GABRIEL HONORÉ DE RIQUETTI, Comte de, was born at his father's chateau of Bignon, between Sens and Nemours, March 9, 1749. He seemed destined from his entrance into the world to excite perplexity and wonder. "Don't be afraid!" said the nurse, as she presented to his father a huge-headed infant already armed with a pair of grinders, one foot twisted, and tongue-tied. His calamities began early; at the age of three his remarkable face was seamed and disfigured by confluent smallpox, mismanaged through the impatient anxiety of his mother. "Your nephew," wrote the Marquis to his brother the Bailli, "is as ugly as the nephew of Satan." Still uglier in the eyes of the pedantic Friend of Men was the exuberant activity of the boy. At four years old he was incessantly burrowing among books and papers; all Paris talked of his precocity,—the "marmot" had all at once become waggish, very inquisitive, and very troublesome. The Marquis's bulletins regarding him varied with his humour. At one time he "promises to be a very fine subject," though "turbulent, yet mild and easily controlled;" he shows a "high heart under the jacket of a babe, a strange instinct of pride—noble nevertheless—the embryo of a dishevelled bully, that would swallow all creation before he is twelve years old;" possesses "an intelligence, a memory, and a capacity that strike, amaze, and terrify." At another time he is "a type quite unparalleled of baseness, absolute senselessness, and the quality of the dirty rough caterpillar, that will never uncrust itself;" he is "a nothing set off with trifles, who will throw dust in the eyes of gossips, but will never be but the fourth part of a man, if, perchance, he be anything;" "an almost ungovernable maniac, possessing all the vile qualities of the maternal stock;" and so on. The Marquis's feelings towards his too promising child would, in fact, notwithstanding his eccentricity, be quite inexplicable, did we not know what evil influence reigned at the family hearth. The Marchioness had retired, on the death of her father in 1757, to his estates in Limousin; during her absence a certain Mirabeau, Swiss lady, by name De Pailly, came to reside at Bignon, and the Marchioness returned no more. This bird of ill omen carried discord and misery into the peaceful house of Mirabeau, thenceforth divided against itself. Keeping in view, then, the influences amid which Mirabeau was trained, and the tyrannous pertinacity with which they were directed to his ruin, the wonder is, to find this excitable and headstrong being pass through it all so little injured; to see him still reverentially kissing the rod that had smitten so unjustly and so sorely; still nourishing in his wild and lacerated heart that "unutterable tenderness," that generosity, that love of virtue, which even "so much scoria" could not obscure.
At length it was evident that Gabriel had become too strong for his mild tutor M. Poisson, and he was put under the care of M. Sigrais, a retired officer, and friend of the family; but, to the annoyance of the Marquis, the new governor became quite "fascinated" by his pupil, and gave far too flattering an account of him. A severer discipline was ordained; and in June 1764 young Mirabeau, now fifteen years old, was placed with the Abbé Choquard, who kept a military school at Paris. The Abbé was instructed not to spare the rod; and a more grievous than bodily punishment was administered in his being entered under the fictitious name of Pierre Buffière. Choquard soon reported very favourably; his pupil studied passionately, and with prodigious success, classics, modern languages, mathematics (under Lagrange), drawing, music, &c. An unfortunate discovery checked this hopeful progress. The Marchioness had been "secretly sending money to that reprobate;" Gabriel was absolutely forbidden to correspond with any member of his family; and at the suggestion of the enemy, it was resolved to remove him. On the 19th July 1767 he was entered as a volunteer into the Berri regiment of cavalry, commanded by the Marquis de Lambert, a man notorious for severity. He was accompanied by a man named Grévin, an auxiliary of Madame de Pailly, duly authorized by the Marquis to "watch and denounce" M. Buffière. Despite this vile espionage and the extreme harshness of discipline, the fiery youth behaved so well as to extort some expressions of satisfaction even from his father. The sunshine was brief, however; nature took her way in spite of the force. The Marquis, whose errors of judgment and heart were as remarkable as his genuine sagacity and kindness, seemed to think that pocket-money was a sinful luxury even for the heir of all the Mirabeaus. That the young soldier, then, contracted "a few debts" will not be surprising; that being inexperienced in gaming, to which he never was inclined, he lost 40 louis at play, will admit of palliation; that he, still farther, took leave to fall in love with a pretty maiden of Saintes, and even to win her heart, will not shock the most lofty moralist. Unhappily, however, the close conjunction of these discoveries was coupled with other aggravating facts—the ugly young subaltern had outrivalled his colonel; stung by insults and oppression, he had fled to Paris to complain to his friend the Duke of Nivernois; when brought back to his regiment and confronted with his superiors and accusers, he had energetically defended himself—all which, to the stern eye of the Friend of Men, afforded conclusive proof that his son was a "sink of vice," fit only to be securely hedged within four stone walls,—nay, perhaps to be more effectually got rid of under the burning heat and pestilential vapours of Surinam. On second thoughts, the anxious parent (who at this very time was intensely occupied in the establishment of public ovens for economical baking) decided on the less barbarous alternative, and the young Count was duly lodged in the fortress of the Isle of Rhône, there to soothe his chafed spirit with the wintry roar of the Bay of Biscay.
The bailiff of Aulan, governor of the castle, had strict injunctions to allow his prisoner no manner of liberty; and the spy Grévin, whom the unsuspecting youth had begged as a favour to have with him, fulfilled his base office admirably. But in vain: not many days had passed before the "terrible gift of familiarity," the frank and fascinating warmth of the prisoner, had made a captive of his gaoler, who presently became his intercessor, and recommended his release. The French expedition to Corsica against the native patriots offered an eligible opening for a troublesome "monster:" Mirabeau received a second lieutenant's commission in the Legion of Lorraine under the brave Baron de Vioménil; and on the 16th April 1769 embarked for Corsica. During a year of active and harassing service he distinguished himself by his courage, ability, and industry, winning the esteem and confidence of his superiors and even some qualified approbation from the Friend of Men. On his return he was permitted to go and kiss his uncle's hand at Mirabeau: the honour of beholding the paternal countenance was as yet too much to grant. The Bailli was delighted with his nephew, and sounded his praises day after day. "I think I never encountered so much wit; it quite absorbed my poor brains—quite astounded me; he would cast the very devil into the shade." "Still better, this brilliant youth showed 'a feeling heart,' and the grave Abbé de Castagny was ready to cry when he exclaimed to him in a transport—"Alas, that my father would deign to know me; I know he thinks I have a bad heart, but let him only try me!" To these affecting relations the iron Marquis responds very cautiously; he is glad to hear them, but will take his own way; there is no necessity for throwing off restraint too soon with a fellow whose "head is a wind and fire mill;" he never approved of "fathers and sons being hall-fellow-well-met." From a distance he condescends to direct and mould the mind of the too aimless and romantic youth: there must be no more reveries, literary or military—no more voyagings in the planets; he must set himself steadily to the study of the paternal science; otherwise he will be a laughing-stock, and disgrace his father.
