VICTOR RIQUETTI, MARQUIS DE, one of the most eminent propagators of the doctrines of the French Economists in France, was born at Perthus on the 5th of October 1715. He was the eldest surviving male descendant of a family esteemed ancient and noble even in Provence, and established there for above five centuries. This was the family of Riquetti or Arrighetti, which, having been banished from Florence during the civil commotions which agitated that republic, settled in Provence, and there maintained themselves in the rank of the most noble families of the country. The most famous of them all was Riquetti, the author and engineer of the Languedoc Canal; but the relationship was denied by the preposterous and barbarous pride of the clan. The subject of this notice, like most of the elder branches of French noble families, was placed betimes in the army; he was made a Chevalier de Malte at three years of age, an ensign at fourteen, and soon afterwards a captain; he served with credit and distinction at the sieges of Kehl and Philippsburg, and at the battles of Dettingen and Cluses; and, in the year 1743, he received the cross of St Louis, being then in the twenty-eighth year of his age. The death of his father having some years before placed him in a state of independence, he now quitted the army, and married the Marquise de Saulvebeuf, who, having been betrothed at twelve years of age, had been left a widow before she became a wife. But this marriage did not in the end prove fortunate. The lady was young, rich, and noble, but she was not handsome; and although her virtue was beyond all suspicion, the marquis, not satisfied with this, quarrelled with her, after she had lived with him fifteen years in peace and comfort, and had borne him eleven children; took into his house a fascinating young Swiss lady called Madame de Pailly; lived openly with the latter as his mistress; turned his unfortunate wife out of doors; and then engaged in a course of litigation with her, and of cruel as well as treacherous processes against her, which rendered both wretched, and made them the subject of universal talk, the objects of general censure, without profiting any human being except Madame de Pailly, the lawyers, and the retailers of scandalous gossip in the drawing-rooms of Paris.

The chief object of the Marquis de Mirabeau in quitting the profession of arms was to lead a life of literary retirement, and to improve the condition of his rural dependents. Towards the latter, indeed, his conduct seems to have been uniformly sensible, just, and kind; he was their real father, and they were in fact the only children who ever found in him the virtues of the paternal character. He went to reside in the family chateau in Provence; but neither the distance from Paris nor the state of the country suited his spirit or agreed with his taste. Accordingly, he purchased the estate of Bignon, fifteen miles from Sens and Nemours, and soon afterwards an hotel in Paris. He then entered upon the career of philosophy, which he pursued for half a century, and which terminated only with his life, about the beginning of the French Revolution, when he left the world with a reputation for virtue greatly exaggerated, and for talents much below his real merit. He died at Argenteuil on the 13th of July 1789, at a time when his son, the Count de Mirabeau, was rapidly rising to a supremacy of influence and power in the National Assembly.

The Marquis de Mirabeau was, after Quesnay, the chief patriarch of the sect of Economists; and was also well known and distinguished for his practical attention to economics as a considerable landowner and a patrician of high rank. But his style, which had the faults common to all the writers of the sect, was, besides, uncouth and fantastic in a remarkable degree, being deformed by an unhappy affection of imitating the manner of Montaigne in an accumulation of trivial redundancies, which he called "his dear native exuberance," as well as by a certain false heat, and an incredible excess of pride and of dogmatism. That these defects, however, were not the result of any natural cloudiness or obliquity of mind, but of the vicious standard upon which he had formed his taste, is evident from his correspondence published in the Bio- Indeed his letters form, in all respects, a perfect contrast to his more elaborate compositions, being as remarkable for their natural grace, idiomatic elegance, and perfect perspicuity, as the latter are for their rugged dulness, their pedantic extravagance, and their affected obscurity. Nothing, in truth, can be more entirely unlike than the philosopher and the man; the enlightened economist and the haughty aristocratic noble; the friend of Quesnay and the father of Mirabeau; the Ami des Hommes and the Pére de Famille.

But all this is by no means without example. Such discrepancies between the public and the domestic characters of men are indeed far from being of rare occurrence. The difference here, however, is unfortunately carried farther than in almost any other instance known. The characteristic of the sect to which the Marquis belonged was a rigorous love of the strictest justice; but his treatment of his son exhibits one perpetual scene of all justice grossly outraged. To observe moderation, to regard the useful end of all things, to act as if they were born not for themselves but for all mankind, were the leading maxims of the Economists:

Secta fuit, servare modum fineque tenere, Naturamque sequi, patriaeque impendere vitam; Nec sibi, sed toti genitum se credere mundo.

The predominant passion of the marquis, however, was family pride; moderation neither in this nor in any other feeling was never for an instant the innate of his mind nor the regulator of his thoughts; he always spoke, wrote, and acted in private life, as one who never doubted that the world was made for the order, not the sect, to which he belonged, and that his first and highest duty was to keep the Mirabeau family at the head of the privileged class. To follow the dictates of nature, and devote their lives to the cause of truth, were precepts constantly inculcated by the Economists. The most inveterate prepossession against his first-born; the most refined cruelty of treatment which his ingenuity could devise for that child; even the expedient of leaving him in wretched circumstances, and restoring him to liberty, that he might either terminate his existence in despair or forfeit his life to the law; accompanied with an adulterous connection formed under his own roof, and which drove from his house a wife who had borne him eleven children, and brought an accession to his income of L2000 a year;—such, not to mention imputed iniquities of a still darker complexion, are the traits of private character which distinguished the lover of nature and of truth, and which, in the work already referred to, are, for the most part, represented under the infallible testimony of his own hand. To the same authority we are further indebted for proofs of a difference still more marvellous, and of which there is probably no other example. The author of the dullest, and most heavy, uninteresting books, written in the most tiresome, insipid, and almost intolerable style, is the author of the very best, most lively, and most entertaining letters we have ever met with, written in a style which, for originality, richness, force, and felicity of diction, is almost without a rival. "Les lettres familières," says the editor of the Mémoires Biographiques, "que nous avons par milliers, et qui furent toujours remarquables par un naturel abondant et facile, par une aisance spirituelle et gaie, forment le plus inexplicable des contrastes avec ses écrits destinés à la publicité, tracés pour ainsi dire en sa présence, et dans lesquels le fond toujours très-sensé des idées, est décrédité par la couleur particulière de son style obscur, pesant, et baroque, mêlé de tropes bizarres, d'incohé-

rentes métaphores, en un mot, il faut le dire, de galimatias intolérable."

