When the news of this event reached the departments, it occasioned an universal rejoicing—­not such a rejoicing as is ordered for the successes of the French arms, (which always seems to be a matter of great indifference,) but a chearfulness of heart and of countenance; and many persons whom I do not remember to have ever seen in the least degree moved by political events, appeared sincerely delighted at this—­

          “And those smile now, who never smil’d before,
          “And those who always smil’d, now smile the more.” 
          Parnell’s Claudian.

The armies might proceed to Vienna, pillage the Escurial, or subjugate all Europe, and I am convinced no emotion of pleasure would be excited equal to that manifested at the downfall of the Jacobins of Paris.

Since this disgrace of the parent society, the Clubs in the departments have, for the most part, dissolved themselves, or dwindled into peaceable assemblies to hear the news read, and applaud the convention.—­The few Jacobin emblems which were yet remaining have totally disappeared, and no vestige of Jacobinism is left, but the graves of its victims, and the desolation of the country.

The profligate, the turbulent, the idle, and needy, of various countries in Europe, have been tempted by the successes of the French Jacobins to endeavour to establish similar institutions; but the same successes have operated as a warning to people of a different description, and the fall of these societies has drawn two confessions from their original partizans, which ought never to be forgotten—­namely, that they were formed for the purpose of subverting the monarchy, and that their existence is incompatible with regular government of any kind.—­“While the monarchy still existed, (says the most philosophic Lequinio, with whose scheme of reforming La Vendee you are already acquainted,) it was politic and necessary to encourage popular societies, as the most efficacious means of operating its destruction; but now we have effected a revolution, and have only to consolidate it by mild and philosophic laws, these societies are dangerous, because they can produce only confusion and disorder.”—­This is also the language of Brissot, who admires the Jacobins from their origin till the end of 1792, but after that period he admits they were only the instruments of faction, and destructive of all property and order.*

* The period of the Jacobin annals so much admired by Brissot, comprises the dethronement of the King, the massacres of the prisons, the banishment of the priests, &c.  That which he reprobates begins precisely at the period when the Jacobins disputed the claims of himself and his party to the exclusive direction of the government.—­See Brissot’s Address to his Constituents.

—­We learn therefore, not from the abuses alone, but from the praises bestowed on the Jacobins, how much such combinations are to be dreaded.  Their merit, it appears, consisted in the subversion of the monarchical government, and their crime in ceasing to be useful as agents of tyranny, the moment they ceased to be principals.