These repeated advices were unfortunately quite thrown away on M. le Comte Ouragan, who, so far from aspiring to the apostleship of political economy, could see nothing in the whole system but radical falsehood and barren pedantry. This blasphemous opinion was never hazarded in his father's presence, but easily found its way to his ears, with such result as may be imagined. The young Count had strong leanings towards a military life. "It is in battle only," he said, "that I am cool, calm, and lively without impetuosity. I then feel myself grow taller." The Friend of Men, however, was determined to throw cold water on his son's "smoke and military fire?" "does he think I have money to get him up battles like Harlequin and Scaramouch?" He must "become rural;" must be well crammed in the Economics and Ephémérides. Rural, accordingly, the young man did for a time become, active employment being for him a necessity of nature; and in surveys of the Mirabeau estate, and plans for all kinds of improvements, he found abundant occupation, working "like a galley slave." The Bailli was charmed by his nephew's energy and industry, and gently pressed his brother to relax a little. "You will find," he said, "as I do, that the furnace is hot,—very hot; but, my dear brother, let us bear in mind his age, and the brimstone peculiar to our blood. It is well that he should be within reach of being known; for, being perfectly open to reason, he listens to nothing else, and finds it a frightful task to submit to any other human restraints." At length the Friend of Men gave in; and received his son with what he called "tenderness." A course of lecturing followed, with the best effect; and shortly after the young Count was permitted to assume his proper title. A severe famine, attended by much misery and disorder, soon gave occasion for a display of his wonder- Mirabeau, full power of dealing with men. He exerted himself from morning to night, found work and food for the people, and cheered them by his vivacious example, working with them and presiding at the head of the common table. His father had planned a court of rural arbitration for the settlement of the disputes which abounded in the district, but despaired of getting it established. Not so his son. By dint of energy and tact, frankness and persuasion, he "reconciled everybody," and set the new institution agog with success. "In one word," said the Marquis, "he is the demon of the impossible." As the reward of his good conduct, the Marquis allowed him, in the spring of 1771, to visit Paris. There, as elsewhere, the young Count took everybody by storm, astonishing even the old stagers of Versailles. In the summer he was sent back to Limousin, the "black lady" becoming jealous of the good understanding between father and son. Happily his mission prospered, and a still more difficult and even dangerous errand to the Mirabeau estate was crowned with like success.
His prospects, at their brightest, now began to be clouded. The Marquis, separated from his son, and restored to De Pailly influence, soon relapsed into his old mood, listening to all ill reports, and doing well, as he thought, to be eternally angry. The perpetuation of the name and honours of the Riquetti lineage was with him at all times a fixed idea, amounting to a kind of mania, and to get his fatiguing "wolf-cub" off his hands there seemed no better device than marriage. After some looking about in the market, it was decided that an alliance with the rich Marquis de Marignane was highly eligible. His only daughter, Marie Emilie de Covet, was eighteen years of age, small, plain-featured, and dark-complexioned; but she had fine eyes and hair, a gay and amiable though weak disposition, and "great expectations." Her the young Count consented to woo; but richer rivals were in the field. His overtures were rejected, and he at once drew off. Spurred on, however, by the taunts of his father, he again entered the lists, determined to carry all before him, and he succeeded. His matchless powers of persuasion conquered not only the young lady, but "all the female relations, both old and young;" and on the 22nd June 1772 she became his wife.
The income assigned to the young pair was far short of the original bargain, and utterly inadequate to maintain their position in society. Mirabeau was already in debt, and the bridal arrangements had been made regardless of expense. No wonder, then, if the exchequer soon ran empty. Help from the Friend of Men being out of the question, Mirabeau appealed to his father-in-law, who offered to lend him 60,000 livres if his father approved. A peremptory refusal, backed by threats, was the reply; and Mirabeau, now driven into a corner, retired from Aix to his patrimonial castle. Here, however, his thoughtless magnificence of taste, and his passion for improvements, brought matters to a crisis. The Marquis, ever ready to believe the worst, adopted his infallible resource, a lettre de cachet, and Mirabeau was forced to retire, an interdicted exile, to the small neighbouring town of Manosque. In this banishment he lived more than a year, during the course of which his wife bore him a son. Here also, warm from the study of Tacitus and Rousseau, he gave the first vent, in an Essay on Despotism, to that fiery hatred of oppression which was the ruling impulse of his life. Though full of haste and imperfections, its merits are as conspicuous as its faults.
And now came the chivalrous offence which led to new and deeper woes. That reckless ride of 20 leagues, to save a foolish young chevalier from matrimonial shipwreck—that fatal meeting on the highway with the aristocratic bully who had insulted his sister and refused satisfaction—that incontinent hiding of the noble recreant on the spot—who has not sympathized with? The whipped Baron instituted criminal proceedings; sentence was delayed for two years; but a less tardy vengeance had been decreed by the inexorable Marquis; and on the 23rd of August 1774 Mirabeau was caged in the gloomy fortress of If, perched on a barren rock near the entrance of the port of Marseilles. A friend had provided the means of escape, and urged him to fly, but he submitted obediently to the paternal mandate. The governor was instructed to use the utmost severity, and bar all communication with the world; and to add to the prisoner's sorrows, his wife, who had retired to her father's residence, declined to join him. They never met again. But no restrictions could prevail against that winning frankness and buoyancy which vanquished every heart of man or woman that ever came under their influence; and as usual the governor became his friend and intercessor. As usual, also, the prisoner was busy with his pen, and composed during this confinement the interesting sketch of the family history prefixed to his Memoirs.
