ows and demolishes the house."--At
another time, as at Perpignan, the excited mob surrounds the club,
dancing a fandango, and yell out, to the lantern! The club-house is
sacked, while eighty of its members, covered with bruises, are shut up
in the citadel for their safety.[2122]--At another time, as at Aix, the
Jacobin club insults its adversaries on their own premises and provokes
a scuffle, whereupon the municipality causes the doors of the assailed
club to be walled up and issues warrants of arrest against its
members.--Always punishment awaits them for whatever violence they have
to submit to. Their mere existence seems an offense. At Grenoble, they
scarcely assemble before they are dispersed. The fact is, they are
suspected of "incivism;" their intentions may not be right; in any
event, they cause a division of the place into two camps, and that is
enough. In the department of Gard, their clubs are all broken up, by
order of the department, because "they are centers of malevolence."
At Bordeaux, the municipality, considering that "alarming reports are
current of priests and privileged persons returning to town," prohibits
all reunions, except that of the Jacobin club.--Thus, "under a system
of liberty of the most exalted kind, in the presence of the famous
Declaration of the Rights of Man which legitimates whatever is not
unlawful," and which postulates equality as the principle of the French
constitution, whoever is not a Jacobin is excluded from common rights.
An intolerant club sets itself up as a holy church, and proscribes
others which have not received from it "orthodox baptism, civic
inspiration, and the aptitude of languages." To her alone belongs the
right of assemblage, and the right of making proselytes. Conservative,
thoughtful men in all towns throughout the kingdom are forbidden to
form electoral committees, to possess a tribune, a fund, subscribers and
adherents, to cast the weight of their names and common strength into
the scale of public opinion, to gather around their permanent nucleus
the scattered multitude of sensible people, who would like to escape
from the Revolution without falling back into the ancient regime.
Let them whisper amongst themselves in corners, and they may still be
tolerated, but woe to them if they would leave their lonely retreat to
act in concert, to canvass voters, and support a candidate. Up to
the day of voting they must remain in the presence of their combined,
active,