x, p. 94.)

Neither, if you knew it, is Patriotism without her Constitution that can
march; her not impotent Parliament; or call it, Ecumenic Council, and
General-Assembly of the Jean-Jacques Churches: the MOTHER-SOCIETY,
namely! Mother-Society with her three hundred full-grown Daughters; with
what we can call little Granddaughters trying to walk, in every village
of France, numerable, as Burke thinks, by the hundred thousand. This is
the true Constitution; made not by Twelve-Hundred august Senators, but
by Nature herself; and has grown, unconsciously, out of the wants and
the efforts of these Twenty-five Millions of men. They are 'Lords of
the Articles,' our Jacobins; they originate debates for the Legislative;
discuss Peace and War; settle beforehand what the Legislative is to
do. Greatly to the scandal of philosophical men, and of most
Historians;--who do in that judge naturally, and yet not wisely. A
Governing power must exist: your other powers here are simulacra; this
power is it.

Great is the Mother-Society: She has had the honour to be denounced by
Austrian Kaunitz; (Moniteur, Seance du 29 Mars, 1792.) and is all
the dearer to Patriotism. By fortune and valour, she has extinguished
Feuillantism itself, at least the Feuillant Club. This latter, high
as it once carried its head, she, on the 18th of February, has the
satisfaction to see shut, extinct; Patriots having gone thither, with
tumult, to hiss it out of pain. The Mother Society has enlarged her
locality, stretches now over the whole nave of the Church. Let us glance
in, with the worthy Toulongeon, our old Ex-Constituent Friend, who
happily has eyes to see: 'The nave of the Jacobins Church,' says he, 'is
changed into a vast Circus, the seats of which mount up circularly like
an amphitheatre to the very groin of the domed roof. A high Pyramid
of black marble, built against one of the walls, which was formerly a
funeral monument, has alone been left standing: it serves now as back to
the Office-bearers' Bureau. Here on an elevated Platform sit President
and Secretaries, behind and above them the white Busts of Mirabeau, of
Franklin, and various others, nay finally of Marat. Facing this is the
Tribune, raised till it is midway between floor and groin of the dome,
so that the speaker's voice may be in the centre. From that point,
thunder the voices which shake all Europe: down below, in silence, are
forging the thunderbolts and the firebrands. Penetrating into