The works of the Marquis of Mirabeau, which have been called the Apocalypse of Political Economy, form no less than twenty-two volumes; but those alone which are now known or consulted are L'Ami des Hommes, Théorie de l'Impôt, Philosophie Rurale, and Éducation Civile d'un Prince. Besides these, he contributed a vast number of papers to the Journal d'Agriculture and the Ephémérides du Citoyen, the former of which reached thirty, and the latter forty volumes. The greater part of his works have been collected and published as a sequel to the Ami des Hommes, in eight vols. 12mo, or three vols. 4to. Of these, the following is nearly a complete list, viz. Ami des Hommes, Paris, 1755, in five vols. 12mo; 2. Examen des Poésies sacrées de Lefranc de Pompignan, 1755, in 12mo; 3. Mémoire sur les États Provinciaux, 1757, in 12mo; 4. Mémoire concernant l'Utilité des États Provinciaux, 1757, in 8vo; 5. Réponse du Correspondant à son Banquier, 1759, in 4to; 6. Théorie de l'Impôt, Paris, 1760, in 4to and 12mo; 7. Philosophie Rurale, ou Économie Générale et Particulière, de l'Agriculture, Amsterdam, 1764, in three vols. 12mo; 8. Lettres sur le Commerce des Grains, 1768, in 12mo; 9. Les Économiques, Paris, 1769, in two vols. 4to, or four vols. 12mo; 10. Lettres Économiques, Amsterdam, 1770, in 12mo; 11. Les Devoirs, Milan, 1770, in 8vo; 12. La Science, ou les Droits et les Devoirs de l'Homme, Lausanne, 1774, in 12mo; 13. Lettres sur la Legislation, ou l'Ordre Légal détruit, rétabli et perpétué, Berne, 1775, in three vols. 12mo; 14. Entretiens d'un jeune Prince avec son Gouverneur, Paris, 1785, in four vols. 12mo; 15. Éducation Civile d'un Prince, Dourlac, 1788, in 8vo; 16. Hommes à célébrer pour avoir bien mérité de leur Siècle et de l'Humanité par leurs écrits sur l'Économie Politique; 17. Rêve d'un Goutteux, 1788, in 8vo. In his eulogy of Quesnay, inserted in the Ephémérides du Citoyen, he styles the head of the sect of the Economists Maître de la Science, and places him above both Socrates and Confucius; and this piece is still sought for as a model of the perplexed and nonsensical style of writing (style amplifugurique).

Mirabeau, Honore-Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de, famous for the influence, or rather ascendancy, which he exercised over the French Revolution, was son of the preceding, and was born at Bignon, near Nemours, on the 9th of March 1749. He was endowed by nature with a robust constitution, a quick and vigorous understanding, a lively imagination, passions more vehement than are almost ever found in union with such intellectual powers, and a disposition kindly and humane. His temperament led to the early development both of his bodily and mental faculties; and there are few instances on record of children forming such manly ideas as he appears to have entertained, even during his infancy. The peculiar circumstances in which he was placed, from his boyhood upwards, by the singular opinions, strange prejudices, and unfeeling temper of his father, exercised a powerful influence upon his whole conduct, and must, in every material respect, have deeply affected his character. Yet we may appreciate his merits and faults even through the artificial covering which was thus thrown over his nature; and although impetuosity of feeling, and a corresponding disregard of the obstacles which he should have respected instead of overleaping, form a predominant feature of his mind and habits, we cannot fairly charge him with those faults which go mainly to form the vicious disposition.

His youth was confided to an able preceptor, the elder Mirabeau. Lachabessière; but this meritorious individual, being thwarted in his plan, could not turn to advantage the ardour which devoured his pupil. The latter came out of his hands with a slight knowledge of Latin and of the classics, and was at length thrown into a military boarding-house, where he skimmed the surface of different languages, as well as that of the elegant arts, and was initiated into the mathematics by the celebrated Lagrange. He appears to have been early seized with the desire of writing; for whilst his head was only filled with scattered and isolated notions, he yielded to this impulse, and published an eulogy of the great Condé, as well as some pieces in verse.

At the age of seventeen he entered the cavalry as a volunteer; and, disregarding the ridicule to which those officers exposed themselves who sought to dignify the futile indolence of a garrison life by some useful employment, he read all the works he could procure on the military art. These studious habits, even if they had not been prompted by an insatiable desire of knowledge, would have been rendered necessary by the parsimony of a selfish and haughty father, who, discovering with pain in the heir of his name, a spirit of independence, incapable of bending to the paternal yoke, adopted a cruel system of checking his prodigious activity by means of pecuniary embarrassments. But the niggardly treatment to which his comfort and respectability were all his life sacrificed, and which his father sought to reconcile with a family pride almost without parallel, never made the son forget who and what he was, by descending to any flagrant act of meanness or dishonour; and whilst pressed by the want of the common necessaries of life, and tortured by the sight of those whom he most loved suffering the same privations, his exertions to relieve himself were always confined to the work of honest though obscure industry; nor has any one of his innumerable enemies, domestic, personal, or political, ever charged him with using, for the purpose of solicitation, that pen which soon became his only resource against want.

