There is yet one further point to be mentioned before we can make a complete picture of Danton’s position before these elections of 1789. There can be no doubt that the Masonic lodges had proved a powerful instrument in the preparation of opinion, and though our information on their formation in Paris is scanty, we can safely affirm that Danton belonged to the lodge of the “Nine Sisters,” which included such members as Sieyès or Bailly on the one hand and Collot D’Herbois on the other.[45] It would be foolish to over-estimate the influence of these societies. The subsequent history of their members proves quite clearly that the bond between them was slight (who can, for instance, reproach Desmoulins with a secret support of Bailly?), and (what is much more important) the very character of their composition disproves effectually any secret or prearranged action. The foolish Bailly, the learned Sieyès, the admirable, unpractical, high-minded Condorcet, the weak Garat, Collot D’Herbois the potential Red, all members of one lodge! They can have been little more than associations whose character of mutual help and whose opportunities of club-life (that comfort so lacking in Paris) attracted men. They were authorised, and were one of the very few kinds of refuge from a society where political discussion had decayed and where combined action was almost unknown. This is all the importance, I think, which should be attached to them. Where men are free, and where the suffrage is open and common, secret societies may very justly be dreaded; their action will be at all times separate from that of society in general, and may be in a hidden antagonism to the will of the nation. But in a society where reunion, discussion, and all that is the blood of civic political life has been exhausted, then, like a special drug which cures, they have an excellent use. They may, in such societies, just keep alive the habit of political conversation and expectancy, and they may develop in some at least that organising spirit without which a political movement degenerates into anarchy.