Iitfliiencc of the Breton Deputation 35 



by a very variable number of deputies and in evidence 

 especially during- periods of crises. From the extracts 

 above quoted, it will be seen that the membership was but 

 little, if at all, controlled. It was a place of meeting for 

 "all those who desired to attend."^ To speak, then, of a 

 list of members is to show a misconception of the nature 

 of the club,- for the "membership" varied from meeting 

 to meeting. This does not, however, preclude the idea 

 that a certain number of deputies were regular in their 

 attendance, and thus, in effect, formed a somewhat per- 

 manent membership. This conception of the club dis- 

 poses, without argument, of all charges that it, as an or- 

 ganization, intrigued in secret or engaged in criminal plots 

 of one kind or another.^ 



According to the different memoires of contemporaries, 

 many prominent members of the assembly attended the 

 meetings of the club, among them Sie^^es, Mirabeau,^ Bar- 



*See note 3, p. 32, above. That there was no formal condition of 

 membership is to be inferred, also, from the letter of an anonymous 

 correspondent, dated July 9, 1789. "II faut remarquer," he writes, 

 "que les deputes de Bretagne ont admis dans leur assemblee beaucoup 

 d'autres deputes de differentes provinces et qu'ils regoivent tons ceux 

 qui veulent y assister." La Rcvohition frangaise, July-Deceviber, 1892. 



Dubois-Crance writes: "Alors, le Club breton devint celui de tous 

 les deputes reconnus pour etre les defenseurs de la cause du peuple^ 

 On presume bien qu'il s'j'' introduisit quelques faux freres, des emis- 

 saires de la cour; mais comme nous ne faisions rien que ce que nous 

 eussions fait, sans scrupule, en place publique, nous attachions peu 

 d'importance a cet espionnage." Extract in Aulard, I, p. XII. 



^See the extract from Buchez et Roux, in Aulard, I, p. XVII. 



'See extracts from Montjoie in Aulard, I, pp. IX-XI. 



^Montjoie includes Mirabeau among the leaders of the club. In a 

 pamphlet of 1790, Vie 'privce et politique dii roi Isaac Chapelier, he 

 is represented as controlling, with Le Chapelier, the Breton Club and 

 the Breton committee. But I have not been able to find any trace of 

 any connection between Mirabeau and the Breton deputies founded 

 upon reliable evidence. On the contrary, he seems to have at first 

 been held in horror by them. On May 8, Legendre and Moyot wrote: 

 "Ce foi'cene (Mirabeau) livre a la fureur de son penchant pour la 

 satire, ne connait aucun regie, aucune mesure, ne respecte aucune 

 v^rite, dechire, attise, et defigure tout le resuitat des faits et cir- 



241 



