What is still more curious is that the last of the Jacobin monks (in 1789 and 1790) took part in the meetings of which their convent was the scene, as, in like manner, did the last members of the Order of Cordeliers. The Jacobin Club possessed a large staff of officers, including a president, vice-president, four secretaries, twelve inspectors, four censors, eight commissaries, treasurer, and librarian, all appointed at quarterly elections. The privilege of membership was only granted under very strict conditions, and every newly-elected Jacobin had, before being formally admitted, to take the following oath:—
“I swear to live free or die; to remain faithful to the principles of the Constitution; to obey the laws; to cause them to be respected; to help with all my might to make them perfect; and to conform to the customs and regulations of the society.”
The sittings were held, first three, then four times a week. Little by little, however, the usual course in such assemblies was drifted into. The leaders went to extremes, and soon the most extravagant of them obtained the largest following. Then the moderate members retired to form counter-associations, until in time the hostile organisations made war upon one another, with the guillotine as their final weapon.
“The Jacobins,” says Michelet, “by their esprit de corps, which went on constantly increasing, by their hardened, uncompromising faith, by their harsh, inquisitorial ways, had something of a priestly character. They formed a sort of revolutionary clergy.”
Another great admirer of the Revolution, and especially of Robespierre, in whom the principle of Jacobinism was incarnate, sums up the Jacobin spirit in the following words:—
“Hatred of the conventional inequalities of former times, of unalterable beliefs, a sort of methodical fanaticism, intolerance of all that interfered with the development of the most daring innovations, and, fundamentally, a passion for regular forms; these, whatever may be said on the subject, were the components of the Jacobin spirit. The true Jacobin had something about him at once powerful, original and sombre. He stood midway between the agitator and the statesman; between the Protestant and the Monk; between the inquisitor and the tribune. Hence that ferocious vigilance transformed into a virtue: that spy system raised to the rank of a patriotic organisation: and that mania for denunciation, which made people at first laugh, and at last tremble.”
France, like England soon afterwards, had its Anti-Jacobin. Les Sabbats Jacobites was the title of the French publication, and the Jacobin “mania for denunciation” was thus satirised in its columns:—{163}
Je dénonce l’Allemagne,
Le Portugal et l’Espagne,
Le Mexique et la Champagne,
La Sardaigne et le Pérou.
Je dénonce l’ltalie,
L’Afrique et la Barbarie,
L’Angleterre et la Russie
Sans même excepter Moscou.
In spite of these attacks and a thousand others, the importance of the Jacobin Club went on constantly increasing; and at the funeral of Mirabeau, who died in the first year of the Revolution, the President of the Jacobin Club marched side by side with the President of the National Assembly, and had precedence of the Ministers. After the death of Mirabeau the influence of the Lameths, the Duports, the Barnaves, etc., gave way to that of Robespierre, in whom, says Louis Blanc, “Jacobinism in its extremest points was personified.”
Chateaubriand, the Royalist, ought, however, to be heard on this subject as well as Louis Blanc, the Republican; and this is what the former writes in his “Essay on Revolutions,” published in 1797:—