ules and by-laws seem specially designed to gather a superior body
of men. Candidates for admission were proposed by ten members and
afterwards voted on by ballot. To be present at one of its meetings
required a card of admission. On one occasion, a member of the committee
of two, appointed to verify these cards, happens to be the young Duke
of Chartres. There is a committee on administration and a president.
Discussions took place with parliamentary formalities, and, according
to its status, the questions considered there were those under debate
in the National Assembly.[1231] In the lower hall, at certain hours,
workmen received instruction and the constitution was explained to them.
Seen from afar, no society seems worthier of directing public opinion;
near by, the case is different. In the departments, however, where
distance lends enchantment, and where old customs prevail implanted by
centralization, it is accepted as a guide because its seat is at the
capital. Its statutes, its regulations, its spirit, are all imitated;
it becomes the alma mater of other associations and they its adopted
daughters. It publishes, accordingly, a list of all clubs conspicuously
in its journal, together with their denunciations; it insists on their
demands; henceforth, every Jacobin in the remotest borough feels the
support and endorsement, not only of his local, club, but again of the
great club whose numerous offshoots reached the entire territory and
which extends its all-powerful protection to the least of its adherents.
In return for this protection, each associated club obeys the word
of command given at Paris, and to and from, from the center to the
extremities, a constant correspondence maintains the established
harmony. A vast political machine is thus set agoing, a machine with
thousands of arms, all working at once under one impulsion, and the
lever which the motions is in the hands of a few master spirits in the
Rue St. Honore.

No machine could be more effective; never was one seen so well contrived
for manufacturing artificial, violent public opinion, for making this
appear to be national, spontaneous sentiment, for conferring the
rights of the silent majority on a vociferous minority, for forcing the
surrender of the government.

"Our tactics were very simple," says Gregoire[1232]. "It was understood
that one of us should take advantage of the first favorable opportunity
to propose some measure in the National Assembl