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[ "Archives Nationales," F7, 3105. Report of the commissioners sent by the National Assembly and the King, February 23, 1791. (On the events of December 12 and 14, 1790)—Mercure de France, February 29, 5791. (Letters from Aix, and notably a letter from seven officers shut up in prison at Aix, January 30, 1791.) The oldest Jacobin Club formed in February, 1790, was entitled "(Club des vrais amis de la Constitution.)" The second Jacobin club, formed in October, 1790, was "composed from the beginning of artisans and laborers from the faubourgs and suburbs." Its title was" Société des frères anti-politiques," or "frères vrais, justes et utiles à la patrie." The opposition club, formed in December, 1790, bore the title, according to some, of "Les Amis du Roi, de la paix et de la religion;" according to others, "Les amis de la paix;" and finally, according to another report, "Les Défenseurs de la religion, des personnes et des proprietés.">[
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[ A special series of religious services. (TR)]
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[ "Archives Nationales," F7, 3195. Letters of the commissioners, March 20, February 11, May 10, 1791.]
CHAPTER II. SOVEREIGNTY OF UNRESTRAINED PASSIONS.
Under these conditions when passions are freed; any determined and competent man who can gather a couple of hundred men may form a band and slip through the enlarged or weakened meshes of the net held by the passive or ineffective government. An experiment on a grand scale is about to be made on human society; owing to the slackening of the regular restraints which have maintained it, it is now possible to measure the force of the permanent instincts which attack it. They are always there even in ordinary times; we do not notice them because they are kept in check; but they are not the less energetic and effective, and, moreover, indestructible. The moment their repression ceases, their power of mischief becomes evident; just as that of the water which floats a ship, but which, at the first leak enters into it and sinks it.