The Jacobin Club, the most famous of the political clubs of the French Revolution, had its origin in the Club Breton, which formed at Versailles shortly after the opening of the Estates General in 1789. The period of the French Revolution is very important in the history of France and the world. ... Versailles, formerly the unofficial capital city of the kingdom of France, is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and is still an important administrative and judicial center. ... The Estates-General of 1789 was the first meeting of the French Estates-General, a general assembly consisting of representatives from all but the poorest segment of the French citizenry, since 1614. ... 1789 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...

It was at first composed exclusively of deputies from Brittany, but was soon joined by others from various parts of France, and counted among its early members Mirabeau, Sieyès, Barnave, Pétion, the Abbé Grégoire, Charles Lameth, Alexandre Lameth, Robespierre, the duc d'Aiguillon, and La Revellière-Lépeaux. It also had an Indian ruler Tipu Sultan among its ranks. At this time its meetings occurred in secret and few traces remain of what took place at them. Traditional coat of arms This article is about the historical duchy and French province, as well as the cultural area of Brittany. ... Portrait of Mirabeau Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, (often referred to simply as Mirabeau) (March 9, 1749 - April 2, 1791) was a French writer, popular orator and statesman. ... Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes, 1817, by Jacques-Louis David Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (May 3, 1748 – June 20, 1836) was a French abbé and statesman, one of the chief theorists of the revolutionary and Napoleonic era. ... Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave (October 22, 1761 - November 29, French politician, one of the greatest orators of the first French Revolution. ... Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve (1756 - 1794) was a French writer and politician. ... Henri Grégoire Henri Grégoire (December 4, 1750-May 20, 1831) was a French Revolutionary leader and constitutional bishop of Blois. ... Portrait of Maximilien Robespierre Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre, (May 6, 1758 – July 28, 1794), known also to his contemporaries as the Incorruptible, is one of the best known of the leaders of the French Revolution. ... Emmanuel-Armand de Vignerot du Plessis de Richelieu, duc dAiguilon (July 31, 1720 - 1782) was a French statesman and a nephew of the marechal de Richelieu. ... Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux (August 24, 1753 - March 24, 1824), French politician, member of the Directory, the son of JB de la Révellière, was born at Montaigu (Vendée). ... Tipu sultans summer palace Tipu Sultan, also known as Tipu Sahib (December 10, 1750, Devanhalli - May 4, 1799) was ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore from 1782, and one of the primary native sources of resistance to the establishment of British rule in India. ...

After the émeute of 5 October and 6, 1789, the club, still entirely composed of deputies, followed the National Constituent Assembly to Paris, where it rented the refectory of the monastery of the Jacobins in the Rue St Honoré the seat of the Assembly. The name "Jacobins", given in France to the Dominicans (because their first house in Paris was in the Rue St Jacques), was first applied to the club in ridicule by its enemies. The title assumed by the club itself, after the promulgation of the constitution of 1791, was Société des amis de la constitution séants aux Jacobins a Paris, which was changed on September 21, 1792, after the fall of the monarchy, to Société des Jacobins, amis de la liberté et de l'égalité. It occupied successively the refectory, the library, and the chapel of the monastery. October 5 is the 278th day of the year (279th in Leap years). ... The National Constituent Assembly (French: Assemblée nationale constituante) was formed from the National Assembly on July 9, 1789, during the first stages of the French Revolution. ... The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... September 21 is the 264th day of the year (265th in leap years). ... 1792 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...

Once transferred to Paris, the club underwent rapid modifications. The first step was its expansion by the admission as members or associates of others besides deputies; Arthur Young entered the Club in this manner on January 18, 1790. On February 8, 1790 the society became formally constituted on this broader basis by the adoption of the rules drawn up by Barnave, which were issued with the signature of the duc d'Aiguillon, the president. The objects of the club were defined as: Arthur Young (September 11, 1741 - April 20, 1820) was an English writer on agriculture, economics and social statistics. ... January 18 is the 18th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1790 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... February 8 is the 39th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ...