In vain did his wife and family pray for his release, and the commandant Dallègre bear testimony to his irreproachable patience and resignation. The Friend of Men had his own plans; and on the 25th May 1775 the prisoner was removed (passive as before, though armed, and with but a single keeper) to a still drearier lodging, the castle of Joux, far up among the snow and clouds of the Jura Mountains. In this "owl's nest, enlivened by a few invalids," Mirabeau at first abandoned himself to solitary gloom. His keeper, the Count of St Mauris, was not a person to sweeten his solitude; but he permitted the prisoner occasionally to visit the neighbouring town of Pontarlier. Here Mirabeau was introduced to the only noble family in the place, that of the Marquis de Monnier. This wealthy and aged seigneur had, four years before, in revenge for the marriage of his daughter against his consent, taken to wife (or, properly speaking, bought) the daughter of M. de Ruffey, a Burgundian law dignitary. His years were seventy-one—hers eighteen; his character and habits were reserved and ungenial,—she was beautiful, ardent, and high-spirited. But home was dreary, and the choice lay between the old man and a convent. So early sacrificed to parental avarice and senile revenge, her gloomy life at length suddenly irradiated by the light of genius and kindred sensibility, the result was inevitable. For some time Mirabeau endeavoured to resist the fatal attraction that now drew him to Pontarlier. He avoided the society of Madame de Monnier, and wrote to his wife, passionately urging her to come and share his confinement and strengthen his resolve. In reply he received "a few cold lines," in which his gay little wife, otherwise occupied, gently insinuated that he had lost his senses. What wonder that the Riquetti flesh and blood took their way,—that the desolate prisoner continued to prefer the society of Pontarlier to that of his harsh-grained Cerberus at Joux? Meantime the jealous governor, himself a bailiff suitor of Madame de Monnier, found a ready pretext for venting his spite on the prisoner, and Mirabeau learned that aggravated horrors were in store for him. His father, now in the thick of a law-suit with his wife, was "interested in continuing the confinement of the rascal, lest he should come and support his mother." Roused to desperation he escaped, January 16th 1776, into Switzerland, returning, however, in two days to Pontarlier, where he lived concealed. Madame de Monnier, subjected to the most humiliating bondage, at last broke loose and fled to her family at Dijon, Mirabeau following close behind. On the 24th March, she was sent back to Pontarlier, and immediately thereafter Mirabeau surrendered himself to the authorities. He lost no time in appealing to the benevolent Malesherbes. A commission was appointed to examine his case, and reported favourably; but meantime his father pressed for his removal Mirabeau, to another fortress, and the minister, now on the eve of retirement, could only advise him to go abroad and enter foreign service. Nothing remained but flight; and having got back his parole, he set out for Verrières, thence to Geneva, and back to Lyons. Here he met his sister, Madame de Cabris, accompanied by her "friend" Brianson, a low and worthless adventurer. This foolish sister, for whose sake he had suffered so much, had no better advice to give than that he should escape with Sophie to a foreign country, she and Brianson lending their aid. Distracted, but not yet wholly lost to reason, he chose rather to hide himself for a season in Provence. Forced to fly, he went to Nice, and thence to Turin. Sophie meanwhile, goaded by daily persecution, overwhelmed him with passionate letters. The climax came at length: she tells him that her situation is too terrible to be borne; it must have an end—"Gabriel or death!" Such appeals were hard to resist. But the paternal vengeance was now on his trail; and for nearly two months he was hunted over hill and dale, over ford and ferry, through Nice and Turin, over the Great St Bernard, and down into the Valais. His route had been betrayed by his base companion Brianson, and on the 23rd August, as he descended on Verrières, the enemy were only two days' march behind. But they were too late; that night Sophie, dressed in man's attire, crossed the garden wall by a ladder, and flew to Verrières.
On the 7th October they reached Amsterdam. Mirabeau, who had assumed the name of St Mathieu, was now left entirely to his own resources, and at once applied for employment to the booksellers. After waiting for three months, he was at last successful, so far at least as quantity was concerned; he was "overwhelmed with work." Among the books which he partially translated were Mrs Macaulay's History of England, Watson's Philip II., and some of Gesner's works. Of his original compositions the most important was his Advice to the Hessians, an eloquent pamphlet against the Hessian subsidy to Britain for putting down the American revolution. Rest in this quiet haven was not long permitted to the fugitives; their retreat became known in France, and the Marquis de Monnier offered to take back his wife. Mirabeau would listen to no such proposal, and the Marquis instituted a criminal action. On the 10th May 1777 the bailiwick of Pontarlier convicted Mirabeau of "forcible abduction and seduction" (rapet et rapt), sentencing him to be beheaded (in effigy), with 40,000 livres of damages; while Sophie was condemned to life imprisonment in the Besançon house of correction, with forfeiture of marriage rights and dowry. The parents on both sides were not satisfied with a mere sentence; the police were again unleashed, and on the 14th May their old pursuer, Inspector Brugnieres, descended on his prey. Sophie was carried off to a private penitentiary in Paris; Mirabeau to the donjon of Vincennes.
Now at length the unmanageable heir of the Riquetts was tightly fixed under the furea, no more to spring up and shoot his arms at his own wild will; straitly trained to a stone wall, he might bring forth the fruits of repentance at his leisure. The Marquis was now satisfied; his son was ruined; but he had brought an heir to the house of Mirabeau, and that was his "chief end" as man. That end having been attained, the future destiny of the criminal was fixed with icy determination. After the usual communion with his "conscience," he resolved on perpetual imprisonment. As to the opinion of the stupid world, what mattered it? He would, so long as health and spirits lasted, "please God, play the part of Rhadamanthus." Thus, then, the door of hope seemed absolutely shut. But hope and effort were never, save for one brief season of utter despair, abandoned by the prisoner. Shot up in a chamber ten feet square, environed in winter by "smoke and ice;" miserably clothed; tormented by failing eyesight, stone, gravel, and blood-spitting; visited only by a turnkey charged to silence; one hour a day for exercise; few books, and these bad; denied the solace of music or any other recreation,—this ruined man battled indomitably with fate, and laboured as industriously as any journeyman in Paris. The extraordinary interest which he inspired in all his keepers won him, even in this stronghold of despair, unwonted privileges. Through the kindness of Lenoir, head of the police, he was permitted to correspond with his mistress, on condition that all letters should pass under the eyes of his confidential assistant, Boucher, and afterwards remain in his keeping. For three and a half years the lovers interchanged their passionate sympathies, their tender reminiscences, their griefs and their hopes. The version of these letters given to the world in 1792, through the unscrupulous greed of Manuel, procureur of the commune, is, according to M. Montigny, neither complete nor faithful; but how far the reckless prurience of the editor may have tampered with the originals, it is neither possible nor important now to determine. Of Mirabeau's other compositions during his confinement, the most important by far was his Lettres de Cochot and State Prisons, a work of immense labour, directed with vehement zeal towards a very noble end. His Esprit Décalisé, his Collection of Tales, his translations of Tibullus, of Boccaccio, and of the Basia of Johannes Secundus, are little worth. Of the Biblio Eroticon and Conversion, judging by report, the less that is said the better. Besides all these, were an elaborate treatise on Inoculation, drawn up for the benefit of his own and Sophie's child; translations of Horace, Ovid, Catullus, Propertius, and Tasso's Aminta; a general grammar; dramas; treatises on Mythology, on Religious Houses, on Standing Armies, &c.—all which have been lost. Assuredly, whether well or ill employed, the prisoner was not idle. The idea of escape, save by legitimate means, seems never to have crossed his mind; and he perseveringly pleaded his cause, though without effect. He had been fifteen months in prison when the death of his son, "the last hope of our race," fell like a thunderbolt on the Friend of Men, who began to think himself "an especial object of Heaven's wrath"—he, who had sounded his "conscience" every day, and "never did, nor wished to do, injury to a human being." In vain, however, was this occasion used to excite relentment. To his brother's timid remonstrances he answers in this truly Rhadamantian style,—"I have rendered justice in my capacity of natural and domestic judge, and I could see, unmoved by remorse, the mother in the pillory and the son on the gallows tree! I should nevertheless carry my head erect and my bosom bare." The good Bailli still persevered; and the gradual progress of the intercession, as revealed in their correspondence, is one of the most interesting parts of the adopted son's memoirs. His favourite daughter, Madame du Saillant, assiduously aided her uncle; and at length Rhadamantius announced that, "for his own purpose, as well as ours, he should be liberated after trial." "Our purpose" was the perpetuation of the family: "If my grandson had lived, I should never have swerved from the word I gave to keep the father in prison." The happy day came at last; and on the 13th December 1780, after 42 months of duration, Mirabeau, with scarcely a rag to cover him, strode forth from his dungeon. At the hotel of his brother-in-law the grim portrait of the Marquis looked down on him from the wall; he burst into tears, uttering only the words, "My poor father!" Here is his first meeting with that father after an interval of nine years:—"I found myself face to face with him one day as I left Desjobert's. His eye was piercing—his appearance strong and healthy. He cast down his eyes, drew to one side as far as he could, and I passed on."
