JACOBINS, THE, the most famous of the political clubs of the French Revolution. It originated in the Club Breton, estab lished at Versailles shortly after the opening of the States General in 1789. At first composed of deputies from Brittany, it was soon joined by others from various parts of France, among its early members being Mirabeau and Robespierre. After Oct. 6 the club followed the National Assembly to Paris, where it rented the refec tory 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. The title assumed by the club itself, after the promulgation of the constitu tion of 1791, was Societe des amis de la constitution seants aux Jacobins a Paris, which was changed on Sept. 21, 1792, after the fall of the monarchy, to Societe des Jacobins, amis de la liberte et de l'egalite.
Once transferred to Paris, the club underwent rapid modifica tions. The first step was the admission as members or associates of others besides deputies. On Feb. 8, 1790, the society was formally constituted by the adoption of the rules drawn up by Barnave. The objects of the club were defined as (I) to discuss in advance questions to be decided by the National Assembly; (2) to work for the establishment and strengthening of the con stitution; (3) to correspond with other societies of the same kind. The club was to have a president, elected every month, four secretaries, a treasurer and committees elected to superin tend the correspondence and the administration of the club's affairs.
Any member who 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. The 7th article pro vided for the admission of other similar societies as associates.
This last provision was of far-reaching importance. By Aug. ro, 1790 there were already one hundred and fifty-two affiliated clubs, and at the close of 1791 the Jacobins had a network of branches all over France. It was this widespread yet highly centralized or ganization that gave to the Jacobin Club its formidable power.
At the outset the Jacobin Club was not distinguished by ex treme political views. The high subscription confined its member ship to men of substance, and to the last the central soci .ty in Paris was composed almost entirely of professional men, such as Robespierre, or well-to-do bourgeois, like Santerre. Other ele ments, however, were present. Besides Louis Philippe, duc de Chartres (afterwards king of the French), liberal aristocrats of the type of the duc d'Aiguillon, and the bourgeois who formed the mass of the members, the club contained such figures as "Pere" Michel Gerard, a peasant proprietor from Brittany, whose rough common sense was admired as the oracle of popular wisdom, and whose countryman's waistcoat and plaited hair were to be come the model for the Jacobin fashion. The provincial branches, although more democratic, were usually led by members of the middle classes. The club took no official part in the insurrections of June 20 and Aug. 1o, 1792, and only formally recognized the republic on Sept. 21. But the character and extent of its in fluence cannot be gauged by its official acts alone, and long be fore it emerged as the principal focus of the Terror, its character had been profoundly changed by the secessions of its more moderate elements, some to found the Club of 1789, some in 1791 to found the club of the Feuillants scoffed at by their former friends as the club monarchique.
From the date of the admission of the general public to its sit tings (Oct. 14, 1791), the constituency to which the club was responsible, and from which it derived its power, was the Paris mob ; the sans-culottes—decayed lackeys, cosmopolitan ne'er do-weels 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. As the chaos in the body politic grew, and with it the appalling material misery, the mob, no longer satisfied with the platitudes of the philosophes, 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.' With his fall the Jacobins too came to an end.
Not the least singular thing about the Jacobins is the slender material basis on which their power rested. France groaned under their tyranny: yet it was reckoned by competent observers that, at the height of the Terror, the Jacobins could not command a force of more than 3,00o men in Paris. The secret of their strength was this : in the midst of the general disorganization, they alone were organized. The Girondin government was 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 Con vention from the humiliation of being dominated by a club, and the French Revolution from the blot of the Terror. But the Girondins were too convinced of the ultimate triumph of their own persuasive eloquence, to act. In the session of April 3o, 1793 a proposal was made to move the Convention to Versailles out of reach of the Jacobins, but the motion was not carried, and the Girondins remained to become the victims of the Jacobins.
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. 1794), it was definitely 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 Nov. 25, 1795, and suppressed in the following February (see BABEUF ; FRANcOIS NOEL). The last at tempt 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. But public opinion was now preponderatingly moderate or royalist, and the club was violently attacked. It was suppressed in August, after barely a month's existence. Its mem bers revenged themselves on the Directory by supporting Na poleon 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 corre spondence 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, not excepting the emperor Alexander I. of Russia.
See F. A. Aulard, La societe des Jacobins, Recueil de documents (1889, etc.), where a critical bibliography will be found. This collec tion 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 (Leipzig, 5867-70), notably for the reports of the secret police, which throw much light on the actual working of the Jacobin propaganda, and Albert Mathiez, Etudes robespierrstes and other works. (W. A. P.)