profound, depraved, and long indulging his
fondness for monstrous combinations; nobody ever so coolly delighted in
indescribable compounds of human wickedness and debauchery. In politics,
as in romance, his department is "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." Formerly
he maneuvered as an amateur with prostitutes and ruffians in the
fashionable world; now he maneuvers in earnest with the prostitutes
and ruffians of the sidewalks. On the 5th of October 1789, he is seen,
"dressed in a brown coat,"[1239] foremost among the women starting for
Versailles, while his hand[1240] is visible "in the Reveillon affair,
also in the burning of barriers and Chateaux," and in the widespread
panic which aroused all France against imaginary bandits. His
operations, says Malouet, "were all paid for by the Duke of Orleans";
he entered into them "for his own account, and the Jacobins for
theirs."--At this time their alliance is plain to everybody. On the 21st
of November, 1790, Laclos becomes secretary of the club, chief of the
department of correspondence, titular editor of its journal, and the
invisible, active, and permanent director of all its enterprises.
Whether actual demagogues or prompted by ambition, whether paid agents
or earnest revolutionaries, each group works on its own account, both
in concert, both in the same direction, and both devoted to the same
undertaking, which is the conquest of power by every possible means.

V.--Small number of Jacobins.

Sources of their power.--They form a league.--They have
faith.--Their unscrupulousness.--The power of the party
vested in the group which best fulfills these conditions.

At first sight their success seems doubtful, for they are in a
minority, and a very small one. At Besancon, in November, 1791, the
revolutionaries of every shade of opinion and degree, whether Girondists
or Montagnards, consist of about 500 or 600 out of 3,000 electors, and,
in November, 1792, of not more than the same number out of 6,000 and
7,000.[1241] At Paris, in November, 1791, there are 6,700 out of more
than 81,000 on the rolls; in October, 1792, there are less than 14,000
out of 160,000.[1242] At Troyes, in 1792, there are found only 400 or
500 out of 7,000 electors, and at Strasbourg the same number out of
8,000 electors.[1243] Accordingly only about one-tenth of the electoral
population are revolutionaries, and if we leave out the Girondists and
the semi-conservatives, the number is reduce