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    "source_title": "Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911)",
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    "chunk_id": "1911:jacobins:95203809baf8",
    "title": "JACOBINS",
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    "verified_text": "jacobins, the, the most famous of the political clubs of the french revolution. it had its origin in the club breton, which was established at versailles shortly after the opening of the states general in 1789. it was at first composed exclusively of deputies from brittany, but was soon joined by others from various parts of france, and counted among its early members mirabeau, sieyes, barnave, petion, the abbe gregoire, charles and alexandre lameth, robespierre, the duc d'aiguillon, and la revelliere-lepeaux. at this time its meetings were secret and little is known of what took place at them. after the emeute of the 5th and 6th of october the club, still entirely composed of deputies, followed the national assembly to paris, where it rented the refectory of the monastery of the jacobins in the rue st honore, near the seat of the assembly. the name \"jacobins,\" given in france to the dominicans, because their first house in paris was in the rue st jacques, was first applied to the club in ridicule by its enemies. the title assumed by the club itself, after the promulgation of the constitution of 1791, was _societe des amis de la constitution seants aux jacobins a paris_, which was changed on the 21st of september 1792, after the fall of the monarchy, to _societe des jacobins, amis de la liberte et de l'egalite_. it occupied successively the refectory, the library, and the chapel of the monastery. once transferred to paris, the club underwent rapid modifications. the first step was its expansion by the admission as members or associates of others besides deputies; arthur young was so admitted on the 18th of january 1790. on the 8th of february the society was formally constituted on this broader basis by the adoption of the rules drawn up by barnave, which were issued with the signature of the duc d'aiguillon, the president. the objects of the club were defined as (1) to discuss in advance questions to be decided by the national assembly; (2) to work for the establishment and strengthening of the constitution in accordance with the spirit of the preamble (i.e. of respect for legally constituted authority and the rights of man); (3) to correspond with other societies of the same kind which should be formed in the realm. at the same time the rules of order and forms of election were settled, and the constitution of the club determined. there were to be a president, elected every month, four secretaries, a treasurer, and committees elected to superintend elections and presentations, the correspondence, and the administration of the club. any member who by word or action showed that his principles were contrary to the constitution and the rights of man was to be expelled, a rule which later on facilitated the \"purification\" of the society by the expulsion of its more moderate elements. by the 7th article the club decided to admit as associates similar societies in other parts of france and to maintain with them a regular correspondence. this last provision was of far-reaching importance. by the 10th of august 1790 there were already one hundred and fifty-two affiliated clubs; the attempts at counter-revolution led to a great increase of their number in the spring of 1791, and by the close of the year the jacobins had a network of branches all over france. it was this widespread yet highly centralized organization that gave to the jacobin club its formidable power. at the outset the jacobin club was not distinguished by extreme political views. the somewhat high subscription confined its membership to men of substance, and to the last it was--so far as the central society in paris was concerned--composed almost entirely of professional men, such as robespierre, or well-to-do _bourgeois_, like santerre. from the first, however, other elements were present. besides louis philippe, duc de chartres (afterwards king of the french), liberal aristocrats of the type of the duc d'aiguillon, the prince de broglie, or the vicomte de noailles, and the _bourgeois_ who formed the mass of the members, the club contained such figures as \"pere\" michel gerard, a peasant proprietor from tuel-en-montgermont, in brittany, whose rough common sense was admired as the oracle of popular wisdom, and whose countryman's waistcoat and plaited hair were later on to become the model for the jacobin fashion.