2 CJiarlcs Kuhlmann 



This new organization adopted the name of "Society of the 

 Revolution" which it soon changed to "The Society of the 

 Friends of the Constitution."^ The name "Jacobin" was unoffi- 

 cial before September 21, 1792, and was given it by the public 

 who knew it as the society which met in the Jacobin convent.^ 

 A formal constitution or reglcmciit was voted on February 8, 

 1790, 'entrance cards and initiation fees required, and persons not 

 members of the National Assembly freely admitted.^ Prepara- 

 tion for the debates in the National Assembly, which had been 

 practically the sole object of the Breton Club, was only one of 

 the objects of the new society. Its aim was nothing less than the 

 conversion of the whole of France to the support of the revolu- 

 tion. It was the center of an enormous propaganda, with sec- 

 ondary centers in all the principal cities of the kingdom, and soon 

 spreading into the villages and even the country districts.* 

 Three large standing committees were appointed, meeting on 

 fixed dates as deliberating" bodies. These were the committees 

 on membership, correspondence, and administration.^ 



The Jacobin Club is not to be regarded as a party in the usual 

 sense of the term, for it was not composed of men holding the 

 same views upon the questions of the hour. Its members were 

 not required to subscribe to any specific political faith. They 

 promised merely to uphold the revolution as it had been or was 



deputies frequently gathered for consultation, it is not likely that this move- 

 ment would have been undertaken had \}lv& Society of the Revolutioii already 

 existed. On the other hand, for the Jacobin Club to have become known 

 in the provinces and have received requests for correspondence from there 

 by the l^th of December argues that it had already existed for several 

 weeks. Barnave, author of the Jacobin constitution, in a letter of June 25, 

 1790, gives the close of November as the time when the society was founded. 



'This name is given in the constitution of February 8, 1790, Aulard, I, 

 xxviii-xxxiii. 



'Aulard, I, xxii. 



3 See constitution of the club, and Aulard, I, note 1, p. xxx. 



^See preamble to the constitution and Aulard, I, Ixxxii-lxxxix, where a 

 h'st of the affiliated societies down to June 19, 1791, is given, a list which is 

 probably very incomplete. 



•'' For the membership of these committees on May 1, 1791, see Aulard, I, 

 Ixxvii-lxxix. How extensive the work of administration became in 1791, 

 and the formal manner in which these committees proceeded may be 

 learned from \\\^ Procis-verbanx des stances ducomite d.' administration de la 

 sociiti des amis de la constitution, etc., Archives Natiojtales, YJ,\as) M.SS. 



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