hearts of many among us, and that there are sentinels on our watch-towers who will not cease to warn us against that apathetic confidence of safety which invites danger.

It must be a comforting reflection to those who have no fear of the ultimate predominance of the papal hierarchy in this country, and regret what they consider unfounded accusations, that all the efforts which could properly be made to prevent that predominance are appropriate and even necessary efforts to avert the lesser evil, and yet a great evil, of such increase of this power as would perpetuate as they are, and multiply among us, a numerous population, whose intellectual faculties would be "cabined, cribbed, confined," - whose volitions would not be their own,-whose conduct would be guided by a single will, whenever that will should determine to guide it, and who, stationary themselves, would, instead of aiding, retard the upward progress of man, and the onward progress of the republic.

ART. VI. - Der Jakobiner Klub. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Parteien und der politischen Sitten im Revolutions-Zeitalter, von J. W. ZINKEISEN. Berlin: Erster Theil. 1852. Zweiter Theil. 1853. [The Jacobin Club. A Contribution to the History of Parties and Political Morals during the Revolutionary Period, by J. W. Zinkeisen. 2 vols.]

Ir required all the industry and research for which the Germans are proverbial, to prepare this most valuable contribution to historical literature. The work is thorough and accurate, and its author is obviously a complete master of his subject, to which he has devoted years of labor in collecting and digesting the mass of memoirs, journals, and fly-sheets, in which the history of the Jacobin Club is, of necessity, principally to be found. He seems, indeed, to have sought information in every possible quarter, occasionally drawing a few items even from American sources, and once, at least, from the reports of the insane asylums of Paris, to which retreats, indeed, some

of his personages might sooner have found their way to the advantage of France and the world. Mr. Zinkeisen is by no means unknown in the rich historical literature of Germany. He has, if we mistake not, made more than one valuable contribution to it; but the only other work of his which we can claim to have examined is his History of the Turkish Empire in Europe, of which but two volumes have as yet appeared. It forms a portion of the valuable series of histories of European countries, known, from the names of its original editors, as the Heeren and Ukert series. Mr. Zinkeisen's work upon Turkey is not so voluminous nor so documentary as the great work of Von Hammer, nor is it likely to procure him so substantial a triple reward in titles, fame, and money; but it will probably be read by twenty persons where that is by one.

We could praise the typographical appearance of the History of the Jacobin Club, were we not sorry to perceive that Mr. Zinkeisen has so far enrolled himself among the disciples of the brothers Grimm - the Noah Websters of Germany. as to print his book in Roman letters, abandoning the familiar Germanic characters. The arguments may all be in favor of the Roman letters. Perhaps the German letters never ought to have existed; but they have existed, it is under their guise that we have become acquainted with the works of the poets, philosophers, and historians of Germany, and we therefore see with sorrow any attempt to cast aside these old servants, rather these old friends, who have been so faithful to us. It may be mere fancy or habit, but we seem to see in the very forms of the German letters something characteristic of the noble language of the "Fatherland." But perhaps, instead of complaining, we ought to be grateful that our author has stopped where he has; that he has not, with the Grimms, in their desire to introduce a literal "republic of letters" deprived his substantives of their familiar capitals, nor dropped out an h here and slipped it in there, in obedience to some newly discovered rule that it does no good in the one place and will do some in the other, or that its insertion or omission was originally a flagrant violation of the analogies of the language, — which we believe is the phrase of progressive lexicographers. Did we hope that the suggestion would be heeded, we would, more

over, venture a protest against the practice which Mr. Zinkeisen has perhaps rightly followed, as it is almost universal in Germany, and which is becoming very common in England and America, that of publishing the volumes of historical works at different, and often widely separated periods. But we fear that the direct and obvious advantages which this course possesses will so far combine with fashion as to overpower the still greater, though less apparent, advantages of the other course, so that our protest would be of little avail; and we will therefore, with a word or two about Mr. Zinkeisen's style, pass to the real object of this paper, - a sketch of the interior history of the Jacobin Club. The style seems to us, on the whole, clear and concise. There is, indeed, occasionally a confused sentence, or a strained metaphor, or an expression which in point of grammar bids defiance to all the rules of our Ollendorff (as Vol. II. p. 511); but when we compare it with the complex style of some of his countrymen, Neander for example, we see abundant cause to be grateful. There might perhaps be good ground for accusing our author of wandering from his subject, as for instance in much that is said of Mirabeau, but he defends that great man so successfully from the charges which have been ignorantly brought against him, that we forgive this digression at least, and, as we propose to follow him in others, criticism would hardly be appropriate.

