In the National Assembly which represented France as it was in 1789, the party did not, as has been seen, number more than from twenty to thirty, but its weakness in the Assembly was fully atoned for by its strength in the Jacobins. This society had developed into a political organ which was none the less powerful because its authority was not recognised by the laws. During 1790 and 1791 Jacobin clubs were established in most provincial towns, and even in mere villages. They were generally affiliated to the head or mother society at Paris, with which they maintained a regular correspondence. Thus, at a time when all other bonds of cohesion had been destroyed or had fallen away, there was rising into existence over France, outside the constitution, a network of authorities, directed from a common centre in Paris. The clubs, in fact, perpetually interfered with the administrative bodies, tendering advice which often assumed the form of dictation or intimidation, and were always able, if they pleased, to get up demonstrations in favour of their own views. They represented that spirit of distrust which was everywhere felt and seemed to pervade the very air men breathed; and if more moderate politicians disapproved the violent language often used in them, and their assumptions of administrative authority, they did not desire their suppression, for the reason that their fear of danger from this source was less than their fear of the triumph of reactionists and the undoing of the work of the revolution. In September 1790, the ministry had been dissolved in consequence of attacks made on it by the Jacobins of Paris. Necker, painfully alive to his loss of popularity, left the country unregretted (September), and his colleagues, alarmed at the charges brought against them, shortly afterwards resigned. Louis after this put men in office known to be opposed to the restoration of the old order, but they possessed as little influence on the Assembly as their predecessors. The right refused them support, because they did not belong to the party of reaction; and the left, because their attachment to the existing constitution was called in question. ♦Commune of Paris.♦