which preached the doctrines of liberty and equality, and at whose
head stood the professors Blau, Wedekind, Metternich, Hoffmann,
Forster, the eminent navigator, the doctors Boehmer and Stamm, Dorsch
of Strasburg, etc., chiefly men who had formerly been Illuminati, was
formed in imitation of the revolutionary Jacobin club at Paris.[5]
These people committed unheard-of follies. At first, notwithstanding
their doctrine of equality, they were distinguished by a particular
ribbon; the women, insensible to shame, wore girdles with long ends,
on which the word "liberty" was worked in front, and the word
"equality" behind. Women, girt with sabres, danced franticly around
tall trees of liberty, in imitation of those of France, and fired off
pistols. The men wore monstrous mustaches in imitation of those of
Custine, whom, notwithstanding their republican notions, they loaded
with servile flattery. As a means of gaining over the lower orders
among the citizens, who with plain good sense opposed their apish
tricks, the clubbists demolished a large stone, by which the
Archbishop Adolphus had formerly sworn, "You, citizens of Mayence,
shall not regain your privileges until this stone shall melt." This,
however, proved as little effective as did the production of a large
book, in which every citizen, desirous of transforming the electorate
of Mayence into a republic, was requested to inscribe his name.
Notwithstanding the threat of being treated, in case of refusal, as
slaves, the citizens and peasantry, plainly foreseeing that, instead
of receiving the promised boon of liberty, they would but expose
themselves to Custine's brutal tyranny, withheld their signatures, and
the clubbists finally established a republic under the protection of
France without the consent of the people, removed all the old
authorities, and, at the close of 1792, elected Dorsch, a remarkably
diminutive, ill-favored man, who had formerly been a priest,
president.