Supported by all the force of government, and intrinsically formidable by their union, the Clubs had long existed in defiance of public reprobation, and for some time they had braved not only the people, but the government itself.  The instant they were disabled from corresponding and communicating in that privileged sort of way which rendered them so conspicuous, they felt their weakness; and their desultory and unconnected efforts to regain their influence only served to complete its annihilation.  While they pretended obedience to the regulations to which the Convention had subjected them, they intrigued to promote a revolt, and were strenuously exerting themselves to gain partizans among the idle and dissolute, who, having subsisted for months as members of revolutionary committees, and in other revolutionary offices, were naturally averse from a more moderate government.  The numbers of these were far from inconsiderable:  and, when it is recollected that this description of people only had been allowed to retain their arms, while all who had any thing to defend were deprived of them, we cannot wonder if the Jacobins entertained hopes of success.

The Convention, aware of these attempts, now employed against its ancient accomplices the same arts that had proved so fatal to all those whom it had considered as its enemies.  A correspondence was “opportunely” intercepted between the Jacobins and the Emigrants in Switzerland, while emissaries insinuated themselves into the Clubs, for the purpose of exciting desperate motions; or, dispersed in public places, contrived, by assuming the Jacobin costume, to throw on the faction the odium of those seditious exclamations which they were employed to vociferate.

There is little doubt that the designs of the Jacobins were nearly such as have been imputed to them.  They had, however, become more politic than to act thus openly, without being prepared to repel their enemies, or to support their friends; and there is every appearance that the Swiss plots, and the insurrections of the Palais Egalite, were the devices of the government, to give a pretext for shutting up the Club altogether, and to avert the real dangers with which it was menaced, by spreading an alarm of fictitious ones.  A few idle people assembled (probably on purpose) about the Palais Egalite, and the place where the Jacobins held their meetings, and the exclamation of “Down with the Convention!” served as the signal for hostilities.  The aristocrats joined the partizans of the Convention, the Jacobins were attacked in their hall, and an affray ensued, in which several persons on each side were wounded.  Both parties accused each other of being the aggressor, and a report of the business was made to the Assembly; but the Assembly had already decided—­and, on the ninth of November, while the Jacobins were endeavouring to raise the storm by a recapitulation of the rights of man, a decree was passed, prohibiting their debates, and ordering the national seal to be put on their doors and papers.  The society were not in force to make resistance, and the decree was carried into execution as quietly as though it had been levelled against the hotel of some devoted aristocrat.