About this time a love adventure in which the young count engaged made a great noise; and in virtue of a lettre de cachet, solicited by his father, he was sent prisoner to the Isle of Rhé. The Ami des Hommes even entertained the notion of cutting off his son from society, by banishing him to the Dutch-American colonies; and it was only by the most pressing representations that the philosophical marquis was induced to abandon the humane project of sending his son to perish under the tropical heats and rains of Surinam. At length the count obtained permission to make the campaign of Corsica, and there served with such distinction that paternal pride was for a moment soothed; but when, recompensed with a brevet as captain of dragoons, he solicited his father to purchase him a regiment, he received this strange reply, "That the Bayards and the Duguesclin had not proceeded thus." After the submission of Corsica, the Count de Mirabeau took up his pen to draw a picture of the oppression which Genoa had exercised over that country. This work had, no doubt, many imperfections; yet, defective as it was, it bore the impress of talent, and, although it displeased the Marquis de Mirabeau, the states of Corsica thought it of sufficient importance to deserve being printed. On his return to France, he succeeded in ingratiating himself with the Friend of Men, and, to please the philanthropist, consented to bury himself for some time in the Limousin, where he occupied himself with improving the lands, and settling some litigations. But, growing weary of these obscure labours, he repaired to Paris in 1771, and perceived that his short-lived favour was about to expire. It was then that he said to the Marquis de Mirabeau, "Mais, mon père, quand vous n'auriez que de l'amour-propre, mes succès seraient encore les vôtres?" His contempt for the empiricism of the Economists, and the manifest opposition which he showed to the despotism of such men as Maupeou and Terray, completed his disfavour with the Ami des Hommes, who, notwithstanding his aristocratic pride, had been always accustomed to cringe to authority.

In the same year he went to Provence, ostensibly to look after the family estates, but probably to domesticate himself amongst the people of that country, and also to raise up their enemies to the new parliament. In 1772, he married Marie-Emilie de Covet, only daughter of the Marquis de Marignane, a young and rich heiress, but whose fortune consisted almost wholly in substitutions and successions, which could not be available until they opened in the ordinary course of events. He received from his father-in-law a pension of 3000 francs, and from his own father an allowance of 6000, being about L3000 in all; but before the lapse of two years he had squandered away the double of all his disposable means, and involved himself in difficulties. Arrangements might easily have been made with his creditors; but the stern patron of the Economists preferred to lay his son under interdict, and confine him by order of the king to Manosque, a small borough on his property. It was in this seclusion that, warmed by the perusal of Tacitus and Rousseau, Mirabeau wrote in haste, under the impulse of the moment, his Essai sur le Despotisme (published in Holland in 1776); a piece full of fire and vigour, but, as a whole, perhaps the most incoherent of all his productions. The old marquis, dreaming only of formulas, and slavish in his adulation of authority, could scarcely be expected to relish the bold heresies of his son; and, unhappily, the latter was soon guilty of another, and as it was deemed, still graver transgression.

Having broken his ban for the purpose of challenging some genteeel poltroon who had insulted one of his sisters, but who, when called to account, refused to fight, a new proceeding was in consequence directed against him, and his father succeeded in having him detained in the castle of If, whence he was transferred to Fort Joux, in the year 1776. But here, as at the Isle of Rhé, he charmed and conquered all who came near him. By the magic of his language and manners he completely subjugated the governor, and in consequence succeeded in having the adjacent town of Pontarlier included within the limits of his prison. It was during his stay there that he first saw Sophie de Ruffey, a young and amiable girl of about eighteen, whom her parents had married to a husband considerably above seventy, the Marquis de Monnier, ex-president of the chamber of accounts at Dole. Infamed with the most violent love, he soon succeeded in seducing a young and credulous woman; and this affair immediately involved him in fresh troubles. The family of the outraged husband, that of Madame de Monnier, and his own, combined together, although with opposite intentions, to call down upon his head all the rigour of the law. At this time Malseherbes wrote to him in these terms: "I am quitting the ministry, and the last counsel I can give you is to fly, and take foreign service." Mirabeau acted on this advice, and Sophie proceeded to rejoin him in Switzerland, whence they took refuge in Holland.

The conduct of Mirabeau in this affair, though it cannot be defended, admits of some palliation; and it would have been well if the influence of disorderly passions had not plunged him into other and still more culpable excesses. A girl of eighteen married to a man of seventy-five, and only nominally married to this keeper, alternately confiding and jealous, now tempting her by indulgence and carelessness, now watching and restraining with tormenting and suspicious rigour; these were the circumstances which first awakened in Mirabeau's bosom the most irresistible of the passions, and which is only the more dangerous by so often assuming the garb, and uniting itself with the reality, of virtuous propensities. The elopement which fol- lowed, and which was caused by a dislike on both parts to play the hypocrite, and live with the man whom they were deceiving, proved altogether alien to the habits of French society, and grievously outraged the feelings of those refined profligates, who, reckoning vice itself nothing, held indecorum to be the worst of all enormities; who preferred the semblance to the reality of virtue, and forgave one offence if the more debasing crimes of falsehood and hypocrisy were added to veil it from the public view. An outcry was accordingly raised throughout all society in France, and even re-echoed in Europe, against the unheard-of enormity. A young woman had left her superannuated husband, whom she had, by the customs of society, been compelled to take as her tyrant and tormentor under that name; and had left him for one of an age near her own, who sacrificed himself for her deliverance. They had rebelled against those rules which regulated the vicious intercourse of nobles in France; they had outraged all the habitual feelings of patrician nature, by refusing to lead a life of pretence, and treachery, and secret indulgence; they had even brought into jeopardy the long-established security of illicit intercourse, understood without being avowed; and the veil was thus about to be torn away from all those endearing immoralities which gave occupation and interest to high life, and broke the monotony of an existence which demanded that it should never be ruffled, except by voluntary excitements. Hence all society, that is, all the upper and worthless portion of it, united against the hapless pair. Mirabeau was regarded as a monster; and the conduct of his father, who hunted him over all Europe, and then immured him in a dungeon during the best years of his life, was excused by all, and censured by none; whilst nobody ever thought of visiting with the slightest blame, none ever ventured "to hint a doubt or hesitate dislike" of that very father, who had turned his wife, the mother of his children, out of doors, and had installed an unprincipled strumpet in her room.

