Jacobin Club

The Jacobin Club, the most famous of the political clubs of the French Revolution, had its origin in the Club Breton, which formed at Versailles shortly after the opening of the Estates General in 1789.

Radicalization

At the outset the Jacobin Club did not tout unconventional political views. The relatively high cost of subscription confined its membership to well-off men, and to the last it was—so far as the central society in Paris was concerned—composed almost entirely of professional men, like Robespierre, or well-to-do bourgeois, like Santerre.

Related Topics:
Profession - Robespierre - Santerre

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Besides Louis Philippe, duc de Chartres (afterwards king of the French), liberal aristocrats of the type of the duc d'Aiguillon, the prince de Broglie, or the vicomte de Noailles, and the bourgeois formed the mass of the members. The club also claimed notables like "Père" Michel Gerard, a peasant proprietor from Tuel-en-Montgermont, in Brittany, whose rough common sense was admired as the oracle of popular wisdom, and whose countryman?s waistcoat and plaited hair were later on to become the model for the Jacobin fashion.

Related Topics:
Louis Philippe - Prince de Broglie - Vicomte de Noailles - Bourgeois

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The provincial branches were from the first more democratic, though their leadership was still guided by members of the educated or propertied classes. Up to the very eve of the republic, the club ostensibly supported the monarchy; it took no part in the petition of 17 July 1790 for the dethronement of King Louis XVI; nor had it any official share in the insurrections of 20 June and 10 August 1792 (see 10th of August (French Revolution)). The Jacobin Club formally recognized the republic on 21 September 1792. But the character and extent of the club?s influence cannot be gauged by its official acts alone, and long before it emerged as the principal focus of the Reign of Terror; its character had been profoundly changed by the secession of its more moderate elements, among them Barnave, the Lameths, Duport and Bailly -- who left to found the club of the Feuillants and were thusly scoffed at by their former friends as the club monarchique.

Related Topics:
17 July - 1790 - Louis XVI - 20 June - 10 August - 1792 - 10th of August (French Revolution) - 21 September - Reign of Terror - Feuillant

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The main cause of this change was the admission of the public to the sittings of the club, which began on 14 October 1791. The result is described in a report of the Department of Paris on "the state of the empire", presented on 12 June 1792, at the request of Roland, the minister of the interior, and signed by the duc de La Rochefoucauld, which ascribes to the Jacobins all the woes of the state. "There exists", it runs,

Related Topics:
14 October - 1791 - 12 June - 1792 - Duc de La Rochefoucauld

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:in the midst of the capital committed to our care a public pulpit of defamation, where citizens of every age and both sexes are admitted day by day to listen to a criminal propaganda…. This establishment, situated in the former house of the Jacobins, calls itself a society; but it has less the aspect of a private society than that of a public spectacle: vast tribunes are thrown open for the audience; all the sittings are advertised to the public for fixed days and hours, and the speeches made are printed in a special journal and lavishly distributed.

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Constituency

The constituency to which the club was henceforth responsible, and from which it derived its power, was in fact the sans-culottes of Paris—cosmopolitans and starving workpeople—who crowded its tribunes. To this audience, and not primarily to the members of the club, the speeches of the orators were addressed and by its verdict they were judged. In the earlier stages of the Revolution the mob had been satisfied with the fine platitudes of the philosophes and the vague promise of a political millennium; but as the chaos in the body politic grew, and with it the appalling material misery, it began to clamour for the blood of the traitors in office by whose corrupt machinations the millennium was delayed, and only those orators were listened to who pandered to its suspicions. Hence the elimination of the moderate elements from the club; hence the ascendancy of Marat, and finally of Robespierre, the secret of whose power was that they really shared the suspicions of the populace, to which they gave a voice and which they did not shrink from translating into action.

Related Topics:
Constituency - Sans-culottes - Millennium

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