Supported by all the force of government, and intrinsically formidable by their union, the Clubs had long existed in defiance of public reprobation, and for some time they had braved not only the people, but the government itself. The instant they were disabled from corresponding and communicating in that privileged sort of way which rendered them so conspicuous, they felt their weakness; and their desultory and unconnected efforts to regain their influence only served to complete its annihilation. While they pretended obedience to the regulations to which the Convention had subjected them, they intrigued to promote a revolt, and were strenuously exerting themselves to gain partizans among the idle and dissolute, who, having subsisted for months as members of revolutionary committees, and in other revolutionary offices, were naturally averse from a more moderate government. The numbers of these were far from inconsiderable: and, when it is recollected that this description of people only had been allowed to retain their arms, while all who had any thing to defend were deprived of them, we cannot wonder if the Jacobins entertained hopes of success.
The Convention, aware of these attempts, now employed against its ancient accomplices the same arts that had proved so fatal to all those whom it had considered as its enemies. A correspondence was "opportunely" intercepted between the Jacobins and the Emigrants in Switzerland, while emissaries insinuated themselves into the Clubs, for the purpose of exciting desperate motions; or, dispersed in public places, contrived, by assuming the Jacobin costume, to throw on the faction the odium of those seditious exclamations which they were employed to vociferate.
There is little doubt that the designs of the Jacobins were nearly such as have been imputed to them. They had, however, become more politic than to act thus openly, without being prepared to repel their enemies, or to support their friends; and there is every appearance that the Swiss plots, and the insurrections of the Palais Egalite, were the devices of the government, to give a pretext for shutting up the Club altogether, and to avert the real dangers with which it was menaced, by spreading an alarm of fictitious ones. A few idle people assembled (probably on purpose) about the Palais Egalite, and the place where the Jacobins held their meetings, and the exclamation of "Down with the Convention!" served as the signal for hostilities. The aristocrats joined the partizans of the Convention, the Jacobins were attacked in their hall, and an affray ensued, in which several persons on each side were wounded. Both parties accused each other of being the aggressor, and a report of the business was made to the Assembly; but the Assembly had already decided—and, on the ninth of November, while the Jacobins were endeavouring to raise the storm by a recapitulation of the rights of man, a decree was passed, prohibiting their debates, and ordering the national seal to be put on their doors and papers. The society were not in force to make resistance, and the decree was carried into execution as quietly as though it had been levelled against the hotel of some devoted aristocrat.
When the news of this event reached the departments, it occasioned an universal rejoicing—not such a rejoicing as is ordered for the successes of the French arms, (which always seems to be a matter of great indifference,) but a chearfulness of heart and of countenance; and many persons whom I do not remember to have ever seen in the least degree moved by political events, appeared sincerely delighted at this—
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"And those smile now, who never smil'd before, "And those who always smil'd, now smile the more." Parnell's Claudian. |
The armies might proceed to Vienna, pillage the Escurial, or subjugate all Europe, and I am convinced no emotion of pleasure would be excited equal to that manifested at the downfall of the Jacobins of Paris.
Since this disgrace of the parent society, the Clubs in the departments have, for the most part, dissolved themselves, or dwindled into peaceable assemblies to hear the news read, and applaud the convention.—The few Jacobin emblems which were yet remaining have totally disappeared, and no vestige of Jacobinism is left, but the graves of its victims, and the desolation of the country.
The profligate, the turbulent, the idle, and needy, of various countries in Europe, have been tempted by the successes of the French Jacobins to endeavour to establish similar institutions; but the same successes have operated as a warning to people of a different description, and the fall of these societies has drawn two confessions from their original partizans, which ought never to be forgotten—namely, that they were formed for the purpose of subverting the monarchy, and that their existence is incompatible with regular government of any kind.—"While the monarchy still existed, (says the most philosophic Lequinio, with whose scheme of reforming La Vendee you are already acquainted,) it was politic and necessary to encourage popular societies, as the most efficacious means of operating its destruction; but now we have effected a revolution, and have only to consolidate it by mild and philosophic laws, these societies are dangerous, because they can produce only confusion and disorder."—This is also the language of Brissot, who admires the Jacobins from their origin till the end of 1792, but after that period he admits they were only the instruments of faction, and destructive of all property and order.*
* The period of the Jacobin annals so much admired by Brissot, comprises the dethronement of the King, the massacres of the prisons, the banishment of the priests, &c. That which he reprobates begins precisely at the period when the Jacobins disputed the claims of himself and his party to the exclusive direction of the government.—See Brissot's Address to his Constituents.
* The period of the Jacobin annals so much admired by Brissot, comprises the dethronement of the King, the massacres of the prisons, the banishment of the priests, &c. That which he reprobates begins precisely at the period when the Jacobins disputed the claims of himself and his party to the exclusive direction of the government.—See Brissot's Address to his Constituents.