y that was sure to be
applauded by a small minority and cried down by the majority. But that
made no difference. The proposer demanded, which was granted, that the
measure should be referred to a committee in which its opponents hoped
to see it buried. Then the Paris Jacobins took hold of it. A circular
was issued, after which an article on the measure was printed in their
journal and discussed in three or four hundred clubs that were leagued
together. Three weeks after this the Assembly was flooded with petitions
from every quarter, demanding a decree of which the first proposal had
been rejected, and which is now passed by a great majority because a
discussion of it had ripened public opinion."

In other words, the Assembly must go ahead or it will be driven along,
in which process the worst expedients are the best. Those who conduct
the club, whether fanatics or intriguers, are fully agreed on this
point.

At the head of the former class is Duport, once a counselor in the
parliament, who, after 1788, knew how to turn riots to account. The
first revolutionary consultations were held in his house. He wants to
plough deep, and his devices for burying the ploughshare are such
that Sieyes, a radical, if there ever was one, dubbed it a "cavernous
policy."[1233] Duport, on the 28th of July, 1789, is the organizer of
the Committee on Searches, by which all favorably disposed informers
or spies form in his hands a supervisory police, which fast becomes
a police of provocation. He finds recruits in the lower hall of the
Jacobin club, where workmen come to be catechized every morning, while
his two lieutenants, the brothers Laurette, have only to draw on
the same source for a zealous staff in a choice selection of their
instruments. "Ten reliable men receive orders there daily;[1234] each
of these in turn gives his orders to ten more, belonging to different
battalions in Paris. In this way each battalion and section receives the
same insurrectionary orders, the same denunciations of the constituted
authorities, of the mayor of Paris, of the president of the department,
and of the commander of the National Guard," everything taking place
secretly. These are dark deeds: the leaders themselves call it 'the
Sabbath' and, along with fanatics they enlist ruffians. "They spread
the rumor that, on a certain day, there will be a great commotion with
assassinations and pillage, preceded by the payment of money distributed
from hand to