Mirabeau's first work on regaining his liberty was the Mirabeau attempt to settle the long warfare of his parents; but the only result of his interference was an irrevocable alienation from his mother's love. She succeeded in her suit, and the report having spread that her defeat was to be the signal for the Marquis's reconciliation to his son, the old man determined to falsify it by receiving him at once. Boucher, the "good angel" of Vincennes, acted as mediator; and on the 20th May 1781, amid the tears of a friendly circle, the prodigal knelt at his father's feet. He spent the next eight months at Bignon, exerting himself to help and please his father, and so successfully, that the old man now found it necessary to defend himself and his prodigal from the mild sarcasms of the Bailli. "A son he said, 'cannot be amputated like an arm.' Sometimes told him, in spite of all outward appearances, that his son was 'not more dangerous than a stuffed scarecrow; that the sternness with which he has contrived to invest his person, his reputation, and his mighty deeds, is nothing but smoke; and that at bottom there is no man in the kingdom less capable of committing a deliberate act of wickedness.'" During this period took place that last melancholy interview between Mirabeau and his long-lost Sophie. There had been jealousy and suspicion, now there were reproaches and recriminations; "the anger on both sides passed all reasonable bounds;" and so the lovers parted for ever.
And now Mirabeau girded himself to the great task of "replacing his head on his shoulders"—getting the Pontarlier sentence reversed. The most able criminal lawyers pronounced the case frightfully complicated. His father and uncle, dismayed by the difficulties, scandal, and expense, proposed to solicit letters of abolition; in other words, to get the sentence quashed by a royal edict. But Mirabeau scorned a remedy which would absolve himself alone; and though Sophie generously urged him to yield, he was peremptory in his resolution to clear both or neither.
"Since the days of the late Julius Caesar," said the old man, "audacity and rashness have never existed in such strength." On the 2d February 1782 he left Bignon, accompanied by an able advocate named Desbiron, who soon, to his surprise and vexation, found his part in the business reduced to that of merely copying and examining documents for his client. Conciliation having been first attempted, with indifferent success, Mirabeau surrendered himself a prisoner at Joux, and a few days after obtained a provisional release. Against this the prosecutor appealed, and the prisoner was remanded. Mirabeau now opened his guns on the enemy, and continued firing till all France resounded with the "Case of the Count of Mirabeau." On the 5th March he appeared at the bar, and for ten hours was confronted with two of the principal witnesses, whom he succeeded in utterly demolishing, though "well crammed," and that touching things that had passed under their own eyes. The Marquis was in high dudgeon; he had "humiliated the witnesses, exasperated the judges, and insulted everybody." The Bailli took a calmer view of the whole business:—"Who, in that infamous Babylon, where everything scandalous in such an affair is soldered, cicatrized, and settled, is not, either by deed or will, guilty of all that is essentially blameworthy in the conduct of the Infallible?" It is true that he has given it more éclat; but the groundwork of the thing is the same,—adultery, rape, and seduction, supposing him to be guilty of all three, though he is guilty only of one, form the history of almost all men; in his case there is only a noisy publicity in addition." Here was the secret of all the terrible ill-fame of the Count of Mirabeau,—he had dared to break through the trammels of fashionable decorum, doing openly and bravely what it was "proper" to hush and veil under the polite forms of a corrupt society; and that society, irritated and alarmed at the exposure, Mirabeau shuddered, not at the crime, but at the monstrous courage that justified it unabashedly in the face of day. Such a sin was, and ever has been, unpardonable.
Mirabeau's appeal for release was rejected; and three days after, he appealed the whole case to the Grand Chamber. His father sent his son-in-law, the Count du Saillant, to negotiate a compromise, but the undaunted prisoner would hear of none. He had reserved his heaviest artillery to the last, and now discharged his Third Case into the besieging camp. The prosecutor, Somharde, who had throughout displayed the most indecent animosity, was within the prohibited degree of relationship to the accuser, and on this ground Mirabeau founded a most withering philippic. "If this," said he, with his sublime self-esteem, "be not eloquence unknown to these slavish times, I know not what that gift of heaven is, so seducing and so rare!" The enemy's fire was fairly silenced; and, after some delay and quarrelling, the matter was finally settled on the 14th August, Mirabeau getting his own terms, and satisfactorily proving his father's admission, that he was "in extreme cases very superior to a wise man." The Pontarlier sentence was reversed, the Marquis and Marchioness de Monnier separated, her dowry returned, and a conditional annuity of 12,000 francs a year settled on her. Having thus triumphantly replaced his head on his shoulders, the freed prisoner remained four days at Pontarlier, and exhibited himself in all public places for the benefit of his old friend Count St Mauris, or any other gentleman who might wish to speak with him, feeling, as he told his sister, "sally in want of being run through the body."
The Friend of Men, while granting a qualified approbation to these proceedings, was as tough as ever on the subject of money; and in this melancholy predicament Mirabeau, having some MSS. to dispose of, retired for two or three months to Neuchâtel. Here, in spite of private woes, his public spirit found vent in a long and eloquent letter to the Count de Vergennes, showing the injuries inflicted on the Genevese republic by the intervention of France in favour of aristocracy. Meantime his sister pleaded for his return, and the Marquis requested the Bailli to receive him. He endeavoured to make the reception as ceremonious as possible, but quite failed; the cordiality of his nephew was too infectious, and the enthusiasm of the peasantry, "though he was in debt to some of them," passed all bounds. It was now time for Mirabeau to set about his second great task,—a reconciliation with his wife. The obstacles seemed insurmountable; she was passive in the hands of her exasperated father, and Mirabeau's letters were at first answered coldly, then with insults, and finally sent back unopened. The Bailli seconded his nephew's endeavours, while the Marquis held disdainfully aloof. He had no wish "to throw himself at the feet of that troop of play-actors" to beg for posterity; it was time to stop that universal question, "Shall we never hear anything else but about that unruly race of the Mirabeaus?" All means of conciliation being exhausted, proceedings began in form, and on the 29th March 1783 the case came on for hearing at Aix. The court was crowded to excess; on the one side were the Marquis of Marignane, surrounded by a host of friends and advocates; on the other Mirabeau appeared with but three companions, and these three Englishmen, no Frenchman daring to stand by him. Two young advocates had lent him their assistance, but he pleaded his own cause. Restraining his usual vehemence as suited the line of defence, he spoke with great gentleness and moderation, with moving softness and dignity. Old Marignane at first sneered and tittered; as the speaker proceeded he bent his
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1 We are informed, on the Bailli's authority, that the Countess "acted plays and received the news of her husband's condemnation to death on a stage erected over the remains of her child."