[1] the provincial branches were from the first far more democratic, though in these too the leadership was usually in the hands of members of the educated or propertied classes. up to the very eve of the republic, the club ostensibly supported the monarchy; it took no part in the petition of the 17th of july 1790 for the king's dethronement; nor had it any official share even in the insurrections of the 20th of june and the 10th of august 1792; it only formally recognized the republic on the 21st of september. but the character and extent of the club's influence cannot be gauged by its official acts alone, and long before it emerged as the principal focus of the terror, its character had been profoundly changed by the secession of its more moderate elements, some to found the club of 1789, some in 1791--among them barnave, the lameths, duport and bailly--to found the club of the feuillants scoffed at by their former friends as the _club monarchique_. the main cause of this change was the admission of the public to the sittings of the club, which began on the 14th of october 1791. the result is described in a report of the department of paris on \"the state of the empire,\" presented on the 12th of june 1792, at the request of roland, the minister of the interior, and signed by the duc de la rochefoucauld, which ascribes to the jacobins all the woes of the state. \"there exists,\" it runs, \"in the midst of the capital committed to our care a public pulpit of defamation, where citizens of every age and both sexes are admitted day by day to listen to a criminal propaganda.... this establishment, situated in the former house of the jacobins, calls itself a society; but it has less the aspect of a private society than that of a public spectacle: vast tribunes are thrown open for the audience; all the sittings are advertised to the public for fixed days and hours, and the speeches made are printed in a special journal and lavishly distributed.\"[2] in this society--the report continues--murder is counselled or applauded, all authorities are calumniated and all the organs of the law bespattered with abuse; as to its power, it exercises \"by its influence, its affiliations and its correspondence a veritable ministerial authority, without title and without responsibility, while leaving to the legal and responsible authorities only the shadow of power\" (schmidt, _tableaux_ i. 78, &c.). the constituency to which the club was henceforth responsible, and from which it derived its power, was in fact the _peuple bete_ of paris; the _sans-culottes_--decayed lackeys, cosmopolitan ne'er-do-wells, and starving workpeople--who crowded its tribunes. to this audience, and not primarily to the members of the club, the speeches of the orators were addressed and by its verdict they were judged. in the earlier stages of the revolution the mob had been satisfied with the fine platitudes of the _philosophes_ and the vague promise of a political millennium; but as the chaos in the body politic grew, and with it the appalling material misery, it began to clamour for the blood of the \"traitors\" in office by whose corrupt machinations the millennium was delayed, and only those orators were listened to who pandered to its suspicions. hence the elimination of the moderate elements from the club; hence the ascendancy of marat, and finally of robespierre, the secret of whose power was that they really shared the suspicions of the populace, to which they gave a voice and which they did not shrink from translating into action. after the fall of the monarchy robespierre was in effect the jacobin club; for to the tribunes he was the oracle of political wisdom, and by his standard all others were judged.[3] with his fall the jacobins too came to an end. not the least singular thing about the jacobins is the very slender material basis on which their overwhelming power rested. france groaned under their tyranny, which was compared to that of the inquisition, with its system of espionage and denunciations which no one was too illustrious or too humble to escape. yet it was reckoned by competent observers that, at the height of the terror, the jacobins could not command a force of more than 3000 men in paris. but the secret of their strength was that, in the midst of the general disorganization, they alone were organized. the police agent dutard, in a report to the minister garat (april 30, 1793), describing an episode in the palais egalite (royal), adds: \"why did a dozen jacobins strike terror into two or three hundred aristocrats? it is that the former have a rallying-point and that the latter have none.