Jacobin Club

The Jacobin Club were a political group founded in Paris, France in August of 1790. Moderate at their formation, the club later became notorious for the Reign of Terror which they implemented during the French Revolution.

As a historian has noted about their role during the Revolution: "The attitude of the Jacobins about finances can be quite simply stated as an utter exhaustion of the present at the expense of the future. They never worried about the morrow, handling all their affairs as though each day were the last. That approach distinguished all actions undertaken during the Revolution. What permitted it to survive as long as it did was the fact that the day-to-day depletion of the resources accumulated by a rich and powerful natio allowed unexpectedly large resources to come to surface. The assignats, as long as they had any value at all, little as it might be, flooded the country in ever increasing quantities. The prospects of impeding bankruptcy never stopped their being issued even for a moment. Only when the public absolutely refused to accept paper money of any kind, did the issue of new notes come to a halt."