1. to discuss in advance questions to be decided by the National Assembly
2. to work for the establishment and strengthening of the constitution in accordance with the spirit of the preamble (i.e. of respect for legally constituted authority and the Rights of Man)
3. to correspond with other societies of the same kind which should be formed in the realm.

At the same time the rules of order and forms of election were settled, and the constitution of the club determined. There were to be a president, elected every month, four secretaries, a treasurer, and committees elected to superintend elections and presentations, the correspondence, and the administration of the club. Any member who by word or action showed that his principles were contrary to the constitution and the rights of man was to be expelled, a rule which later on facilitated the "purification" of the society by the expulsion of its more moderate elements. By the 7th article the club decided to admit as associates similar societies in other parts of France and to maintain with them a regular correspondence. Thomas Paine wrote the Rights of Man in 1791 as a reply to Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke, and as such, it is a work glorifying the French Revolution. ... President is a title held by many leaders of organizations, companies, universities, and countries. ...

This last provision was of far-reaching importance. By August 10, 1790 there were already one hundred and fifty-two affiliated clubs; the attempts at counter-revolution led to a great increase of their number in the spring of 1791, and by the close of the year the Jacobins had a network of branches all over France. It was this widespread yet highly centralised organization that gave to the Jacobin Club its formidable power. August 10 is the 222nd day of the year (223rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1790 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... A counterrevolutionary is anyone who opposes a revolution, particularly those who act after a revolution to try to overturn or reverse it, in full or in part. ...

At the outset the Jacobin Club was not distinguished by unconventional political views. The somewhat high subscription confined its membership to well-off men, 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 bourgeois, like Santerre. From the first, however, other elements were present. Besides Louis Philippe, duc de Chartres (afterwards king of the French), liberal aristocrats of the type of the duc d'Aiguillon, the prince de Broglie, or the vicomte de Noailles, and the bourgeois who formed the mass of the members, the club contained such figures as "Père" Michel Gerard, a peasant proprietor from Tuel-en-Montgermont, in Brittany, whose rough common sense was admired as the oracle of popular wisdom, and whose countryman’s waistcoat and plaited hair were later on to become the model for the Jacobin fashion. A profession is a specialized work function within society, generally performed by a professional. ... Louis-Philippe of France (October 6, 1773–August 26, 1850), served as the Orleanist king of the French from 1830 to 1848. ... Charles-Louis-Victor, prince de Broglie (September 22, 1756 - June 27, 1794), was a French soldier. ... Louis-Marie, vicomte de Noailles (April 17, 1756 – January 9, 1804) was the second son of Philippe, duc de Mouchy, and a member of Mouchy branch of the famous Noailles family of the French aristocracy. ... Bourgeois at the end of the thirteenth century. ...

The provincial branches were from the first far more democratic, though in these too the leadership was usually in the hands of members of the educated or propertied classes. Up to the very eve of the republic, the club ostensibly supported the monarchy; it took no part in the petition of 17 July 1790 for the dethronement of King Louis XVI; nor had it any official share even in the insurrections of 20 June and 10 August 1792; it only formally recognized the republic on 21 September 1792. But the character and extent of the club’s influence cannot be gauged by its official acts alone, and long before it emerged as the principal focus of the Reign of Terror; its character had been profoundly changed by the secession of its more moderate elements, some to found the Club of 1789, some in 1791 -- among them Barnave, the Lameths, Duport and Bailly -- to found the club of the Feuillants scoffed at by their former friends as the club monarchique. July 17 is the 198th day (199th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 167 days remaining. ... 1790 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Louis XVI (August 23, 1754 – January 21, 1793), was King of France and Navarre from 1774 until 1791, and then King of the French in 1791-1792. ... June 20 is the 171st day of the year (172nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 194 days remaining. ... August 10 is the 222nd day of the year (223rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1792 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... September 21 is the 264th day of the year (265th in leap years). ... 1792 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... The Reign of Terror (June 1793 - July 1794) was a period in the French Revolution characterized by brutal repression. ... Feuillant, a French word derived from the Latin for leaf, has been used as a tag by two different groups. ...

