Chapter 2: 1.V

Clubbism.

Where the heart is full, it seeks, for a thousand reasons, in a
thousand ways, to impart itself. How sweet, indispensable, in
such cases, is fellowship; soul mystically strengthening soul!
The meditative Germans, some think, have been of opinion that
Enthusiasm in the general means simply excessive
Congregating—_Schwärmerey_, or _Swarming_. At any rate, do we not
see glimmering half-red embers, if laid _together_, get into the
brightest white glow?

In such a France, gregarious Reunions will needs multiply,
intensify; French Life will step out of doors, and, from
domestic, become a public Club Life. Old Clubs, which already
germinated, grow and flourish; new every where bud forth. It is
the sure symptom of Social Unrest: in such way, most infallibly
of all, does Social Unrest exhibit itself; find solacement, and
also nutriment. In every French head there hangs now, whether for
terror or for hope, some prophetic picture of a New France:
prophecy which brings, nay which almost is, its own fulfilment;
and in all ways, consciously and unconsciously, works towards
that.

Observe, moreover, how the Aggregative Principle, let it be but
deep enough, goes on aggregating, and this even in a geometrical
progression: how when the whole world, in such a plastic time, is
forming itself into Clubs, some One Club, the strongest or
luckiest, shall, by friendly attracting, by victorious
compelling, grow ever stronger, till it become immeasurably
strong; and all the others, with their strength, be either
lovingly absorbed into it, or hostilely abolished by it! This if
the Club-spirit is universal; if the time _is_ plastic. Plastic
enough is the time, universal the Club-spirit: such an all
absorbing, paramount One Club cannot be wanting.

What a progress, since the first salient-point of the Breton
Committee! It worked long in secret, not languidly; it has come
with the National Assembly to Paris; calls itself _Club;_ calls
itself in imitation, as is thought, of those generous
Price-Stanhope English, _French Revolution Club;_ but soon, with
more originality, _Club of Friends of the Constitution._ Moreover
it has leased, for itself, at a fair rent, the Hall of the
Jacobin’s Convent, one of our “superfluous edifices;” and does
therefrom now, in these spring months, begin shining out on an
admiring Paris. And so, by degrees, under the shorter popular
title of _Jacobins’ Club_, it shall become memorable to all times
and lands. Glance into the interior: strongly yet modestly
benched and seated; as many as Thirteen Hundred chosen Patriots;
Assembly Members not a few. Barnave, the two Lameths are seen
there; occasionally Mirabeau, perpetually Robespierre; also the
ferret-visage of Fouquier-Tinville with other attorneys;
Anacharsis of Prussian Scythia, and miscellaneous
Patriots,—though all is yet in the most perfectly clean-washed
state; decent, nay dignified. President on platform, President’s
bell are not wanting; oratorical Tribune high-raised; nor
strangers’ galleries, wherein also sit women. Has any French
Antiquarian Society preserved that written Lease of the Jacobins
Convent Hall? Or was it, unluckier even than Magna Charta,
_clipt_ by sacrilegious Tailors? Universal History is not
indifferent to it.

These Friends of the Constitution have met mainly, as their name
may foreshadow, to look after Elections when an Election comes,
and procure fit men; but likewise to consult generally that the
Commonweal take no damage; one as yet sees not how. For indeed
let two or three gather together any where, if it be not in
Church, where all are bound to the _passive_ state; no mortal can
say accurately, themselves as little as any, for _what_ they are
gathered. How often has the broached barrel proved not to be for
joy and heart effusion, but for duel and head-breakage; and the
promised feast become a Feast of the Lapithae! This Jacobins
Club, which at first shone resplendent, and was thought to be a
new celestial Sun for enlightening the Nations, had, as things
all have, to work through its appointed phases: it burned
unfortunately more and more lurid, more sulphurous,
distracted;—and swam at last, through the astonished Heaven, like
a Tartarean Portent, and lurid-burning Prison of Spirits in Pain.