He had no sooner fled than the parliament of Besançon charged him with abduction and robbery, condemned him in contumacious absence, and caused him to be decapitated in effigy; a proceeding equally ridiculous in itself, and illustrative of the manners and morals of the time. Meanwhile, the count put himself in the pay of the Dutch booksellers, and sought, by indefatigable labour, to provide resources for himself and his companion. During some eight months, he toiled hard, doing endless Gibbonite work, but commonly earning his gold louis a day. The most considerable task he had to perform was the translation of Watson's History of Philip II., which he undertook along with one Durival. At this time, having learned that his father accused him of having dishonoured his bed, Mirabeau made cruel reprisals on his unrelenting parent, by disseminating libels in which the marquis was accused of the most shocking crimes and enormities. Finding his means of subsistence inadequate, he contemplated emigrating to America; but he was not allowed time to carry this project into effect. On the 14th of May 1777, he was seized by Brugnère, an inspector of the French police, at Amsterdam, in virtue of an order from the king, which had been sanctioned by the Dutch government; and, along with Sophie, then pregnant, he was carried to Paris, where he was immured in the fortress of Vincennes, and his mistress placed in a maison de surveillance.

In this prison Mirabeau underwent a detention of forty-two months. At first he was allowed neither books nor writing materials; and when at length this indulgence was granted him, he was only permitted to correspond with Madame de Monnier, on the condition that his letters should be seen by the governor, Lenoir (whose affections he had, as usual, entirely gained), and afterwards returned to this Mirabeau-keeping. This correspondence lay forgotten in Lenoir's desk until the year 1792, when it was taken away by Manuel, the procurer of the commune, and by him given to the world on a speculation of profiting by the sale. It would have been well if these letters had never seen the light, and been buried in the gulf of oblivion; and much more does the same observation apply to some of the other writings which were the works of his hours of confinement in Vincennes, particularly to a Bibliothèque Eroticon, and a romance entitled Ma Conversion, both shameful and flagitious productions, the subsequent publication of which leaves a deep stain on the memory of Mirabeau. Indeed, one of the darkest parts of his conduct relates, not so much to Madame de Monnier, as to Sophie. When, under that name, he dragged her before the public, and indulged a loose and prurient fancy in catering to the worst appetites of licentious minds, he became justly the object of aversion and disgust; he ranged himself with the base manufacturers of obscene works, and even took precedence of these in profligacy by making his own amours the theme of his abandoned contemplations. This is the very worst passage in his history, because it is one which admits neither defence nor palliation. It is nothing to the purpose that these flagitious writings may have been afterwards used from necessity. If that was the cause of giving such shameful effusions publicity, it may well be said that the offence of the composition, disgusting as it was, merits the least grave portion of the blame. "Mirabeau's correspondence with Madame de Monnier, from his prison at Vincennes," says Dumont, "evinced more of sensuality than sentiment. Many of his letters are so repugnant to modesty, that they degrade the person to whom they are addressed; for no man would presume to adopt so licentious a style in writing to a woman for whom he had the least esteem." Yet, strange as it may seem, much of this obscenity was borrowed from the licentious novels and periodicals of the day; and even the Mercure de France was put in requisition, when it afforded any thing suited to the purpose of the writer.

At length, after an imprisonment of three years and a half, Mirabeau was restored to society and to active life; with impaired strength indeed, but with undiminished energy of mind. On his liberation, he had an interview with Madame de Monnier, his Sophie, who had been supposed faithless, and he accordingly charged her with the offence; but she defended her conduct, and recriminated upon her lover, who, it may be presumed, could not so easily repel the accusation. They parted in mutual displeasure, and the estrangement was unhappily eternal. Of the voluntary death which she afterwards sought, and which has been repeatedly attributed to Mirabeau, every circumstance conspires to show that he was entirely innocent. Another accusation which, although often repeated, appears to be equally groundless, is, that about this time he sought to gain the favour of his father, by writing memoirs injurious to his mother, who, amidst all the wrongs she suffered from his family, had never been wanting in tenderness to him. There is something so unnatural and revolting in such an imputation, that, in the absence of all direct or sufficient evidence, it cannot for a moment be entertained; and, besides, with all his faults and his vices, which the malignity of party has not failed to exaggerate to the utmost, there was in his nature so large a fund of generosity and affection, as to render such conduct upon his part in the highest degree improbable.

There was one subject, however, which Mirabeau had much at heart, namely, to obtain the reversal of the de-

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1 Edinburgh Review, vol. lxii. pp. 196, 197. 2 Dumont, Souvenirs de Mirabeau. Mirabeau's life, for the next five years, presents one continued struggle with all kinds of difficulties and privations. Being destitute of the means of subsistence, and suspected by the authorities, he set out for London in 1784, accompanied by a Dutch girl who had succeeded Sophie in his affections; and there published, in French and English, his *Considérations sur l'Ordre de Cincinnatus*, which he had commenced in Paris under the auspices of Franklin. He translated Price's Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution, with Reflections and Notes, in which he was assisted by Turgot; and, about the same time, he published his *Doutes sur la Liberté de l'Escale*, in opposition to the views of Joseph II., a production which was speedily followed by his *Lettre* to the same sovereign upon his prohibiting emigration. He attacked the *caisse d'escompte*, the bank of Saint-Charles, and the water-company of Paris; and having been openly pointed out as the instrument of Panchaud, Clavière, and other speculators, he engaged in a furious controversy with Beaumarchais, who had been employed to reply on behalf of the company, and who treated him with a calm disdain, which was rendered still more offensive by ironical commendations. Mirabeau rejoined like a man whom contempt had rendered frantic; and the violent attack which he made on Beaumarchais, though deformed by gross personalities, is perhaps the most eloquent of all his writings. It produced a great effect at Paris, and contributed not a little to his ulterior success. His activity was, in fact, boundless. Having become acquainted with a geographer, whose name M. Dumont does not remember, he meditated writing an universal geography; and if any one had offered him the elements of a Chinese grammar, he would no doubt have attempted a treatise on the Chinese language. He studied a subject whilst he was writing upon it, and he only required an assistant to furnish him with matter. "He could contrive," says Dumont, "to get notes and additions from twenty different hands; and had he been offered a good price, I am confident he would have undertaken to write even an encyclopedia." He had the art of finding out men of talent, and of successfully flattering those who could be of use to him. He worked upon them with insinuations of friendship and ideas of public benefit; whilst his interesting and animating conversation was like a hone which he employed to sharpen his tools. Nothing was lost to him; he was a sort of universal plagiarist, who appropriated for his own benefit the fruits of the reading and study of his friends. But he knew how to employ the information thus acquired, so as to appear to have always possessed it; and when he had begun a work, it was seen to make a rapid and daily progress.

