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486 to the Grande Sallé de Manège, or Riding School, to which the assembly had now transferred itself. This, as we have said, was founded on the Breton club, but it had now embraced determined revolutionists of all parts of France. The Lameths were at the head of it, but numbers of the most outré electors and of the members of the assembly itself were its regular frequenters.

Robespierre was a constant attendant, and Mirabeau was as often at the club as at the assembly. The president had his fauteuil, and his hand-bell to ring for order, just like the president of the assembly, and the club had its journal to record all its transactions and its speeches. In fact, it was a self-elected and hotter assembly, acting as a spur to that body, and possessing more of the esteem of the mob, from whom it drew its animus. La Fayette and Bailly, to neutralise its formidable influence, established another club, called the club of the Feuillans, from sitting in the convent of the monks of that order. The members of this club were men whom La Fayette and Bally deemed the most enlightened—that is, they were men of moderate and constitutional principles. But they sought in vain to win the favour of the multitude, who were accustomed to higher-seasoned politics and speeches. Soon after the establishment of the Feuillans, they celebrated their foundation and the 17th of June together, that being the day on which the states-general declared itself a national assembly. They had a grand dinner in the Palais Royal, and amongst them were Sieyès, Talleyrand, Chapelier, count Mirabeau, the brother of the orator, Bailly, La Fayette, and general Paoli, the Corsican patriot. They sate with open windows, so that the people in the Palais Royal might hear the music and the speeches; and they presented themselves on the balcony, and bowed to the people, and received a deputation of the dames de la halle. But all this would not do; the tone of the populace, which ruled the country, was far ahead of their politics, and the Feuillans died gradually out.

On the other hand, a still more fervid club than even the Jacobins grew and won the popular regard universally. This was the club of the Cordeliers, also taking its name from the convent of the monks of that order, where it sate. At this club, Desmoulins frenzied with revolutionary fire Danton, at the commencement of the revolution a briefless.