or obtains a glimpse of political ideas and, therefore,
assumes that he has capacity. But his perception is confided to a
formula, and he sees them dimly through a cloud; hence his incapacity,
and the reason why his mental lacunae as well as his attainments both
contribute to make him a Jacobin.

II.--Spontaneous associations after July 14, 1789.

How these dissolve.--Withdrawal of people of sense and
occupation.--Number of those absent at elections.--Birth and
multiplication of Jacobin societies.--Their influence over
their adherents--Their maneuvers and despotism.

Men thus disposed cannot fail to draw near each other, to understand
each other, and combine together; for, in the principle of popular
sovereignty, they have a common dogma, and, in the conquest of political
supremacy, a common aim. Through a common aim they form a faction, and
through a common dogma they constitute a sect, the league between them
being more easily effected because they are a faction and sect at the
same time.

At first their association is not distinguishable in the multitude of
other associations. Political societies spring up on all sides after the
taking of the Bastille. Some kind of organization had to be substituted
for the deposed or tottering government, in order to provide for urgent
public needs, to secure protection against ruffians, to obtain supplies
of provisions, and to guard against the probably machinations of
the court. Committees installed themselves in the town halls, while
volunteers formed bodies of militia: hundreds of local governments,
almost independent, arose in the place of the central government, almost
destroyed.[1205] For six months everybody attended to matters of common
interest, each individual getting to be a public personage and bearing
his quota of the government load: a heavy load at all times, but heavier
in times of anarchy; this, at least, is the opinion of the majority but
not of all of them. Consequently, a division arises amongst those who
had assumed this load, and two groups are formed, one huge, inert and
disintegrating, and the other small, compact and energetic, each
taking one of two ways which diverge from each other, and which keep on
diverging more and more.

On one hand are the ordinary, sensible people, those who are busy, and
who are, to some extent, not over-conscientious, and not over-conceited.
The power is in their hands because they find it prostra