This state of things, however, could not last long. His wants outran his means; his father yielded him no effectual assistance; and he was obliged to seek other resources. In these circumstances, he solicited employment from Calonne, who then directed the finances, and was by that minister sent on a secret mission to Berlin. This employment was given him for the triple object of getting rid of a troublesome suitor, of sounding by his means the dispositions of the young prince who was about to ascend the throne of Prussia, and of inducing the latter to consent to advance a considerable loan to France. The equivocal character in which Mirabeau appeared did not prevent him from evincing his usual zeal and activity. Being honoured with a favourable reception by the Duke of Brunswick, he also obtained the suffrage of the Great Frederick himself, whose last moments he witnessed. To the successor of that monarch, on the very day of his accession, he transmitted a letter, in which he ventured to give some advice, with which the young sovereign did not appear to be offended, though he felt himself under no obligation to follow it. Subsequently, being desirous to open the eyes of Frederick-William respecting the reveries of the illuminati, Mirabeau composed a pamphlet, in which he unsparingly ridiculed Lavater and Count Cagliostro. Nor, amidst these various occupations, did he lose sight of the interests of France. His despatches, addressed to M. de Calonne and to the Duke de Lauzun, communicated ample diurnal details respecting the cabinet of Berlin; and being always famished for money, as well as devoured by ambition, we find him in each dispatch demanding gratifications and advancement. Meanwhile, a secret statistical table of Germany chanced to fall into his hands. He at once perceived its importance, and managed to get it translated by means of a valet who knew only German, and a French secretary who understood no language but his own. At the same time he acquired ample literary materials, and was indebted to Major Mauvillon for some invaluable documents, which, when classed and arranged by himself, formed the elements of his book on the Prussian monarchy (*Monarchie Prussienne*). But his activity was too great to escape notice, and Frederick-William, not relishing the perspicacity and vigilance of so close an observer, ordered him to quit the Prussian territory, in which he had resided about eight months. He returned to Paris, and soon became deeply involved in fresh agitation and intrigue.

M. de Calonne was then placing his plans of administration under the protection of the first notables, whom he had nation against the author, who had unscrupulously violated Mirabeau, the secrets of hospitality, and the confidence of his friends, as well as that of the government, in order to supply pabulum to public malignity. In this disgraceful production, the Emperor Joseph II., the king of Prussia, and particularly Prince Henry, who was then at Paris, were all equally ill treated. Louis XVI. conceived that some satisfaction was due to the diplomatic corps, who had been so grossly assailed, and accordingly the libel was adjudged by the parliament to be burned by the hands of the common hangman. The worst passage of Mirabeau's life is the publication of the Letters to Sophie; but that of the Berlin Correspondence is equally without justification, although on different grounds. In extenuation of this proceeding, it has been observed, that the whole object of his existence depended upon the supplies which it furnished; that without it his election in Provence would have been hopeless. But this is a sorry topic, even of palliation.

Great events were now near at hand. On the 27th of December 1788, the long-expected royal proclamation appeared, definitively convoking the States-general for May 1789. Need we ask whether Mirabeau now bestirred himself; whether or not he was off to Provence, to the assembly of the noblesse, with all his faculties screwed to the sticking-place? A prospect had at length opened to him of rising superior to the humiliation of his youth, and the contempt attached to the precarious and degraded life he had led; he seems to have had a presentiment of the part which he was soon destined to perform in a mighty revolution, now about to commence; and he lost no time in taking means to bring about the accomplishment of his destiny. In the list of the popular candidates his name was accordingly proclaimed, in all parts of Provence, beside that of Raynal; and he laboured with unwearied activity in stimulating public feeling, proclaiming the necessity of political regeneration, denouncing abuses, exposing tyranny and misgovernment, agitating and contending by day, writing pamphlets and paragraphs by night, and, in short, straining every nerve to attain the first and grand object of his ambition. Nevertheless, when he presented himself in the assembly of the noblesse to vote with his peers, the latter excluded him, upon the pretence that the possessors of fiefs alone had the right of sitting amongst them. Against this fatal decision, which confirmed the alienation of the most dangerous enemy which the ignorance and insolence of a privileged order raised up for their own overthrow, Mirabeau protested in eloquent and energetic terms, exposing the folly of his order, and prognosticating the doom which it was now preparing for itself. We can only afford room for two paragraphs of this celebrated remonstrance.

"What have I done that was so criminal?" he exclaimed. "I have wished that my order were wise enough to give to-day what will infallibly be wrested from it to-morrow; that it should receive the merit and glory of sanctioning the assemblage of the three orders, which all Provence loudly demands. This is the crime of your 'enemy of peace.' Or rather, I have ventured to believe that the people might be in the right. Ah, doubtless, a patrician soiled with such a thought deserves vengeance. But I am still guiltier than you think; for it is my belief that the people which complains is always in the right; that its indefatigable patience invariably waits the uttermost excesses of oppression, before it can determine on resisting; that it never resists long enough to obtain complete redress, and does not sufficiently know, that to strike its enemies into terror and submission, it has only to stand still; that the most innocent as the most invincible of all powers is the power of refusing to act. I believe after this manner; punish the enemy of peace."

"In all countries, in all times, aristocrats have implaca- Mirabeau, by persecuted the people's friends; and if, by some singular combination of fortune, there chanced to arise such an one in their own circle, it was he above all whom they struck at, eager to inspire wider terror by the elevation of their victim. Thus perished the last of the Gracchi by the hands of the patricians; but, being struck with the mortal stab, he flung dust towards heaven, and called on the avenging deities; and from this dust sprang Marius, —Marius, not so illustrious for exterminating the Cimbri as for overturning in Rome the tyranny of the noblesse."