The main cause of this change was the admission of the public to the sittings of the club, which began on 14 October 1791. The result is described in a report of the Department of Paris on "the state of the empire", presented on 12 June 1792, at the request of Roland, the 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, October 14 is the 287th day of the year (288th in Leap years). ... 1791 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... June 12 is the 163rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (164th in leap years), with 202 days remaining. ... 1792 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...

in the midst of the capital committed to our care a public pulpit of defamation, where citizens of every age and both sexes are admitted 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 audience; all the sittings are advertised to the public for fixed days and hours, and the speeches made are printed in a special journal and lavishly distributed.

In this society -- according to this government report -- all authorities are calumniated and all the organs of the law bespattered with abuse, and even taking up arms is promoted; 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 shadow of power" (Schmidt, Tableaux i. 78, etc.). Tribune (Latin: tribunus) was a title shared by several elected magistracies and other governmental offices of the Roman Republic and Empire. ...

The constituency to which the club was henceforth responsible, and from which it derived its power, was in fact the sans-culottes of Paris -- cosmopolitans 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 verdict they were judged. In the earlier stages of the Revolution the mob had been satisfied with the fine platitudes of the philosophes and the vague promise of a political millennium; but as the chaos in the body politic grew, and with it the appalling material misery, it began to clamour for the blood of the traitors in 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 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 voice and which they did not shrink from translating into action. A constituency (often called ridings)is any cohesive corporate unit or body bound by shared structures, goals or loyalty. ... Observers used the term sans-culottes (French for without knee-breeches), originally during the early years of the French Revolution to refer to the ill-clad and ill-equipped volunteers of the Revolutionary army, and later generally to the ultrademocrats of the Revolution. ... A millennium is a period of time equal to one thousand years. ...

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 standard all others were judged. With his fall the Jacobins too came to an end. A monarchy, (from the Greek monos, one, and archein, to rule) is a form of government that has a monarch as Head of State. ...

Not the least singular thing about the Jacobins is the very slender material basis on which their overwhelming power rested. Some groaned under their autocracy, which they compared to that of the Inquisition, with its system of espionage and denunciations which no one was too illustrious or too humble to 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 disorganisation, they alone were organised. The police agent Dutard, in a report to the minister Garat (30 April 1793), describing an episode in the Palais Egalité (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 dorée did at last organise themselves, they had little difficulty in flogging the Jacobins out of the cafés into comparative silence. Pedro Berruguete. ... Espionage is the practice of obtaining secrets (spying) from rivals or enemies for military, political, or economic advantage. ... Denunciation refers to the announcement of a treatys termination. ... April 30 is the 120th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (121st in leap years), with 245 days remaining, as the last day in April. ... 1793 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Aristocracy is a form of government in which rulership is in the hands of an upper class known as aristocrats. ...

Long before this the Girondin government had been urged to meet organisation by organisation, force by force; and it is clear from the daily reports of the police agents that even a moderate display of energy would have saved the National Convention from the humiliation of being dominated by a club, and the French Revolution from the Terror. But though the Girondins were fully conscious of this, they were too timid, or too convinced of the ultimate triumph of their own persuasive eloquence, to act. In the session of April 30, 1793 a proposal was made to move the Convention to Versailles out of reach of the Jacobins, and 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. The Girondists (in French Girondins, and sometimes Brissotins), comprised a political faction in France within the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention during the French Revolution. ... The Reign of Terror (June 1793 - July 1794) was a period in the French Revolution characterized by brutal repression. ... April 30 is the 120th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (121st in leap years), with 245 days remaining, as the last day in April. ... 1793 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ...

Meanwhile other political clubs could only survive so long as they were content to be the shadows of the powerful organisation of the Rue St Honoré. The Feuillants had been suppressed on August 18, 1792. The turn of the Cordeliers came so soon as its leaders showed signs of revolting against Jacobin supremacy, and no more startling proof of this ascendancy could be found than the ease with which Hébert and his fellows were condemned and the readiness with which the Cordeliers, after a feeble attempt at protest, acquiesced in the verdict. August 18 is the 230th day of the year (231st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1792 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... The Cordeliers, also known as the Club of the Cordeliers and formally as the Society of the Friends of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen comprised a populist society during the French Revolution. ...

