ter November, 1790,[1220] "every street in every town and hamlet,"
says a Journal of large circulation, "must have a club of its own. Let
some honest craftsman invite his neighbors to his house, where, with
using a shared candle, he may read aloud the decrees of the National
Assembly, on which he and his neighbors may comment. Before the meeting
closes, in order to enliven the company, which may feel a little
disturbed on account of Marat's articles, let him read the patriotic
oaths in 'Pere Duchesne.'"[1221]--The advice is followed. At the
meetings in the club are read aloud pamphlets, newspapers, and
catechisms dispatched from Paris, the "Gazette Villageoise," the
"Journal du Soir," the "Journal de la Montagne," "Pere Duchesne," the
"Revolutions de Paris," and "Laclos' Gazette." Revolutionary songs
are sung, and, if a good speaker happens to be present, a former
monk (oratorien), lawyer, or school-master, he pours out his stock of
phrases, speaking of the Greeks and Romans, proclaiming the regeneration
of the human species. One of them, appealing to the women, wants to see

"the declaration of the Rights of Man suspended on the walls of their
bedrooms as their principal ornament, and, should war break out,
these virtuous supporters, marching at the head of our armies like new
bacchantes with flowing hair, the wand of Bacchus in their hand."

Shouts of applause greet this sentiment. The minds of the listeners,
swept away by this gale of declamation, become overheated and ignite
through mutual contact; like half-consumed embers that would die out
if let alone, they kindle into a blaze when gathered together in a
heap.--Their convictions, at the same time, gain strength. There is
nothing like a coterie to make these take root. In politics, as
in religion, faith generating the church, the latter, in its turn,
nourishes faith. In the club, as in the private religious meeting, each
derives authority from the common unanimity, every word and action of
the whole tending to prove each in the right. And all the more because
a dogma which remains uncontested, ends in seeming incontestable; as
the Jacobin lives in a narrow circle, carefully guarded, no contrary
opinions find their way to him. The public, in his eyes, seems two
hundred persons; their opinion weighs on him without any counterpoise,
and, outside of their belief, which is his also, every other belief is
absurd and even culpable. Moreover, he discovers through this co