Note 28 — CHAP. IV. (continued 2)

While the sheet commencing p. 341 was printing off, I got a sight of a work published in Paris last year entitled La Conjuration d'Orleans. It confirms all that I have said respecting the use made of the Free Mason Lodges.—It gives a particular account of the formation of the Jacobin Club, by the Club Breton. This last appears to have been the Association formed with the assistance of the German deputies. The Jacobin Club had several committees, similar to those of the National Assembly. Among others, it had a Committee of Enquiry and Correspondence, whose business it was to gain partizans, to discover enemies, to decide on the merits of the Brethren, and to form similar Clubs in other places.

The author of the above-mentioned work writes as follows, (vol. iii. p. 19.) We may judge of what the D. of Orleans could do in other places, by what he did during his stay in England. During his stay in London, he gained over to his interest Lord Stanhope and Dr. Price, two of the most respectable members of the Revolution Society. This Society had no other object (it said) but to support the Revolution, which had driven James II. from the throne of his ancestors.

Orleans made of this association a true Jacobin Club.—It entered into correspondence with the Committee of Enquiry of our Commune, with the same Committee of our Jacobin Club, and at last with our National Assembly. It even sent to the Assembly an ostensible letter, in which we may see the following passages:

"The Society congratulate the National Assembly of France on the Revolution which has taken place in that country. It cannot but earnestly wish for the happy conclusion of so important a Revolution, and, at the same time, express the extreme satisfaction which it feels in reflecting on the glorious example which France has given to the world." (The Reader will remark, that in this example are contained all the horrors which had been exhibited in France before the month of March 1790; and that before this time, the conduct of the Duke of Orleans on the 5th and 6th of October 1789, with all the shocking atrocities of those days, were fully known in England.)

"The Society resolves unanimously to invite all the people of England to establish Societies through the kingdom, to support the principles of the Revolution, to form correspondence between themselves, and by these means to establish a great concerted Union of all the true Friends of Liberty."

Accordingly (says the French author) this was executed, and Jacobin Clubs were established in several cities of England, Scotland, and Ireland.