hen, clubs take the place of convents. Since the Constituent
Assembly had decreed the abolition of monastic vows by its vote of
February 13, 1790, many persons, rudely detached from their usual way
of life and its duties, had abandoned their vocation. {9} The nun
became a working-woman; the shaved Capuchin read his journal in
suburban taverns; and grinning crowds visited the profaned and open
convents "as, in Grenada, travellers pass through the abandoned halls
of the Alhambra, or as they pause, at Tivoli, under the columns of the
Sibyl's temple."

The Jacobin Club and the Club of the Cordeliers will destroy the
monarchy. In the Memoirs of Lafayette it is remarked that "it is hard
to understand how the Jacobin minority and a handful of pretended
Marseillais made themselves masters of Paris when nearly all the forty
thousand citizens composing the National Guard desired the
Constitution; but the clubs had succeeded in scattering the true
patriots and in creating a dread of vigorous measures. Experience had
not yet taught what this feebleness and disorganization must needs
cost."

The dark side of the picture is plainly far more evident than it was in
1789. But how vivid it is still! Those who hunger after sensations
are in their element. When has there been more noise, more tumult,
more movement, more unexpected or more varied scenes? Listen once more
to Chateaubriand who, on his return from America, passed through Paris
at this epoch: "When I read the _Histoire des troubles publics ches
divers peuples_ before the Revolution, I could not conceive how it was
possible to live in those times. I was surprised that Montaigne wrote
so cheerfully in a castle which he could not walk around without risk
of being abducted by bands {10} of Leaguers or Protestants. The
Revolution has enabled me to comprehend this possibility of existence.
With us men, critical moments produce an increase of life. In a
society which is dissolving and forming itself anew, the strife between
the two tendencies, the collision of the past and the future, the
medley of ancient and modern manners, form a transitory combination
which does not admit a moment of ennui. Passions and characters, freed
from restraint, display themselves with an energy they do not possess
in well-regulated cities. The infraction of laws, the emancipation
from duties, usages, and the rules of decorum, even perils themselves,
increase the interest of this disorder."