Thirdly, the victory, or rather the act of Paris, changed and weakened the opposition. From openly gathering troops, and boasting an approaching attack on the Parliament, they are reduced to intrigue and to the difficult business of arming in the dark. Many of the heads of the reaction (notably the Comte d’Artois) leave France in the “first emigration,” and the whole action of the uncompromising party is made weaker, and clearly unnational. Fourthly (and perhaps this is the most important point), that municipal movement, of which mention has been made above, took its rise directly from the 14th of July. The towns hear of Necker’s dismissal and of the Parisian rising by the same courier, and in a week or ten days the story is repeated all over France. Rouen, Lyons, Valence, Montpellier, Nîmes, Tours, Amiens (to cite but a few of the more prominent examples), organise a new town government. Sometimes the old hereditary or appointed body is deposed, more often it is enlarged by the addition of the electoral college of the city; occasionally it takes upon itself the task of adding to itself representatives of the three orders. Again, the towns arm themselves as Paris did; and finally, by what a contemporary called “spontaneous anarchy,” the whole network of cities has received the pulse and vibration of Paris; the National Guards are being drilled in thousands; the rusty, confused, and broken machinery of the _ancien régime_ is replaced by a simple if rough system of local government. Moreover, since all this has been done by the people themselves, and without a command or a centralised effort, since it is natural and not artificial, it has entered into the body of the Revolution and cannot be undone. You see, then, that the days of July gave Paris the first word, and made the spirit of sectionalism and local autonomy based upon a highly democratic theory. All these things are the conditions of Danton’s rise; they make possible, and even necessary, the society of which he is to be the guide. After the 14th of July the Cordeliers meet daily; the bell was rung above the church at nine in the morning, and an assembly of the district was held.[49] It was not yet in name the famous “club”; but when we consider the action of the popular societies in Paris, we must always remember that this, even before it regularly assumed its final name and functions, was a society organised for debate and action, and that it was the first to be established.