4 Charles Kuhlmann 



Jacobins, all the republican souls, all the elite of patriotism. The silence 

 which neither the bell nor the masterly action of Mirabeau was able to 

 secure, Charles Lameth with his arm in a sling succeeded in restoring. 

 He mounted the tribune and while praising Robespierre for his love of 

 the people and calling him his very dear friend, he nevertheless censured 

 him somewhat harshly and pretended like the president, that no one had the 

 right to pass sentence upon a decree whether sanctioned or not. But M. 

 Noailles conciliated the two parties by maintaining that the decree did not 

 have the significance attributed to it ; he had been present in the committee 

 on the constitution when this article was under discussion and neither he 

 nor the committee had understood it in the sense of M. Charles Lameth 

 and of Mirabeau. The difficulty being removed, the president again gave 

 the floor to Robespierre, who ended his address as he had begun it, in the 

 midst of applause.^ 



Substantially the same facts, without Desmoulins's embellish- 

 ments, are recited in the Patriote frangais of Brissot with the 

 added detail that Robespierre had almost concluded when inter- 

 rupted.- 



Unquestionably Mirabeau did not, as assumed by Desmoulins 

 and Brissot, base his reprimand upon some general principle 

 drawn from the bottomless depth of the reigning philosophy. On 

 the contrary, he was doing a duty explicitly imposed upon him. 

 The rules of the society forbade any member to express views 

 opposed to the constitution and the spirit of the society which was 

 supposed to be always in accord with that of the national assem- 

 bly.^ Nevertheless, it is not at all likely that this was Mirabeau's 



^Revolutions de France et de Brabant, No. 55. 



'Patriate frangais of Dec. 7, 1790. Aulard in Societe des Jacobins, vol. 

 I, pp. 403-05, has reprinted the accounts of the session as given by Des- 

 moulins and Brissot. 



* The society announced, in the preamble to its constitution, that one of 

 its chief aims was to make known and to popularize the work of the as- 

 sembly. Article IV. of the constitution itself reads as follows : " Lorsqu'un 

 membre de la societe sera convaincu d'avoir manifeste, soit verbalement, soit 

 par ecrit, et a plus forte raison par des actions, des principes evidemment 

 contraires a la constitution et aux droits des hommes, en un mot a I'esprit 

 de la societe, il sera, suivant la gravite des circonstances, reprimande par 

 le president, ou exclus de la societe, apres un jugement rendu a la majorite 

 des voix." Aulard, Societe des Jacobins, vol. I, pp. xxviii-xxx. 