It is admitted by his enemies, that during his sojourn in Provence, Mirabeau gave proofs of equal ability and moderation. Surrounded by seditious movements, he repeatedly acted as mediator between the insurrection and the authorities, who would probably not have been sorry to find an occasion or pretext for proceeding against him. He restrained the violence of the multitude, by whom he was borne along in triumph; and being recommended to the suffrages of the electors of the tiers-état, he was proclaimed deputy both at Aix and at Marseilles. He made choice of the former, and immediately set out for Paris, to endeavour to arrange certain prosecutions which he had drawn upon himself by the publication of his despatches from Berlin. On the 4th of May 1789, Madame de Staël, looking from a window in the principal street of Versailles, as the deputies walked in procession from the church of Notre Dame to that of Saint Louis to hear high mass and be there constituted States-general, saw and above all distinguished the Count de Mirabeau amongst those nobles who had been deputed to the third estate. "The opinion men had of his genius," says the celebrated daughter of Necker, "was singularly augmented by the fear entertained of his immorality; and yet it was this very immorality which strengthened the influence his astonishing faculties were to secure him. You could not but look long at this man, when once you had noticed him. His immense black head of hair distinguished him amongst them all; you would have said his force depended on it, like that of Samson. His face borrowed new expression from its very ugliness; his whole person gave you the idea of an irregular power, but a power such as you would figure in a tribune of the people." This description of his personal appearance seems to be as just as it is striking. In regard to character, he was so fully aware that if he had enjoyed personal consideration all France would have been at his feet, that there were moments when he would have consented to pass seven times through the heated furnace to purify the name of Mirabeau.

Mirabeau's history during the remaining twenty-three months of his life falls not to be written here; yet it is an astonishing passage, into which, short as it proved, are crowded the history of the Revolution in its first development, and that of the sudden and undisputed ascendency which he gained over the National Assembly, the Revolution itself, and indeed all France. When he appeared in the hall of the States-general, and his name was first read out, a disapproving murmur arose from the assembly, followed by hooting, instead of the applause with which some other well-known names had been greeted. Insult and contempt showed how low he stood in the estimation of his colleagues. He perceived and felt the disrespect into which he had fallen; yet by his lofty and undaunted bearing he evinced his inherent sense of superiority, and scowled defiance at the murmurers. He was indeed the member of members; the most notable single element in that remarkable assembly; the man who, after a little time, was to become a power in the Revolution, to brave the court, to overawe the factions, and to exercise an undisputed supremacy. In one of those moments which are cardinal, and decisive for centuries, he visibly saved, by his own force and energy, the existence of the Constituent Assembly. On the 23rd of June, the royal proclamation was promulgated, ordaining the assembly to dissolve, and to meet again on the morrow as the separate third estate. A military force was at hand; the king's orders were express; and the Bastille, or even the scaffold itself, might be the penalty of disobedience. Yet Mirabeau disobeyed. When all around him were dismayed and panic-stricken, he raised his commanding voice to restore their faltering courage, and to re-animate that assembly which had but lately murmured at the very sound of his name. De Brézé entered with the king's renewed order to separate. "Gentlemen," said he, "you have heard the king's commands." "Yes, sir," replied Mirabeau, "we have heard what the king has been advised to say; and you, who cannot be the interpreter of his meaning to the States-general, you who have neither vote, nor seat, nor right of speech here, you are not the man to remind us of it. Go, sir, tell those who sent you that we are here by the will of the nation, and that nothing but the force of bayonets shall drive us hence." This was not a mere bravado. It was giving form and expression to feebler but similar sentiments; it was imparting energy to less concentrated and less resolute wills. Mirabeau possessed in a high degree the courage produced by excitement; and he was endowed with wonderful presence of mind. Hence he went through the Revolution like a force, commanding and overwhelming all. Whilst innumerable theorists and pedants were manufacturing their paper constitution, which "proved but the almanac of a single year," he looked not at speculations about social contracts, but at men and things; discerning what was to be done, and straightway proceeding to do it. He alone was capable of saving the monarchy on the one hand, and of repelling anarchy on the other. He fascinated, overawed, and subjugated every one. When the court found it necessary to treat with him, even Marie Antoinette was charmed with the tribune of the people, whom she had had so much cause to dread and to hate. In a word, he was the man of the Revolution, the king of that mighty popular movement, whilst he lived; and only with life would he in all probability have lost that command of it, which, by his power, his address, and his presence of mind, he had gained. But, unhappily, his allotted months were fast running out. Never were such wonders, such prodigies, crowded into so short a space of time; but the waste of energy rapidly impaired even his iron frame; and his last hour, a sorrowful one for France, was nigh at hand.

His health was now rapidly declining. "If I believed in slow poisons," said he to Dumont, "I should think myself poisoned. I feel that I am dying by inches, that I am consuming in a slow fire." Dumont observed to him that his mode of life would long ago have destroyed any man less robust than he. Not an instant of rest from seven in the morning until ten or eleven at night; continual conversations, agitations of mind, and excitement of every passion; too high living, in food only, for he was temperate in liquor. "You must be a salamander," said Dumont, "to live in the fire which is consuming you." The irritation of his system, at this time, produced ophthalmia, and, whilst he was president of the assembly, he sometimes found it necessary to apply leeches to his eyes, in the interval during the adjournment of the sitting from the morning to the evening; and he attended the assembly with his neck covered with linen, in order to staunch the blood. His parting words to Dumont were memorable. "I shall die at the stake," said he, "and we shall never perhaps meet again. When I am gone, my value will be appreciated. Misfortunes to which I have put a stop were overwhelming France in every direction; but that base faction whom I now overawe will again be let loose upon the country. I have none but direful anticipations. Ah, my friend, how right were we when, in the beginning, we tried to prevent the commons from being declared a National Assembly. This is the origin of the evil. Since they have gained that point, they have not ceased to show that they are unworthy of confidence. They wanted to govern the king, instead of being governed by him; but neither they nor he will govern; a vile faction will rule the country, and debase it by the most atrocious crimes."