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 country, could exist on the lines laid down by the constitution. France was menaced by civil war within, and by a coalition of hostile powers without; the discipline of the Terror was perhaps necessary if she was to be welded into a united force capable of resisting this double peril; and the revolutionary leaders saw in the Jacobin organization the only instrument by which this discipline could be made effective. This is the 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 mere 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 9 Thermidor of the year III (July 29, 1794) 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 21 Brumaire, year III (November 11, 1794), it was definitively closed. Its members and their sympathizers were scattered among the cafés, where a ruthless war of sticks and chairs was waged against them by the young "aristocrats" known as the jeunesse dorée. Nevertheless the Jacobins survived, in a somewhat subterranean fashion, emerging again in the club of the Panthéon, founded on November 25, 1795, and suppressed in the following February (see Babeuf). The French Revolutionary Calendar or French Republican Calendar is a calendar proposed during the French Revolution, and in use by the French government for 13 years from 1793. ... July 29 is the 210th day (211th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 155 days remaining. ... 1794 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... November 11 is the 315th day of the year (316th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 50 days remaining. ... 1794 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... November 25 is the 329th (in leap years the 330th) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1795 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... François-Noël Babeuf François-Noël Babeuf (November 23, 1760 - May 27, 1797), known as Gracchus Babeuf, was a French political agitator and journalist of the revolutionary period. ...

The last attempt to reorganise Jacobin adherents was the foundation of the Réunion d'amis de l'égalité et de la liberté, in July 1799, which had its headquarters in the Salle du Manège of the Tuileries, and was thus known as the Club du Manège. It was patronized by Barras, and some two hundred and fifty members of the two councils of the legislature were enrolled as members, including many notable ex-Jacobins. It published a newspaper called the Journal des Libres, proclaimed the apotheosis of Robespierre and Babeuf, and attacked the Directory as a royauté pentarchique. But public opinion was now preponderatingly moderate or royalist, and the club was violently attacked in the press and in the streets, the suspicions of the government were aroused; it had to change its meeting-place from the Tuileries to the church of the Jacobins (Temple of Peace) in the Rue du Bac, and in August it was suppressed, after barely a month’s existence. Its members revenged themselves on the Directory by supporting Napoleon Bonaparte. Up to 1871 the Tuileries Palace was a palace in Paris, France, on the right bank of the River Seine. ... François-Noël Babeuf François-Noël Babeuf (November 23, 1760 - May 27, 1797), known as Gracchus Babeuf, was a French political agitator and journalist of the revolutionary period. ... Bonaparte as general Napoleon Bonaparte ( 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a general of the French Revolution and was the ruler of France as First Consul (Premier Consul) of the French Republic from November 11, 1799 to May 18, 1804, then as Emperor of the French (Empereur des Français...

The judgement of a later generation of Parisians can be seen in a Latin quatrain composed in the 19th century for a market situated near the club house:

Impia Tortorum longas hic turba furores,

sanguinis innocui, non satiata aluit.

Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro,

mors ubi dira vita salusque patent.

(Here the impious clamor of the torturers,

insatiate, fed its rage for innocent blood.

Now happy is the land, destroyed the pit of horror;

and where grim death stalked, life and health are revealed)

See also

• Jacobin

In the context of the French Revolution, a Jacobin originally meant a member of the Jacobin Club (1789-1794). ...

References

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) in many ways represents the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ...

That Britannica article, in turn, gives the following references:

• The most important source of information for the history of the Jacobins is FA Aulard's La société des Jacobins, Recueil de documents (6 volumes, Paris, 1889, etc.), where a critical bibliography will be found. This collection does not contain all the printed sources -- notably the official Journal of the Club is omitted -- but these sources, when not included, are indicated. The documents published are furnished with valuable explanatory notes.

• See also WA Schmidt, Tableaux de la révolution française (3 volumes, Leipzig, 1867 - 1870), notably for the reports of the secret police, which throw much light on the actual working of Jacobin propaganda.