Its style of eloquence? Rejoice, Reader, that thou knowest it
not, that thou canst never perfectly know. The Jacobins published
a Journal of Debates, where they that have the heart may examine:
Impassioned, full-droning Patriotic-eloquence; implacable,
unfertile—save for Destruction, which was indeed its work: most
wearisome, though most deadly. Be thankful that Oblivion covers
so much; that all carrion is by and by buried in the green
Earth’s bosom, and even makes her grow the greener. The Jacobins
are buried; but their work is not; it continues “making the tour
of the world,” as it can. It might be seen lately, for instance,
with bared bosom and death-defiant eye, as far on as Greek
Missolonghi; and, strange enough, old slumbering Hellas was
resuscitated, into _somnambulism_ which will become clear
wakefulness, by a voice from the Rue St. Honoré! All dies, as we
often say; except the spirit of man, of what man _does_. Thus has
not the very House of the Jacobins vanished; scarcely lingering
in a few old men’s memories? The St. Honoré Market has brushed it
away, and now where dull-droning eloquence, like a Trump of Doom,
once shook the world, there is pacific chaffering for poultry and
greens. The sacred National Assembly Hall itself has become
common ground; President’s platform permeable to wain and
dustcart; for the Rue de Rivoli runs there. Verily, at Cockcrow
(of this Cock or the other), _all_ Apparitions do melt and
dissolve in space.

The Paris _Jacobins_ became “the Mother-Society, _Société-Mère;_”
and had as many as “three hundred” shrill-tongued daughters in
“direct correspondence” with her. Of indirectly corresponding,
what we may call grand-daughters and minute progeny, she counted
“forty-four thousand!”—But for the present we note only two
things: the first of them a mere anecdote. One night, a couple of
brother Jacobins are doorkeepers; for the members take this post
of duty and honour in rotation, and admit none that have not
tickets: one doorkeeper was the worthy Sieur Laïs, a patriotic
Opera-singer, stricken in years, whose windpipe is long since
closed without result; the other, young, and named Louis
Philippe, D’Orléans’s firstborn, has in this latter time, after
unheard-of destinies, become Citizen-King, and struggles to rule
for a season. All-flesh is grass; higher reedgrass or creeping
herb.

The second thing we have to note is historical: that the
Mother-Society, even in this its effulgent period, cannot content
all Patriots. Already it must throw off, so to speak, two
dissatisfied swarms; a swarm to the right, a swarm to the left.
One party, which thinks the Jacobins lukewarm, constitutes itself
into _Club of the Cordeliers;_ a hotter Club: it is Danton’s
element: with whom goes Desmoulins. The other party, again, which
thinks the Jacobins scalding-hot, flies off to the right, and
becomes “Club of 1789, Friends of the _Monarchic_ Constitution.”
They are afterwards named “_Feuillans Club;_” their place of
meeting being the Feuillans Convent. Lafayette is, or becomes,
their chief-man; supported by the respectable Patriot everywhere,
by the mass of Property and Intelligence,—with the most
flourishing prospects. They, in these June days of 1790, do, in
the Palais Royal, dine solemnly with open windows; to the cheers
of the people; with toasts, with inspiriting songs,—with one song
at least, among the feeblest ever sung.[283] They shall, in due
time be hooted forth, over the borders, into Cimmerian Night.

Another expressly Monarchic or Royalist Club, “_Club des
Monarchiens_,” though a Club of ample funds, and all sitting in
damask sofas, cannot realise the smallest momentary cheer;
realises only scoffs and groans;—till, ere long, certain Patriots
in disorderly sufficient number, proceed thither, for a night or
for nights, and groan it out of pain. Vivacious alone shall the
Mother-Society and her family be. The very Cordeliers may, as it
were, return into her bosom, which will have grown warm enough.

Fatal-looking! Are not such Societies an incipient New Order of
Society itself? The Aggregative Principle anew at work in a
Society grown obsolete, cracked asunder, dissolving into rubbish
and primary atoms?