Here is a center of opinion and influence, analogous to that of the Jacobin club, which the Jacobins cannot tolerate.[2118] M.de Clermont-Tonnerre having leased the summer Vauxhall, a captain in the National Guard notifies the proprietor of it that if he rents it, the patriots of the Palais-Royal will march to it in a body, and close it; fearing that the building will be damaged, he cancels the lease, while the municipality, which fears skirmishes, orders a suspension of the meetings.

The club makes a complaint and follows it up, while the letter of the law is so plain that an official authorization of the club is finally granted.

Thereupon the Jacobin newspapers and stump--speakers let loose their fury against a future rival that threatens to dispute their empire.

On the 23rd of January, 1791, Barnave, in the National Assembly, employing metaphorical language apt to be used as a death-shout, accuses the members of the new club "of giving the people bread that carries poison with it." Four days after this, M.Clermont-Tonnerre's dwelling is assailed by an armed throng.
Malouet, on leaving it, is almost dragged from his carriage, and the crowd around him cry out, "There goes the bastard who denounced the people!"-- At length, its founders, who, out of consideration for the municipality, have waited two months, hire another hall in the Rue des Petites-Ecuries, and on the 28th of March begin their sessions.

"On reaching it," writes one of them, "we found a mob composed of drunkards, screaming boys, ragged women, soldiers exciting them on, and especially those frightful hounds, armed with stout, knotty cudgels, two feet long, which are excellent skull-crackers."[2119] The thing was made up beforehand.