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. Honore! 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. Honore 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 Nation