TheSociety of the Friends of Truth (Amis de la Verité), also known as theSocial Club (French:Cercle social), was a French revolutionary organization founded in 1790. It was "a mixture of revolutionary political club, the Masonic Lodge, and a literary salon".[1] It also published an influential revolutionary newspaper, theMouth of Iron.
The Society of the Friends of Truth was established in early 1790 byNicholas BonnevilleClaude Fauchet along withCondorcet andLanthenas.[2] The original purpose of the club was to become a "clearing-house" for correspondence between and among scholars from all over Europe. In the spirit of its founders, the club wished to cultivate a "public mandate" under which its activities would be governed. Thus, its newsletter,Mouth of Iron (La Bouche de fer), solicited letters from readers to comment on political affairs and to issue denunciations of counter-revolutionary plots.
The club was actually launched in the month of October 1790, when the sessions "of the Universal Confederation of the Friends of Truth" at theCirque du Palais-Royal started. Before an audience that ranged from five thousand to eight thousand people every week, Claude Fauchet, self-appointed "attorney of Truth", lectured onJean-Jacques Rousseau's 1762 workThe Social Contract. The club also formulated political theories on democratic government, ultimately dismissing direct democracy in favor of a system that resembled a popularly elected dictatorship that could be dismissed by the citizens whenever its actions became insupportable. The Social Club also advocated steps toward a more equitable distribution of wealth, always with an eye to Rousseau's ideals, but the club didnot support land reform.
The meetings were described in detail in the "Mouth of Iron", which published the proceedings of the Fauchet lectures and discussions and the mail that arrived following them. This publication is important for understanding the genesis of democratic ideas during theFrench Revolution. The Social Club was also the first revolutionary group to identify itself clearly as acosmopolitan organization, meaning that its aims superseded national boundaries. It made appeals to scholars worldwide, and it produced a polyglot edition of the 1791 Constitution for distribution globally. Its goal was to create a universal republic led by scholars.
Key figures attending the Social Club includedNicholas Bonneville andClaude Fauchet, as well asSylvain Maréchal,"Gracchus" Babeuf,Goupil de Préfeln,Camille Desmoulins,Bertrand Barère, and theMarquis de Condorcet. About one-hundred-thirty persons were members and attended meetings regularly.
The meetings were public because the club wanted to show the widest possible audience what discourse in the atmosphere of aliterary or philosophical salon might accomplish. (This explains the choice of theCirque du Palais-Royal as a meeting-place, rather than some smaller venue like a private home.) Spectators were invited to ask questions, and a resolution was passed at the end of each session.
In 1791, the membership of the Social Club openly declared themselvesrepublicans. It then became a meeting place for theGirondists, who would rivalmore radicalJacobin factions for primacy of republican ideology and action. The club's political orientation was liberal, and it promoted the ideal of a society composed of small and medium economic producers: craftsmen, farmers, merchants, and entrepreneurs.
The members of the Social Club also considered themselves contemporary feminists, and while no remarkable feminist change would come out of the club, the members of the club helped individually to develop the framework for what would become theDeclaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen.Olympe de Gouges, the author of theDeclaration of the Rights of Woman, was a member of the club and would often develop her ideas through the liberal conduit of the Social Club. While the members did proclaim themselves supporters of republican ideals publicly, their embrace of feminist ideals was regarded as much more treasonous (and as such, was quite under wraps).[3]
From 1791 on, the club's offices operated a publishing business. It became a center for the dissemination of revolutionary literature, including numerous newspapers, political pamphlets, theatrical works, poetry, posters, etc. A number of seminal authors,Louis-Sébastien Mercier,Nicolas-Edme Rétif de la Bretonne,Bernardin de Saint-Pierre,Jean-Baptiste Lamarck,Condorcet,Jacques Pierre Brissot,John Skey Eustace andJean-Marie Roland, were published under the club's auspices.
After the fall of the Girondins, the club dissolved. Fauchet was arrested and executed on 31 October 1793. Bonneville, the printer, resumed activity after9 Thermidor (27 July 1794). His press tried to resurrect the Social Club, but it never regained its previous audience. In a fragmented state, it continued to exist untilBrumaire of year VIII (November 1800). By then, ideologues likeDaunou,Volney,Daubenton, andBerthollet held center stage.
TheAmis de la Verité was fondly remembered, and it became a touchstone for the romantics of the nineteenth century, likeCharles Nodier andVictor Hugo, but it was also highly esteemed among politicians and social theorists such asCharles Fourier,Saint-Simon, andKarl Marx.
The revolutionary movement which began in 1789 in theCercle Social, which in the middle of its course had as its chief representativesLeclerc andRoux, and which finally withBabeuf’s conspiracy was temporarily defeated, gave rise to the communist idea whichBabeuf’s friendBuonarroti re-introduced in France after the Revolution of 1830. This idea, consistently developed, is theidea of thenew world order. —Karl Marx,The Holy Family (German: Die heilige Familie).
La Bouche de fer, theMouth of Iron, may have derived its name, sardonically, fromLucius Licinius Crassus's observation aboutthe consul, Domitius, "that it was no wonder that a man who had a beard of brass, also had a mouth of iron and a heart of lead."[4][5][6][7] Others hold that the name comes from a mailbox in the shape of a lion's mouth, located at the headquarters of the club, at No. 4, rue du Théâtre-Français, where letters, petitions, proposals, denunciations, screeds, and other treatises could be deposited. A third theory is that this name,Mouth of Iron, was the same name as a lodge of freemasons to which Bonneville and Fauchet had once belonged.[8]
In any case, theMouth of Iron was published in Paris between October 1790 and 28 July 1791, at first, three times per week, then daily, beginning on 22 June 1791. The newsletter contained comments on "The Social Contract" of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, essays by Claude Fauchet, transcripts of speeches by Condorcet, petitions from theClub of theCordeliers, etc. A subscription cost thirty-six pounds (livres) per year, and anyone who subscribed was automatically made a member of the Social Club; so, since casual readers and curiosity-seekers were counted as members, the size of the club's membership was probably somewhat overstated.
La Bouche de fer was the origin[9] of the famous quote, often attributed toDenis Diderot:"Quand le dernier des rois sera pendu avec les boyaux du dernier prêtre célibataire, le genre humain pourra espérer être heureux." ("When the last king is hanged with the entrails of the last celibate priest, mankind may hope to be happy.")