VOL. XV. Mirabeau's head, and at last he wept, as did half the audience.
The pleading closed amid a tumult of enthusiasm, and Mirabeau's demand for a provisional reunion was sustained; but this temporary triumph only heightened the bitterness and activity of the enemy. The case came for final hearing before the Grand Chamber of Aix. On three several days Mirabeau pleaded before intensely excited audiences. On the final day the sensation reached its climax. Despite police and barricades, all doors and lobbies were stormed, and the very roofs of the neighbouring houses swarmed with human beings eager to catch even the distant hum of the pleader's voice. So far as the public was concerned the triumph was complete; but one-half of the judge were relatives of Marignane! In proof of his kindness to his spouse, Mirabeau had quoted a letter dated May 28, 1774, proving his forgiveness in the case of a grave faux pas. This point was eagerly caught at by the public prosecutor as a ground for nullifying the husband's claim to cohabitation, and on it the whole case was made to turn. On the 5th July the chamber decreed a separation of body and goods, a sentence which was received with hisses by the angry public. The popular sympathy was some consolation to the defeated husband, and in due time bore fruit; he had made himself "the idol of the whole country." He resolved to appeal to the Court of Cassation at Paris; but the indefatigable intrigues of the enemy, and his own recklessness, defeated his efforts.
A new Case, issued by him at Lyons, was suppressed by the keeper of the seals, whom he vainly attempted to enlighten on the subject of civil liberty; an appeal to the king was equally fruitless. As a parting shot, he republished his Case in Belgium, appending a sarcastic account of his interview with the seal-keeper; and, foreseeing troubles, made sail for England, accompanied by his fair friend Madame de Nehra.
His fortunes were now at their lowest ebb, and for the next five years his life was one of perpetual strait and struggle, of wandering and embarrassment, of hand-to-mouth expedients and reckless improvidence, of incessant and vehement activity, of headlong controversy, and of evil reputation—but a life still of high endurance, of patriotic zeal, of unconquerable independence. In England he resided eight months, of which some record is preserved in a collection of letters written during that period. He was, of course, an acute, and, for a foreigner, an unusually fair observer of the national peculiarities. In his wrestlings with despotism he had often turned an eye of respect and longing towards Britain, and now he was able to see the practical working of that constitution which, in spite of defects and anomalies, seemed to him the best pattern for other nations to follow who had their own to rebuild. Among his most intimate friends were Romilly, Sir Gilbert Elliott (afterwards Lord Minto), and the Earl of Peterborough; and despite his formidable fame, he had access to "good society," in both senses of the term. As usual, he was full of great literary schemes; but the English publishers were not easily caught by flaming prospectuses. He wrote much, but published only Considerations on the Order of Cincinnatus, a bulky volume, spun out from a thin pamphlet by an American, on a subject no longer interesting; and Doubts on the Freedom of the Scheldt—a defence of the Dutch monopoly against the designs of the Emperor Joseph II. At the end of seven months he sent out Madame de Nehra from the ark to spy the aspect of things abroad, and soon after followed her, reaching Paris on the 1st April 1785.
He now meditated a retirement to Provence for the Mirabeau composition of some great undefined work of history, but the illness of his (so-called) adopted son detained him in Paris, and his thoughts soon turned into a new channel. Intimacy with the Genevese exile Clavière, and his compatriot the banker Panchaud, directed his attention to the subject of finance, into the mazes of which he plunged with characteristic energy. The stock-jobbing fury was at this time at a climax in France, and Mirabeau determined to attack the hydra. At three of its principal heads were his thrusts directed,—the Bank of Discount, the Bank of St Charles, and the Paris Water Company. Between the months of May and December he issued five large pamphlets on these topics. His Genevese friends supplied the raw material; the arguments, the eloquence, the vituperation, were all his own. A rapid fall in the shares showed that his blows had told; and the rage and hostility excited were as the rousing of a nest of hornets. The new minister at first countenanced him, but having got into deep waters, soon found it expedient to shake off his fiery ally; and two of Mirabeau's pamphlets, one of which M. Calonne had himself revised, were successively suppressed. The attack on the Water Company was answered by the witty author of Figaro with a delicately cutting irony, to which Mirabeau, now in Brussels, replied with a vehemence of invective redeemed only by the utmost magnificence of style.
At the close of 1785 he left Brussels with a vague design of visiting the north of Europe, but once beyond the Rhine he felt strongly drawn towards Berlin, where the great Frederick, now scant of breath, but as fresh in head and fiery temper as ever, was nearing the end of his long life-march. The king had ceased to receive foreigners; but to the general surprise, and the special chagrin of all the French residents, he twice gave audience to the doubtful stranger, whom his sharp eye had already noted as one fit to speak in the gate with kings. Mirabeau's first work on arriving was a long and bitter letter to M. Calonne, justifying himself against the minister; but his friends in Paris, to whom he sent it for revision, wisely refrained from publication. He worked incessantly at Berlin, but published only a pamphlet on Cagliostro and Lavater, castigating the impudent quackery of the one and the more honest but fanatical reveries of the other. About this time, also, he composed one of his best productions, published in the following year,—an Essay on Moses Mendelssohn and the Jews, in which he advocates principles of toleration not yet carried out towards the ancient people. At the end of four months he returned to Paris, and in a few weeks he was on his way back, commissioned as a secret agent to the Prussian court. On the day after the great Frederick's death he addressed his successor in a long and eloquent letter, replete with very noble counsel, delivered with such dignified frankness as rarely finds way to royal ears. His correspondence, and the accumulation of materials for a great work on the Prussian monarchy, occupied him constantly during six months. Two causes moved him to return to Paris: he had grown weary of his underhand employment, and wished a more honourable and acknowledged position. He had received the tidings, too, of the convocation of the Notables, and was in hopes of being appointed their secretary, having been the first to suggest the measure. In this hope he was disappointed; and, unsheathing his pen, within three weeks he wrote and published his Denunciation of Stock-jobbing. In this slashing pamphlet he commenced his assaults on Necker's financial measures, which he followed up with blow upon blow most perseveringly, most courageously, but also with most in-
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Here is the Marquis's version of the affair:—My poor brother writes to me that his nephew spoke and pleaded from a quarter past 8 till 1 o'clock without spitting or blowing his nose. But I tell you that this posthumous Cicero is nothing more than an incorrigible clack-jaw and a fool." On the same severe authority we learn, that the opposite counsel, the celebrated Portalis, got such a dressing, that he was "borne fainting out of the Court," and kept his bed for days, a victory unparalleled in the annals of the long robe. Mirabeau, temperate personality. The *Denunciation* had great success, and even the king acknowledged that Mirabeau had done the state good service. It was suppressed, nevertheless; and the denouncer received warning of a seventeenth *lettre de cachet* in readiness for him. He took refuge in Liège; and on the 24th May he set out towards Berlin for the purpose of completing his book. He remained three months at Brunswick with his friend and helper Major Mauvillon, encouraged in his labours by the Duke, through whom he obtained the King of Prussia's authority to consult state papers. The book appeared a year after in 8 vols. 8vo (and 4 vols. 4to). It was by far the most important and elaborate work he had yet produced, and greatly enhanced his reputation as a writer. His excellent coadjutor, to whom the credit of the composition was often attributed, has warmly disclaimed any right of paternity,—any merit save that of a most industrious and faithful Gibonite.
