Robespierre and Mirabeau at the Jacobins 5 



real reason for intervening. He was a Jacobin in name only* and 

 regarded the society as one of the chief obstacles in the way of 

 his plans for the restoration of royal authority.^ The society had 

 not been very punctilious in observing its rules of discipline and 

 as Robespierre's infraction of them was met with applause Mira- 

 beau, who certainly foresaw the storm of protest his intervention 

 would arouse, might have permitted the incident to pass without 

 notice. Moreover, Robespierre's course threatened to bring the 

 Jacobins and the national assembly into conflict and as it was part 

 of Mirabeau's secret plan, at this time, to unpopularize the latter,® 

 it would seem that Robespierre was playing directly into his hands 

 when he launched an appeal to the whole of France against the 

 disregard of the fundamental doctrine of the equality of man on 

 the part of the assembly. On the other hand, since the drift 

 toward ultra-radicalism shown by Robespierre and the group to 

 which he belonged, could not fail to lead to a clash with the con- 

 servatives in the society, especially with the Lameths, whom Mira- 

 beau very much detested, what better could the latter have done 

 than permit Robespierre to continue uninterrupted? From his 

 point of view a schism in the Jacobin club was a thing greatly to 

 be desired.'^ It was, moreover, his fixed principle never to do the 

 unpopular thing unless it was absolutely necessary and unless the 

 object justified the loss of popular favor involved in it.^ It would 



* Until October, 1790, Mirabeau does not seem to have been very regular 

 in his attendance at the Jacobins. He fell out with them during the dis- 

 cussion in May over the right of declaring war and making peace and 

 since, in this controversy, he defeated the plans of the society he drew 

 upon himself some of the most violent invectives of the Jacobin press. 

 He had previous to this joined the " Club of '89" which he now continued 

 to frequent in preference to the Jacobins. On October 6, 1790, he re- 

 turned to the latter society. 



" For his real attitude toward the society see his notes to the court pub- 

 lished in the Correspondance entre le Comte de Mirabeau et le Comte de 

 La Marck, by Bacourt, 3 vols., Paris, 1851. 



' Forty-seventh note to the court. Bacourt, H, 414 flf. 



' Many of his notes to the court express this idea. 



* He could upon occasion brave the dangers of physical violence as in 

 the discussion over the question of the right to declare war and make peace 

 and again in February of the following year when he opposed the 



347 