In the same prophetic spirit, and with the same instinctive penetration, he observed to Talleyrand, "I take with me the last shreds of the monarchy." The severity of his judgments was, at the time, attributed to hatred or jealousy; but it has been fully confirmed by succeeding events; nor was there a man of any consequence in the assembly, the sum of whose conduct did not correspond with the opinion which Mirabeau had formed of him. His last illness, which was acute enteritis, brought on by excesses, lasted only four or five days, during which he suffered the most excruciating agony; yet, in the intervals of pain, when the dreadfully violent fits were over, he would resume his serenity, his mildness, and his amiable attentions to those around him. He perceived that he was an object of general interest, and he never for a moment ceased to speak and to act as if he were a great and noble personage performing his part. In the extreme agony of convulsions, and covered with a chilly perspiration, there were moments when it required more than the force of a philosopher to support life; yet he preserved to the last his spirit unbroken, and, to use the happy expression of Talleyrand, dramatised his death. This extraordinary man expired in the arms of his friends, on the morning of the 2d of April 1791. No religious aspirations arose to hallow or console his last moments; he died professing the most decided materialism, the blank and cheerless creed of the time.

Mirabeau had a degree of confidence in his own powers, which supported him in difficulties under which another would have sunk. His imagination loved whatever was great, and his mind possessed extraordinary powers of discrimination. He had natural good taste, which he had cultivated by reading the best authors of several nations. Without any depth of information, he made good use of the little he possessed; but, whether from some natural defect of judgment, or from the influence of feeling and passion, he often proved an unsafe guide in speculation, and still more frequently in action. What he possessed beyond other men was an eloquent and impassioned soul, which, the instant it was excited, animated every feature of his countenance; and nothing was more easy than to bring on the requisite degree of excitement. He had been accustomed, from his youth, to consider the two great questions of politics and government; but he was not qualified to enter deeply into them. The work of discussion, examination, and doubt, was beyond his reach; he had too much warmth and effervescence of mind for didactic method or laborious application. His mind proceeded by starts and leaps, but his conceptions were bold and vigorous. He abounded in forcible expressions, of which he made a particular study; and he was peculiarly qualified to shine in a popular assembly, at a stormy period, when force and audacity were the necessary passports to success.

Of his genius, the best monuments which remain are his speeches, and these were not always, indeed seldom, his own composition. Dumont, Duroverai, Clavère, Reybaz, and other men of distinguished ability, did more than assist him. But some of the finest are known to have been his own; and the greatest passages, those which produced the most magical effects, were the inspiration of the moment. Indeed he never appeared greater than when called to preside over the assembly, and of course thrown entirely upon his own resources. Envy had contributed Mirabeau to his elevation; his enemies had hoped that, in the president's chair, a portion of his natural fire would be quenched, and that his influence would suffer a corresponding diminution. But they found themselves woefully disappointed in their calculation. Never had this office been so well filled, and he displayed in it a new kind of talent. He introduced order and clearness into the proceedings; he simplified the forms, which were but ill understood; he explained a question or put down a tumult by a single word; he distinguished himself by the precision of his observations, and his answers to the several deputations at the bar, which were always remarkable for dignity and elegance; and by his activity, impartiality, and presence of mind, he increased his reputation, and added splendour to his talents in an office which had proved a quicksand to many of his predecessors. "His enemies, and those jealous of his eloquence," says Dumont, "who had voted for him, in order thereby to cast him into the shade and reduce him to silence, were bitterly disappointed when they saw him add another wreath to the chaplet of his glory."

At the same time, it must be confessed that no considerable portion of his reputation, both as an orator and a writer, was usurped and fictitious. He felt himself absolutely incapable of writing upon any subject, except he was guided and supported by the work of another. His style, naturally strained, degenerated into turgescence, and he was soon disgusted with the emptiness and the incoherence of his own ideas. But when he had materials to work upon, he could prune and connect them, impart to them a greater degree of life and force, and impress upon the whole the stamp of true eloquence. In fact, he gave splendour to whatever he touched, by introducing here and there luminous thoughts, original expressions, and passages full of fire and eloquence. But the most remarkable faculty he possessed was that of discovering obscure talents; applying to each the degree of encouragement necessary to its peculiar character; and animating those who possessed them with his own zeal, so as to make them eagerly co-operate in a work of which he was to reap all the credit. This was the great secret of his success. "When I worked for Mirabeau," said Dumont, "I seemed to feel the pleasure of an obscure individual who had changed his children at nurse, and introduced them into a great family. He would be obliged to respect them, although he was not their father." Indeed Mirabeau attached himself so strongly to his adopted children, that he felt for them the affection of a parent; and, even in his last illness, he gave to M. de Talleyrand a speech upon wills, which had been written for him by Reybaz, saying, "There! these are the last thoughts the world shall have of mine; I deposit this manuscript with you; read it when I am no more; it is my legacy to the assembly." Such was the Count de Mirabeau. On his very deathbed he preserved his thirst for artificial fame, when he had acquired so much personal glory that his reputation required not to be decked out with the laurels of others. He had an insatiable appetite for appropriating the labours of others.