At the close of September he returned to Paris, and was greatly shocked by the state of public affairs. The Parliament of Paris had just been banished to Troyes by Brienne, and things were daily looking worse. Advances were made to him by that crafty minister, but they were firmly declined. He was determined to preserve his independence till the fit hour came. While avowing his desire for active employment, he would remain in his obscurity "until there succeeds to the present confusion a regular order of things—until some great revolution, whether good or evil, command a good citizen, always accountable for his suffrage, and even for his talents, to raise his voice. That revolution cannot tarry long." The day after the refusal of the Parliament to register the enormous loan of 420 millions, he wrote to M. de Montmorin, showing in impassioned terms the fatal tendency of events, the wisdom of timely concessions, and the necessity of announcing the States General. But the curse of eyes that saw not, and ears that would not hear, had visited the rulers of France. They still hoped to do without the States General; and finding the Parliament obstructive, Mirabeau was strongly urged to write against it. The answer was noble from a man steeped to the lips in poverty, and with nothing to lose save the consciousness of independence: "Do not compromise a zealous servant who, when the time comes to devote himself to his country, will count the danger as nothing, but who, for all the thrones in the world, will never prostitute his name in support of an equivocal cause, where the end is uncertain, the principle doubtful, and the course dark and bodeful." In the summer of 1788, his friends Romilly and Dumont visited Paris. Mirabeau's character, the latter tells us, was "in the lowest possible state of degradation." Feared and suspected, the proud ruined aristocrat lived like an Ishmaelite—too well known but ignored, too honest to be bought, too poor to be courted. His old friends were afraid to compromise themselves by renewing the acquaintance, but they could not resist him; he took them by storm; and Dumont ere long was delighted and proud to hew wood and carry water for his gigantic friend. Soon after this, doubtless under the pressure of sheer penury, he committed the grievously folly and wrong of publishing, under the title of *Secret History of the Cabinet of Berlin*, his confidential letters to the French ministry. This scandalous publication excited intense wrath against the author, and was ordered to be burned by the hands of the executioner.
At length the hour struck, long wished for, long delayed. On the 8th August 1788 De Brienne announced the convocation of the States General for the 1st of May 1789; and Mirabeau was up and doing. At length, out of the depths of darkness and humiliation, there broke upon him the light of day—the vision of a new and great arena, of victories and triumphs for his country and for himself. Now he would purge away the shame of the past in the glory of the future; France was to be saved, and saved by him! In January 1789 he took wing for Provence, launching, before his departure, another furious tirade against Necker, at that moment the idol of France. He presented himself for election to the nobility of Provence,—"the most ignorant, greedy, and insolent body of nobles" he had ever seen,—opposing them all single-handed in the discussions as to the mode of election, and drawing down upon himself their implacable hostility and rage. In reply to their attacks, he published a pamphlet literally blazing with indignant eloquence. "Generous friends of the peace!" he exclaims, "I do here appeal to your honour, and summon you to declare what expressions of mine are wanting in the respect due to the royal authority or to the nation's rights! Nobles of Provence, Europe is attentive; weigh well your reply! Priests of the living God, beware; God hears you! But if you maintain silence, if you entrench yourselves behind the vague declamations you have hurled at me, then suffer me to add one word:—In all countries, in all ages, the aristocrats have implacably persecuted the people's friends; and if, by some strange combination of fortune, such an one have arisen from among themselves, him above all have they struck at, eager to inspire terror by the choice of their victim. Thus perished the last of the Gracchi by the hand of the patricians; but struck with the mortal blow, he flung dust towards heaven, calling to witness the avenging deities, and from that dust sprung Marius—Marius, less great for having exterminated the Cimbri than for having overthrown in Rome the tyranny of the noblesse!" At the next meeting it was decreed that Mirabeau, having no fiefs of his own, had no right to sit in the Assembly; and the proud tribune, casting the dust from his feet, now threw himself into the arms of the Plebs. The story of his having, to win their favour, opened a clothery shop at Marseilles, is too absurd for belief, had it even rested on good authority. Mirabeau needed no such devices to ingratiate himself with the enthusiastic Provençaux: he was already adored by them. His reception at Aix was triumphant beyond parallel. The whole country turned out; the air rang with *violets*, with the thunder of cannon, and the pealing of bells; there were processions by day and illuminations at night. At Marseilles the enthusiasm was equal, and on the day of his departure he was escorted by "a hundred and twenty thousand" people and a retinue of three hundred carriages. At both cities famine, riot, and disorganization soon called for an exhibition of his magical faculty for subduing and pacifying the most formidable elements. Shortly after he was elected deputy both for Aix and Marseilles: on consideration he decided to sit for Aix.
At this point Mirabeau's history mingles with that of France. Into the remaining twenty-four months of his life were crowded events and labours fit for many years—labours that finally cut short the thread of a life in more senses than one too fast for human strength. Raised, as soon as prejudice had been conquered by his personal influence and the urgency of affairs, to indisputable supremacy in the Assembly, his aims throughout corresponded with his first professions. "War with the privileged and with privileges," that was his motto: "To crush the ministerial deposition and relieve the royal authority," that was
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1 This excellent man, whose *Recollections of Mirabeau* contain a good deal of striking truth and some very graphic pictures, with much confusion, vague reminiscence, and doubtful statements, amusingly describes his own feelings:—"When I worked for Mirabeau I seemed to feel the pleasure of an obscure individual who had charged his children at nurse, and introduced them into a great family: he would be obliged to respect them, although he was their father." Mirabeau: his aim. He soon found that the wreck of despotism was dragging with it the throne, that the blows which shook the one were undermining the other; and when he saw the very existence of the monarchy at stake he placed himself single-handed in the breach—too late, indeed, for his own fame and the good of his country. That he loved the breath of popular applause is true; that he scorned and braved the fierce ardor civium, when conscious of right, is not less so. His haughty soul may have only spurned the many-headed monster which he had helped to loose. But let it not be denied him that he truly loved the People and battled for their rights, and as truly loved and battled for the Crown. How to reconcile these two—herein was his difficulty; a difficulty that might well have entangled and foiled a spirit less compassed with infirmity, an ambition more severely regulated than belonged to him. But that he basely pandered to the rage of a faction, and then sold himself in secret to the enemy with whom he professed to war—this is a view of his character that must be left to those whose special pleasure it is to lower our estimate of human nature, and who ever choose the worst hypothesis to account for what is dubious or abnormal in the conduct of men raised above their fellows.
