " impossible to remain in Paris " so long as " this abominable haunt " should exist; but the motion was not carried, and the Girondins remained to become the victims of the Jacobins. Meanwhile other political clubs could only survive so long as they were content to be the shadows of the powerful organization of the Rue St Honore. The Feuillants had been suppressed on the 18th of August 1792. The turn of the See also:Cordeliers came so soon as its leaders showed signs of revolting against Jacobin supremacy, and no more startling See also:proof of this ascendancy could be found than the ease with which See also:Hebert and his See also:fellows were condemned and the readiness with which the Cordeliers, after a feeble See also:attempt at protest, acquiesced in the verdict. It is idle to speculate on what might have happened had this ascendancy been overthrown by the action of a strong government. No strong government existed, nor, in the actual conditions of the See also:country, could exist on the lines laid down by the constitution. France was menaced by See also:civil See also:war within, and by a See also:coalition of hostile See also:powers without; the discipline of the Terror was perhaps necessary if she was to be welded into a See also:united force capable of resisting this See also:double peril; and the revolutionary leaders saw in the Jacobin organization the only See also:instrument by which this discipline could be made effective. This is the See also:apology usually put forward for the Jacobins by republican writers of later times; they were, it is said (and of some of them it is certainly true), no See also:mere See also:doctrinaires and visionary sectaries, but practical and far-seeing politicians, who realized that " desperate ills need desperate remedies," and, by having the courage of their convictions, saved the gains of the Revolution for France. The Jacobin Club was closed after the fall of Robespierre on the 9th of See also:Thermidor of the year III., and some of its members were executed. An attempt was made to re-open the club, which was joined by many of the enemies of the Thermidorians, but on the 21st of See also:Brumaire, year III. (Nov. 11, 1794), it was definitively closed. Its members and their sympathizers were scattered among the cafes, where a ruthless war of sticks and chairs was waged against them by the young " aristocrats " known as the jeunesse doree. Nevertheless the " Jacobins " survived, in a somewhat subterranean fashion, emerging again in the club of the See also:Pantheon, founded on the 25th of See also:November 1795, and suppressed in the following February (see See also:BABEUF; See also:FRANCOIS See also:NOEL). The last attempt to reorganize them was the See also:foundation of the See also:Reunion d'amis de l'egalite et de la liberte, in July 1799, which had its headquarters in the Salle du Manege of the Tuileries, and was thus known as the Club du Manege. It was patronized by See also:Barras, and some two hundred and fifty members of the two See also:councils of the legislature were enrolled as members, including many notable ex-Jacobins. It published a newspaper called the Journal des Libres, proclaimed the See also:apotheosis of Robespierre and Babeuf, and attacked the See also:Directory as a royaute pentarchique. But public See also:opinion was now preponderatingly moderate or royalist, and the club was violently attacked in the See also:press and in the streets, the suspicions of the government were aroused; it had to change its meeting-place from the Tuileries to the See also: In this sense the word passed beyond the See also:borders of France and long survived the Revolution. See also:Canning's See also:paper, The See also:Anti-Jacobin, directed against the See also:English Radicals, consecrated its use in See also:England; and in the maphrian (fertilizer) since io89 has lived at See also:Mosul and ordains the bishops. Monkery is common among them, but there are no nuns. Next to the See also:Roman Uniats (whom they See also:term Rassen or Venal) they most hate the Nestorian Syrians of See also:Persia. In 1882, at the instance of the See also:British government, the See also:Turks began to recognize them as a See also:separate organization. See M. See also:Klein, Jacobus Baradaeus (See also:Leiden, 1882); See also:Assemani, Bibl. Or. ii. 62-69, 326 and 331; G. P. See also:Badger, The See also:Nestorians (See also:London, 1852) ; See also:Rubens See also:Duval, La literature syriaque (Paris, 1899) ; G. See also:Kruger, Monophysitische Streitigkeiten (See also:Jena, 1884) ; Silbernagel, Verfassung der Kirchen des Orients (See also:Landshut, 1865) ; and G. See also:Wright, See also:History of See also:Syriac Literature (London, 1894). (F. C. C.)
correspondence of Metternich and other leaders of the repressive policy which followed the second fall of Napoleon, " Jacobin " is the term commonly applied to anyone with Liberal tendencies, even to so august a personage as the See also:emperor See also: (W. A. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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