of local governments; the prey being in sight, hunting-parties are
everywhere formed to capture it. In two months,[1219] six hundred new
clubs spring up; by the end of September they amount to one thousand,
and in June, 1792, to twelve hundred--as many as there are towns and
walled boroughs. On the fall of the throne, and at the panic caused by
the Prussian invasion, during a period of anarchy which equaled that of
July, 1789, there were, according to Roederer, almost as many clubs as
there were communes, 26,000, one for every village containing five or
six hot-headed, boisterous fellows, or roughs, (tape-durs), with a clerk
able to pen a petition.
After November, 1790,[1220] "every street in every town and hamlet,"
says a Journal of large circulation, "must have a club of its own. Let
some honest craftsman invite his neighbors to his house, where, with
using a shared candle, he may read aloud the decrees of the National
Assembly, on which he and his neighbors may comment. Before the meeting
closes, in order to enliven the company, which may feel a little
disturbed on account of Marat's articles, let him read the patriotic
oaths in 'Pêre Duchesne.'"[1221]--The advice is followed. At the
meetings in the club are read aloud pamphlets, newspapers, and
catechisms dispatched from Paris, the "Gazette Villageoise," the
"Journal du Soir," the "Journal de la Montagne," "Pêre Duchesne," the
"Révolutions de Paris," and "Laclos' Gazette." Revolutionary songs
are sung, and, if a good speaker happens to be present, a former
monk (oratorien), lawyer, or school-master, he pours out his stock of
phrases, speaking of the Greeks and Romans, proclaiming the regeneration
of the human species. One of them, appealing to the women, wants to see
"the declaration of the Rights of Man suspended on the walls of their
bedrooms as their principal ornament, and, should war break out,
these virtuous supporters, marching at the head of our armies like new
bacchantes with flowing hair, the wand of Bacchus in their hand."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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