It is, no doubt, an essential characteristic of the human mind that leads men to seek strength in association, and “the fate and activity of the Jacobin Club certainly present the most remarkable and momentous episode in the history of this spirit of association. It is at once the history of the entire club system, as it developed itself at the time of the first French Revolution, and forms therefore a most important contribution to the history of parties and political customs during the Revolution. For, while, on the one side, the ever bolder stand taken by the Jacobin Club led to the formation of all the more important unions of this sort, which, starting from various points of view, fancied they could withstand its boundless activity, on the other hand, the club system and the levelling spirit which animated it penetrated, with that as its model and under its power, through all classes of society, into the

most trifling relations, to the very vital nerve of the whole nation, in a manner that could not fail to raise it to a power to which in its way the history of the world can show no parallel."

Mr. Zinkeisen divides the history of this too famous Club into six principal periods, which mark sufficiently its decisive eras. They are,-1. The history of the Club Breton from its origin at Versailles to its removal to Paris in consequence of the events of October 5th and 6th, 1789, and the removal thither of the Assembly; 2. Its transformation into the Club of the Friends of the Constitution in the Jacobin Convent at Paris (Société des Amis de la Constitution séante aux Jacobins à Paris), and its contest with the moderate constitutional principle of the Revolution, till the separation of the Feuillans from it in July, 1791; 3. The continued contest between the Jacobins and the Feuillans, and the decisive victory of the former, down to the "September days" in 1792; 4. The contest of the Jacobins and Girondists, and the defeat of the latter, down to the end of October, 1793; 5. The Jacobin Club during the Reign of Terror down to the Ninth Thermidor, or July 27, 1794; and 6. The decline of Jacobinism, and the final closing of the Club, on November 11, 1794, with the subsequent attempts at its revival. We do not propose to present here even a sketch of the contents of the two capacious volumes before us,—which contain indeed a history of the French Revolution from a new and original point of view, but rather to confine ourselves to an account of the Club itself and its mode of organization, — to what may be called its inner history, — touching but briefly upon its outward activity, its contests and victories, which are to be found detailed at greater or less length in every history of the period. We are moved to attempt this by the surprising fact that, much as has been written of the Jacobins and Jacobinism, we have nowhere in the English language found anything approaching to a complete account of the organization of the Club, and what is contained in most of our histories upon the subject abounds in egregious errors, so numerous that the matter had better been left untouched. Still, we cannot point out these errors in detail, from want of space; but our own description, which, with Mr. Zinkeisen's assistance, we

trust will be found correct, will enable any one curious in the matter to discover them. The wide diffusion and general correctness of Alison's History of Europe must however be our excuse for referring to some of the errors into which its author has fallen.

Our author traces the origin of the French Clubs back to the "Committees" of our own Revolution, which were copied by the French nobility, among whom the diffusion of liberal principles in politics became at one time a sort of mania. But the first society which took the name of a club arose at Paris in 1782, and owed its origin to a trivial occurrence. The Duke of Orleans, then Duke of Chartres, cut down most of the trees in the Palais Royal in order to make room for shops, so that a crowd of idlers, who had been accustomed to meet beneath them, were driven to seek another place of meeting, and found it in certain rooms of the same Palais Royal, where the police allowed them to assemble on the express condition that they should not discuss politics nor religion. Thus was founded the Club Politique, as it was named, lucus a non lucendo. It soon led, both in Paris and in the provinces, to numerous similar associations, which, however, did not always observe the order not to discuss politics; and among others we find mention made in 1785 of a Club des Américains, whose members called themselves puristes libéraux. These clubs, however, were strictly confined to the upper classes, and were in many respects not unlike the English clubs of the present day. On the meeting of the Etats Généraux at Versailles, the deputies from Brittany, influenced probably by the peculiar condition of that province, formed the Club Breton, which was destined to become the world-renowned Jacobin Club, and to exercise for some years an almost unlimited despotism over France. The first idea of the Club Breton proceeded from

* Alison's statement (I. 474), that "it had its meetings in Paris, and embraced all the decided democrats both in and out of the Assembly," is, therefore, as applied to the period of which he is speaking, incorrect in both particulars. He indeed contradicts himself; for on a subsequent page (II. 9) he says: "The Club Breton, which, as already noticed, contained the extreme Revolutionary characters, hitherto, however, confined to members of the States-General, followed the Assembly from Versailles," &c. We are also disposed to doubt his assertion on the point first referred to, that "little is known of its designs, because all its members were bound by a solemn oath to