On the 4th of May 1789 the national deputies marched in procession from Versailles to Notre Dame, amid the feverish expectation of all Paris and all France. Of the 600 members of the third estate, one alone attracted every eye. Among others who crowded the balconies of Versailles was Madame de Staël, who thus vividly pictures what she saw:—"You could not but look long on this man when once you had observed him. His immense black head of hair distinguished him among 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." On his first appearance in the Assembly his name was greeted with murmurs; before many weeks had passed he swayed it at his will. He had already arranged for the publication of a Journal of the States General. Being free in its sarcasms, on Necker in particular, it was suppressed after the second number; but Mirabeau continued to enlighten the public in Letters to his Constituents, soon after converted into the Courier of Provence, under which name the journal went on long after he had ceased to have any concern in it. In this work he secured, with his usual marvellous power, the services of zealous coadjutors,—Dumont, Duroverai, Reybaz, and others. These assisted him also in the preparation of his speeches; and if Dumont speaks truly, he did not scruple to deliver orations wholly composed by other hands. At first he spoke seldom, till he felt his way. He very soon discerned the dangerous and destructive temper of the Assembly; and while the question of the verification of powers was obstructing progress, he communicated his fears to the government through Malouet, a friend of Necker, urging them to be wise in time, and concluding with this offer:—"If they have a plan, and that plan be reasonable, I shall defend it." Unfortunately they had no reasonable plan. A meeting indeed took place between Mirabeau and Necker, but the severely respectable minister received the scandalous Count with chilling coldness and reserve. Mirabeau left him in indignation, saying, "I will go to him no more, but he shall hear of me!"
On the 23rd of June occurred the memorable De Brézé scene, the turning-point of the Revolution. From that day Mirabeau was felt to be the foremost man, the ruling spirit of the Assembly. He was greatly moved at Mirabeau, not having been warned beforehand of the intentions of the court. "It is thus," he said, "that kings are led to the scaffold." On the 11th of July the old Marquis died at Argenteuil, having lived to rejoice unstintedly in the triumphs of his son. Mirabeau, though urged by his friends to offer himself as a candidate for the mayoralty of Paris, with good prospect of success, hastened to attend to his father's obsequies, and for three days, days of terrible commotion, he mingled little in public business. Bertrand de Moleville, searching for the cause of this silence, attributes it to "profound intentions!" The truth is, that Mirabeau viewed with deep horror the frantic excesses of the populace, and in his letters to his constituents openly expressed his belief that "the continuance of popular dictation would expose the public liberty more than the plots of its enemies." "Too often," he added, "danger rallies absolute rule; and in the midst of anarchy a despot may even seem a saviour:" words prophetically true. On the 1st of September, in the face of fierce opposition and popular excitement, he spoke in favour of the King's absolute veto. On the 24th he defended the income tax of his enemy Necker, believing it necessary for the public salvation. "The force," says Dumont, "with which he presented so commonplace a subject was miraculous; he elevated it to sublimity. They who heard this speech will never forget it. From that day Mirabeau was considered as a being superior to other men: he had no rival. There were indeed other orators, but he alone was eloquent."
The suspicions of his complicity in the tumults of the 5th and 6th October, and of conspiring with the Duke of Orleans, have been utterly refuted by the testimony alike of friends and enemies. As has more than once been said, he never had any "party;" his only party was "his head." On the 6th November he opposed with all his energy the insidious motion against a deputy's being minister, or vice versa. His defeat on this occasion deeply wounded him; for the words "no deputy," he bitterly said, it might be as well to substitute "no deputy of the name of Mirabeau."
Towards the close of the following spring appear to have begun his communications with the court, through the medium of his friend the Count de Lamarck. For a considerable time he had been comparatively silent, viewing the proceedings of the Assembly with a kind of sorrowful anger and disdain. In reply to the overtures made, he gave a full statement of his views in a letter dated May 10, 1790. He declares his invincible repugnance to enter on a new part, if he were not convinced that the restoration of the King's legitimate authority is the only means of saving France. He sees the nation daily drifting into anarchy, and he is "indignant at the bare idea of having contributed only to a vast demolition." He engages to serve the King with all his influence, but is as "utterly opposed to a counter-revolution" as he has been to the excesses already committed. He requires two months to collect his forces and arrange his plans; his conduct must not be judged by single speeches or acts; he promises finally to the King "loyalty, zeal, activity, courage,—everything but success." In conformity with this programme, he at once commenced operations, and established an agency throughout the kingdom for conveying intelligence and furthering his designs. That, in consideration of these services, in which Mirabeau really acted the part of an unrecognised prime minister, a few of his debts were paid from the civil list, and a monthly pension assigned him, which there is ground for supposing never to have been regularly drawn, are facts known to the world. How far they establish the charge of venality must be left to individual judgment; this at least is certain, that he in-
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1 Dumont, while doing his own best to strip Mirabeau of "his borrowed plumes," confesses that "Mirabeau had certainly a right to consider himself the parent of all these productions, because he presided at their birth, and without his indefatigable activity they would never have seen the light." He is speaking of other works, but the application holds good for all. curred large expenses in the interest of the King, and that he died insolvent. Those who incline to the more favourable view of his conduct will see some force in the saying ascribed to himself.—“A man like me might accept 100,000 crowns, but I am not to be bought for that sum.” Be that as it may; from this time Mirabeau’s whole strength was bent on the salvation of the monarchy. On the 26th May he supported the King’s right to declare war or peace in a long and masterly oration. Great efforts were made to intimidate him; hawkers went bawling through the streets of Paris, “Grande Trahison du Comte de Mirabeau,” and the very tree was marked on which he was to hang. On the morning of the 22nd the avenues leading to the Salle de Manège were thronged with angry crowds. His friends entreated him not to venture out, but his courage was of the kind that danger stimulates. “I know it well enough,” he said, “I must come hence to-day triumphant or piece-meal!” Triumphant he did come.
About the end of May took place his celebrated interview with the Queen. What had passed between them none ever knew, save that the Queen was delighted with Mirabeau, and he with her. But neither Queen nor court thoroughly or sincerely co-operated in the great schemes of Mirabeau; they had their own little schemes, ever varying with the feelings and changes of the hour. On the 30th December he addressed a long memorial to the Queen, expounding in detail his plans, and offering advice—plans and advice far too wise and simple to be followed, though perseveringly urged up to the time of his death.
On the 1st Feb. 1791 he took his place as President of the Assembly, a distinction hitherto withheld through envy, and now yielded in the hope of lessening his influence by compelling him into silence. A foolish miscalculation; there, racked by internal pains, his neck swathed in linen to stanch the blood of leech-bites, administered between the sittings, his life consuming fiercely as it neared the close, the great tribune, never so great as now, sat and swayed the elements that raged around him. “Never,” says Dumont, “had this office been so well filled. He displayed in it a new kind of talent. He introduced a degree of order and clearness into the proceedings of which no member had previously the least conception. He simplified forms, could render the question clear by a single word, and also by a single word put down tumult.”