As a political orator Mirabeau was in some respects superior to all other men. He had a rapid intuition, a quick and sure perception of the feelings of the assembly, and well knew how to apply his entire strength to the point of resistance, without exhausting his means. No orator ever did so much with a single word or phrase, nor hit the mark with so sure an aim; none but Mirabeau ever forced the general opinion by a happy insinuation, or by a strong expression. In the tribune he was immovable; no agitation in the assembly had the least effect on him; and he retained the command of his temper, even under the severest personal attacks. But one thing was wanting to make him a perfect political orator, namely, the power of Mirabeau's discussion. His mind could not embrace a chain of reasoning or evidence, nor could he refute methodically; and hence, after a brilliant exordium, he had often no alternative but to abandon the field to his adversaries. He was powerless in reply, because he had not taken the pains to anticipate objections and discuss details. Satisfied with a happy turn of expression, or a striking thought, he never gave himself the trouble of studying a subject sufficiently to be able to discuss it, and maintain the opinion he had advanced. He seized every thing with marvellous facility, but developed nothing. He wanted the practice of refutation; this great art, so indispensable to a political orator, was altogether unknown to him. The triumph of Mr Fox consisted in the possession of that talent which Mirabeau wanted; in reply he was irresistible. He recapitulated all the arguments of the adverse party, put them in a new light, and gave them more force; yet having thus placed himself in the most difficult situation imaginable, he never appeared stronger than when he seemed about to be overthrown. The only speakers in the National Assembly who possessed any share of this faculty were Maury, Clermont-Tonnerre, Barnave, and Thouret. Mirabeau's voice was full, manly, and sonorous; and being always powerful yet flexible, it could be heard as distinctly when he lowered as when he raised it. His ordinary manner of speaking was slow; and, in his impassioned moments, the feeling which made him dwell upon certain words to give them emphasis prevented him from ever speaking rapidly. Amongst his personal advantages he counted his robust frame, his size, and his strongly-marked features scarred with the small-pox. His ugliness was so great as almost to become proverbial; but his natural vanity, almost as exaggerated as his deformity, even drew from its excess materials of self-gratification. "Personne, disait-il, ne connait la puissance de ma laideur." The power of his eye, however, was undeniable; and the spirit and expression which his mind threw into his countenance made it anything rather than uninteresting or disgusting.

After what has been said, it is scarcely necessary to dwell on his personal character. Though not himself a moral man, he had a decided taste for the society of those whose rigidity of principle and severity of morals contrasted with the laxity of his own; and, even in the midst of his excesses, he had preserved a certain dignity and elevation of mind, combined with an energy of character, which distinguished him from the effeminate and exhausted rakes that swarmed in Paris. Slave as he too generally proved himself to the love of indulgence, his courage was above all suspicion; and even his share of a virtue far more rare, fortitude under calamity, surpassed that of most other men. All the hardships he had undergone, all the torments he had suffered from so many forms of ingenious persecution, never for a moment infused any bitterness into his disposition, which was originally kind and benevolent. "I never knew a man," says Dumont, "more jealous of the esteem of those whom he himself esteemed, or one who could be acted upon—more easily, if excited by the sentiment of high honour." But, unfortunately, there was nothing uniform and permanent in his character. He was the creature of impulse, and obeyed too many impetuous masters. When burning with pride or jealousy, his passions were terrible; he was no longer master of himself; and committed the most dangerous acts of imprudence. In connecting himself with the court, during the last six months of his life, Mirabeau had no other object than to gratify his habits of expensive indulgence, and to become prime minister. He was not a traitor to the popular cause, M. because he was too able a tactician to commit so great a political error; but it is nevertheless impossible not to agree with Dumont in reproaching the sudden turn which he took, when policy required a suspension of hostilities, and the quick transition from menaced and even boastful destruction, to absolute neutrality. If not sold to the court, he was at least paid by it; and although it might be true that his object was, if possible, to save the monarchy, yet the mode in which he proposed to accomplish this object was neither creditable in itself, nor likely to be attended with success; whilst the "enormous price" paid for his expected services fixes the indelible stain of venality on his memory. Still his death was a great calamity to France. Whilst Mirabeau lived, Robespierre and his satellites durst no more have ventured to show themselves, than bats to fly about in the sunshine of noonday. He was as omnipotent in the Jacobin Club as in the Constituent Assembly.

Some anecdotes of this extraordinary man may not be altogether out of place here. He was fond of nicknames, and often peculiarly happy in bestowing them. He called the king of Prussia Alaric-Cottin; he designated Siéyès by the name of Mahomed; he called D'Espréminil, a conspirator in a small way, Crispin-Cataline; he baptized the rigid Camus by the appellation of the Dropeau Rouge, because he had a fiery countenance, with a blood-coloured nose; and he painted Lafayette by the sobriquet of Grandison-Cromwell. Of Necker, to whom he was invariably unjust, he observed, "He is like a clock which always goes too slowly;" and again, "Malebranche saw everything in God," said he, "but Necker sees everything in Necker." Of the National Assembly he remarked, "It has Hannibals now, it only wants a Fabius." Speaking of the illusions which, having once governed men, were for ever destroyed, he said, "We have long been looking through a magic lantern, but the glass is now broken." "When a pond is full," said he, "a single mole, by piercing the bank, may cause an inundation." Dining one day with the Count de Montmorin, he was asked by the latter what he thought of his brother, who, being a fat and heavy man, was called by the people Mirabeau-Tonneau, or Barrel-Mirabeau. "He would be a man of wit and a scapegrace in any family but ours," replied Mirabeau. The viscount, however, was also an epigrammatist in his own way. Being reproached by his friends with having, one evening, attended the assembly almost in a state of inebriation, Barrel-Mirabeau replied, "My brother has left me only that vice." Mirabeau had very wisely determined to decline every duel during the sittings of the National Assembly; and hence doubts have been entertained of his personal courage, although without the shadow of a foundation. "They can procure as many bullies as they like," said he, "and thus, by duels, get rid of every one who opposes them. For if a man killed ten of these fellows, he might fall by the eleventh." All his ambition was centred in the idea of becoming prime minister of France, because he thought, and not without reason, that he could eclipse every minister who had preceded him. He felt himself powerful enough to attract within the sphere of his patronage every man of distinguished abilities, and he conceived he would be able to form a constellation of talents, the brightness of which would dazzle Europe.

Besides the works to which particular reference has already been made in the course of this article, Mirabeau was the author of the following, viz. 1. Sur Moïse Mendelssohn et la Réforme Politique des Juifs, London, 1787, in 8vo; 2.

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1 The arch reply of Talleyrand is well known. Mirabeau was dilating on the qualities required in him who should aspire to govern France under a free constitution: "Il faut qu'il soit eloquent, fougueux, noble," and so on he went, enumerating qualities notoriously possessed by himself; when the witty statesman added, "Et qu'il soit tracé de la petite vérole, n'est-ce pas?"