On the Conflict of Parties in the Jacobin Club 7 



club.' On the other hand, Mirabeau, who was probably in posi- 

 tion to know, declared in his seventh note to the king that the 

 Due d' Orleans had never been anything to the Jacobins.^ 



Although the society was, almost from the moment of its birth, 

 accused of violence and agitation for selfish motives,^ it was not 

 until November, 1790, that such charges could be made with en- 

 tire justice. Until that time the reports of the meetings of the 

 society indicate that the discussions were orderly in outward 

 form and sane in content. Formal papers, dissertations by schol- 

 ars or educated men, predominated during the first period of its 

 existence. Questions confronting the National Assembly were 

 discussed in an exhaustive way, by considering them in their fun- 

 damental elements. This mode of debate, which, it must be un- 

 derstood, was never the exclusive practice, gave place gradually 

 to more impromptu efforts by less intelligent disputants.* The 

 society naturally became more irresponsible as the more moderate 

 deputies and scholars withdrew, a process which has been de- 

 scribed above. 



Alexander Lameth, no doubt with a desire of shielding him- 

 self and his friends, ascribes the violence of the Jacobins to the 

 policy of "pessimism" adopted by the court in filling the society 

 with hotheads for the purpose of discrediting it.^ How much 

 truth there is in this, it is difficult to determine, but it seems that 

 the plan was at least seriously considered. It is only a part of 

 Mirabeau's greater scheme for destroying the National Assem- 

 bly by driving it to extremes.*^ It is certain that the Jacobins at 

 the beginning of 1791 believed that traitors had been introduced 

 among them so that for a long time they considered the advisa- 



1 Michelet claims that Laclos as editor of the Jota-nal des amis de la con- 

 stitutioji used this newspaper in the interest of the duke. I confess I can 

 not see the slightest evidence of this, especially since Laclos did little be- 

 yond publishing extracts from the correspondence of the affiliated societies. 



■■^ Bacourt, Correspondance entre le Cointe de Mi^'abcau el le Comte de la 

 March, II, 70. Cited in the following pages as "Bacourt." 



SAulard, I, 1-9. 



■•This tendency is very noticeable in the sources published by Aulard, 

 volumes one and two. 



^ Histoire de Vassetnblee constituante, 1,424-25. 



* Bacourt, II, note 43. 



235 



