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 The First French Republic 437 be placed, upon the calendar of the National Assembly. It cannot be denied that, inasmuch as the non-deputies present exercised no restraint upon these discussions, they often had more force and brilliancy than in the Assembly itself, where one found himself hindered by the violent contradictions of the right wing, and often intimidated by a crowd of spectators. This preliminary consideration shed a great deal of light upon the discussions in the Assembly. The resolve to decide within the society itself, by preliminary ballots, the nominees for president, secretaries, and the committees of the Assem- bly, proved a great advantage to the popular party; for from that time the elections were almost always carried by the left, although up to that time they had been almost entirely con- trolled by the right. Camus, an ecclesiastical lawyer, then president and since become a republican, had been elected by the aristocracy. The number of the deputies who customarily frequented the Society of the Friends of the Constitution quickly rose to nearly four hundred. The number of writers also increased in a marked ratio. But it was not long before the condition of having published a useful book was no longer required for admission to the society, and it was decided that it was sufficient to have been recommended by six members. The organization then grew larger, and no longer possessed the same solidity in its composition. Very soon the place of meeting became insufficient, and permission was obtained from the monks of the convent to meet in their library, and later, in their church. Along in December, 1789, many of the leading inhabitants of the provinces, having come to Paris either on private busi- ness or to follow more closely the course of public affairs, had themselves introduced at the society and expressed a desire to establish similar ones in the chief cities of France ; for they felt that these associations of citizens intent upon defending the cause of public interest would form an efficient means of counteracting the violent opposition of "the aristoc- racy, a class which had not yet lost the power which it had so long exercised.