\" when the _jeunesse doree_ did at last organize themselves, they had little difficulty in flogging the jacobins out of the cafes into comparative silence. long before this the girondin government had been urged to meet organization by organization, force by force; and it is clear from the daily reports of the police agents that even a moderate display of energy would have saved the national convention from the humiliation of being dominated by a club, and the french revolution from the blot of the terror. but though the girondins were fully conscious of the evil, they were too timid, or too convinced of the ultimate triumph of their own persuasive eloquence, to act. in the session of the 30th of april 1793 a proposal was made to move the convention to versailles out of reach of the jacobins, and buzot declared that it was \"impossible to remain in paris\" so long as \"this abominable haunt\" should exist; but the motion was not carried, and the girondins remained to become the victims of the jacobins. meanwhile other political clubs could only survive so long as they were content to be the shadows of the powerful organization of the rue st honore. the feuillants had been suppressed on the 18th of august 1792. the turn of the cordeliers came so soon as its leaders showed signs of revolting against jacobin supremacy, and no more startling proof of this ascendancy could be found than the ease with which hebert and his fellows were condemned and the readiness with which the cordeliers, after a feeble attempt at protest, acquiesced in the verdict. it is idle to speculate on what might have happened had this ascendancy been overthrown by the action of a strong government. no strong government existed, nor, in the actual conditions of the country, could exist on the lines laid down by the constitution. france was menaced by civil war within, and by a coalition of hostile powers without; the discipline of the terror was perhaps necessary if she was to be welded into a united force capable of resisting this double peril; and the revolutionary leaders saw in the jacobin organization the only instrument by which this discipline could be made effective. this is the apology usually put forward for the jacobins by republican writers of later times; they were, it is said (and of some of them it is certainly true), no mere doctrinaires and visionary sectaries, but practical and far-seeing politicians, who realized that \"desperate ills need desperate remedies,\" and, by having the courage of their convictions, saved the gains of the revolution for france. the jacobin club was closed after the fall of robespierre on the 9th of thermidor of the year iii., and some of its members were executed. an attempt was made to re-open the club, which was joined by many of the enemies of the thermidorians, but on the 21st of brumaire, year iii. (nov. 11, 1794), it was definitively closed. its members and their sympathizers were scattered among the cafes, where a ruthless war of sticks and chairs was waged against them by the young \"aristocrats\" known as the _jeunesse doree_. nevertheless the \"jacobins\" survived, in a somewhat subterranean fashion, emerging again in the club of the pantheon, founded on the 25th of november 1795, and suppressed in the following february (see babeuf; francois noel). the last attempt to reorganize them was the foundation of the _reunion d'amis de l'egalite et de la liberte_, in july 1799, which had its headquarters in the _salle du manege_ of the tuileries, and was thus known as the _club du manege_. it was patronized by barras, and some two hundred and fifty members of the two councils of the legislature were enrolled as members, including many notable ex-jacobins. it published a newspaper called the _journal des libres_, proclaimed the apotheosis of robespierre and babeuf, and attacked the directory as a _royaute pentarchique_. but public opinion was now preponderatingly moderate or royalist, and the club was violently attacked in the press and in the streets, the suspicions of the government were aroused; it had to change its meeting-place from the tuileries to the church of the jacobins (temple of peace) in the rue du bac, and in august it was suppressed, after barely a month's existence. its members revenged themselves on the directory by supporting napoleon bonaparte. long before the suppression of the jacobin club the name of \"jacobins\" had been popularly applied to all promulgators of extreme revolutionary opinions. in this sense the word passed beyond the borders of france and long survived the revolution. canning's paper, _the anti-jacobin_, directed against the english radicals, consecrated its use in england; and in the correspondence of metternich and other leaders of the repressive policy which followed the second fall of napoleon, \"jacobin\" is the term commonly applied to anyone with liberal tendencies, even to so august a personage as the emperor alexander i. of russia. the most important source of information for the history of the jacobins is f. a. aulard's _la societe des jacobins, recueil de documents_ (6 vols., paris, 1889, &c.), where a critical bibliography will be found. this collection does not contain all the printed sources--notably the official journal of the club is omitted--but these sources, when not included, are indicated. the documents published are furnished with valuable explanatory notes. see also w. a. schmidt, _tableaux de la revolution francaise_ (3 vols., leipzig, 1867-1870), notably for the reports of the secret police, which throw much light on the actual working of the jacobin propaganda. (w. a. p.) footnotes: [1] \"when i first sat among you i heard so many beautiful speeches that i might have believed myself in heaven, had there not been so many lawyers present.