While the right side of the Assembly, in consequence of desertions, disorganisation, and intimidation, became constantly less able to exert influence over the centre, the left acquired new sources of strength. With the object of concerting common action, a few deputies used to meet in a building in the Rue St. Honoré, belonging to some Dominican friars, who were commonly called Jacobins, because the church of St. Jacques had been assigned to them when, in the thirteenth century, they first arrived in Paris. In this building was organised a debating club, entitled by its founders the Society of the Friends of the Constitution, but which acquired celebrity under the name of the Jacobins. All deputies of the left joined it, as well as many persons who were not members of the Assembly, amongst whom were the most radical politicians and journalists of Paris. Whatever questions were debated in the Assembly were at the same time debated in the club, where democratic opinion was more pronounced, and put forward with less reserve. Barnave was in the club a more popular orator than Mirabeau, and Robespierre, who could hardly obtain a hearing in the Assembly, was listened to with attention and applause. Thus the existence of the Jacobins gave organisation to the more democratic party at a time when organisation was nowhere else to be found. [Illustration: FRANCE IN DEPARTMENTS 1790 _Longmans, Green & Co., London, New York, Bombay, Calcutta & Madras_.] ♦The Constitution.♦ Under the influences above described, fear of reaction, belief in theory, and desire for popularity, the Assembly completed the constitution and carried reform into every department of the state. Its work was based on principles of uniformity, decentralisation, and the sovereignty of the people, and whatever institutions clashed with these were swept away. The old division of the territory by provinces was abandoned, and France was divided into eighty-three departments, all as nearly as possible of the same extent, and named after geographical features, such as rivers and mountains. The eighty-three departments were subdivided into 374 districts. In every department was an elected administrative body for the management of its affairs; in every district an elected administrative body, subordinate to the administration of the department, for the management of affairs special to the district. These bodies were composed each of a general council and a permanent executive, styled the directory. In every district the former divisions, called communes, were left unaltered. Of these communes there were no less than 44,000 in France, some being large towns, whilst others were mere villages. The local affairs of these communes were placed under the direction of municipalities. The members of these municipalities were elected by all men inhabiting the commune twenty-five years old, and paying yearly in direct taxes, according to