\" instead of practical questions \"we have become involved in a _galimatias_ of rights of man of which i understand mighty little but that it is worth nothing.\" _motion du pere gerard_ in the jacobins of the 27th of april 1790 (aulard i. 63). [2] i.e. _journal des debats et de la correspondance de la societe_, &c. for the various newspapers published under the auspices of the jacobins see aulard i. p. cx., &c. [3] in the published reports only the speeches of members are given, not the interruptions from the tribunes. but see the report (may 18, 1793) of dutard to garat on a meeting of the jacobins (schmidt, _tableaux_ ii. 242). jacobite church. the name of \"jacobites\" is first found in a synodal decree of nicaea a.d. 787, and was invented by hostile greeks for the syrian monophysite church as founded, or rather restored, by jacob or james baradaeus, who was ordained its bishop a.d. 541 or 543. the monophysites, who like the greeks knew themselves simply as the orthodox, were grievously persecuted by the emperor justinian and the graecizing patriarchs of antioch, because they rejected the decrees of the council of chalcedon, in which they--not without good reason--saw nothing but a thinly veiled relapse into those opinions of nestorius which the previous council of ephesus had condemned. james was born a little before a.d. 500 at tella or tela, 55 m. east of edessa, of a priestly family, and entered the convent of phesilta on mount isla. about 528 he went with a fellow-monk sergius to constantinople to plead the cause of his co-religionists with the empress theodora, and lived there fifteen years. justinian during those years imprisoned, deprived or exiled most of the recalcitrant clergy of syria, mesopotamia, cilicia, cappadocia, and the adjacent regions. once ordained bishop of edessa, with the connivance of theodora, james, disguised as a ragged beggar (whence his name baradaeus, syriac _burdeana_, arabic _al-baradia_), traversed these regions preaching, teaching and ordaining new clergy to the number, it is said, of 80,000. his later years were embittered by squabbles with his own clergy, and he died in 578. his work, however, endured, and in the middle ages the jacobite hierarchy numbered 150 archbishops and bishops under a patriarch and his _maphrian_. about the year 728 six jacobite bishops present at the council of manazgert established communion with the armenians, who equally rejected chalcedon; they were sent by the patriarch of antioch, and among them were the metropolitan of urha (edessa) and the bishops of qarhan, gardman, nferkert and amasia. how long this union lasted is not known. in 1842, when the rev. g. p. badger visited the chief jacobite centres, their numbers in all turkey had dwindled to about 100,000 souls, owing to vast secessions to rome. at aleppo at that date only ten families out of several hundred remained true to their old faith, and something like the same proportion at damascus and bagdad. badger testifies that the syrian proselytes to rome were superior to their jacobite brethren, having established schools, rebuilt their churches, increased their clergy, and, above all, having learned to live with each other on terms of peace and charity. as late as 1850 there were 150 villages of them in the jebel toor to the north-east of mardin, 50 in the district of urfah and gawar, and a few in the neighbourhoods of diarbekr, mosul and damascus. from about 1860, the seceders to rome were able, thanks to french consular protection, to seize the majority of the jacobite churches in turkey; and this injustice has contributed much to the present degradation and impoverishment of the jacobites. they used leavened bread in the eucharist mixed with salt and oil, and like other monophysites add to the _trisagion_ the words \"who wast crucified for our sake.\" they venerate pictures or images, and make the sign of the cross with one finger to show that christ had but one nature. deacons, as in armenia, marry before taking priests' orders. their patriarch is styled of antioch, but seldom comes west of mardin. his _maphrian_ (fertilizer) since 1089 has lived at mosul and ordains the bishops. monkery is common among them, but there are no nuns. next to the roman uniats (whom they term _rassen_ or venal) they most hate the nestorian syrians of persia. in 1882, at the instance of the british government, the turks began to recognize them as a separate organization. see m. klein, _jacobus baradaeus_ (leiden, 1882); assemani, _bibl. or._ ii. 62-69, 326 and 331; g. p. badger, _the nestorians_ (london, 1852); rubens duval, _la literature syriaque_ (paris, 1899); g. kruger, _monophysitische streitigkeiten_ (jena, 1884); silbernagel, _verfassung der kirchen des orients_ (landshut, 1865); and g. wright, _history of syriac literature_ (london, 1894). 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