The end was approaching; for many weeks he had felt that his life-blood was being drained. Confident in his great strength, he had never slackened his pace, never stinted his labours or his indulgences. “Had I not lived with Mirabeau,” says Dumont, “I never should have known all that can be done in one day, or rather in an interval of twelve hours. A day to him was more than a week or a month to others. The mass of business he carried on simultaneously was prodigious; from the conception to the execution not a moment was lost.” And now, added to frightful anxiety, toil, and excitement, came fever, ophthalmia, rheumatic swellings, and fiery pains. “If I believed in slow poisons,” he said to Dumont, “I should think myself poisoned; for I feel that I am dying by inches—that I am being consumed in a slow fire.” But there was no rest for him; on the Sundays, indeed, he was down at Argenteuil, among his flowers; on all other days—not an instant of rest from seven in the morning till ten or eleven at night; continual conversations, agitations of mind, and excitement of every passion; too high living,—in food only, for he was very moderate in drink.” On the 27th of March, though frightfully ill, he proceeded to the Assembly, where he spoke five times; he left it exhausted, and had a bath; thought he could sit out the Italian opera, but had to go homeward after a few minutes to bed, to rise no more. His friend and physician Cabanis found death written on his face. The sensation throughout Paris was indescribable; all day the Chausée d’Antin was thronged with sad inquirers; bulletins were handed out every three hours to the eager multitudes, and messengers from the King came twice a day for tidings. All medicines were tried in vain, and Cabanis sat despondingly by the bed-side. “Thou art a great physician,” said his patient, gazing on him, “but the Maker of the wind that overthrows all things,—of the water that penetrates and fructifies,—of the fire that quickens or decomposes all things,—He is a greater physician than thou!” Even in the intervals of convulsive agony, with the sweat of death on his brow, and its shadows gathering around him, his supreme self-consciousness never forsook him; he was himself to the end. “He dramatized his death,” said Talleyrand. His friend Frochot supported his head. “Yes,” said the sick man, “support that head; would I could bequeath it thee!” At daybreak of the 2d April his windows were opened to let in the fresh breath of spring. He called Cabanis: “My friend,” he said, “I shall die to-day; there remains but one thing more to do; perfume me, crown me with flowers, environ me with music, so that I may enter sweetly on that sleep from which there is no awaking.” For three-quarters of an hour he discoursed with Lamarck and Cabanis on his own and the public affairs. “I carry in my heart,” he said, “the dirge of the monarchy; its remains will now be the spoil of the factious.” Towards night he was speechless, and in his dreadful pain he signed convulsively for drink; he waved the offered potions away, and hastily put down the words “Dormir.” He prayed for opium, but the doctor resisted; recovering utterance, he reproached his friend for hesitating to cut short his agony. For some time he lay silent, till the sound of distant guns broke upon his ear, and he asked—“Have we already the Achilles funeral?” A moment after, he had ceased to breathe.
So passed away, at the age of forty-two, the last Count of Mirabeau. Amid the tears of the French nation, with honours never before paid to any citizen, seldom to any king, his body was laid in the church of St Geneviève, the newly-consecrated Pantheon of France. Thence it was removed at the dead of night, in September 1794, to the churchyard of St Catherine, in the Faubourg St Marceau, the resting-place of criminals.
The memoirs of Mirabeau by his adopted son, M. Lucas Montigny (Paris, 1836, 8 tom. 8vo), are as yet, in spite of grievous defects, the most valuable source of information on the subject. Of innumerable briefer productions, there is but one demanding special notice,—the imitable essay of Mr Carlyle. Mirabeau, Victor Riquetti, Marquis de, the father of the great Mirabeau, and one of the most eminent teachers of the doctrines of the Economists in France, was born at Perthus on the 5th of October 1715. He was the heir of an ancient Italian family of the name of Arrighetti, afterwards corrupted into Riquetti, who had been expelled from Florence during some civil broil in 1267, and had found a refuge and a home in Provence. His ancestors had bequeathed to him a lawless, stormy, and imperious temperament, that sought its proper element in some all-engrossing action or in the prosecution of some arduous project. This restless energy first found vent in the pursuit of war. He entered the army at an early age, fought bravely at the sieges of Kehl and Philippsburg, at the battles of Dettingen and Clusen; and won the Cross of St Louis in 1743. By this time his father had died, and had left him an independent fortune. The new Marquis now appeared in the character of a complete aristocrat, swelling with hereditary importance, stiff with haughty affectation, and enveloped in an atmosphere of contemptuous indifference, which was ever liable to be dispersed by storms of lurking passion. Quitting the army, he married the Marquise de Saulvebeuf, and taking up his abode in the old family castle of Mirabeau, on the banks of the Durance, he thought to lead on his tenantry to his ideal standard of improvement, to exact from them in return the most reverential respect, and to reign a despotic sovereign on his own estate. But all his ardent and benevolent exertions could not bend his stiff-necked peasantry into that pliability of submission upon which his imperious soul was so intent. He therefore abandoned his hereditary castle for ever, and settled in his newly-bought estate of Bignon, about 15 miles from Paris. Here his restless mind found a new crotchet in the political economy of Quesnay. Becoming a thorough-going disciple of that philosopher, he commenced to advocate his peculiar views in a work entitled *Ami des Hommes*, and in several other books and tracts. The only prominent result was, that he was lodged for some time in the Bastile. Nevertheless, on his release he continued pertinaciously to write on, indulging in strange and whimsical speculations, entangling his thoughts in hopelessly-complicated sentences, venting his pent-up passion in covert satire and bursts of eloquence, and sinning against all good taste by his egotisms, mannerisms, and forced metaphors. At the same time his whole parental authority was kept perpetually on the strain in endeavouring to mould his rising family into a conformity with his own educational theory. But the young Mirabeaus, rigid with the self-will of their race, could not be bent by the paternal efforts, persistent though they were. The result was an endless series of domestic broils, waxing hotter and hotter. The employment of confidential servants exasperated the turmoil, and the introduction into the household of an artful Swiss lady, Madame Pailly, brought it to a crisis. The wronged wife abandoned for ever the home in which she had lived for fifteen years. It was shortly after this that the Marquis directed the full torrent of his educational fury against his eldest surviving boy, Gabriel Honoré, and began that merciless system of tutorage which, however well meant, only resulted in bringing into play the wild irregularities of his great son's character. After the boarding-school and the army had failed to tame the fiery young spirit, the exasperated father did not hesitate to employ harsh imprisonment. Then his eye was ever on the watch to detect any attempts to escape from the imposed punishment, and his hand was always ready to thrust his culprit into severer bondage, if occasion required. He even thought upon banishment to the unhealthy climate of Surinam as an ultimate cure. At the same time the Marquis was instituting a series of law-suits against his wife, which made him the subject of the gossip and scandal of the entire country. He was also ruling the rest of his children with a rod of iron, and was issuing against them numerous *lettres de cachet*. Once, it is said, he held his entire family under confinement, and sat alone by his household hearth in stubborn resignation, consoling himself with his political economy. Yet, like all his other projects, this project of subduing his family proved impracticable. The law-suits, after lasting for fifteen years, were decided against him to the almost utter ruin of his fortune. His son Gabriel Honoré turned out to be the most daring despiser of those very conventionalities which lie had been so long forcing him to respect. The rest of his children went their own several ways in spite of him. These disappointments seem to have combined with advancing old age to soften down the asperities of the Marquis's character. His imperious temper became subdued into a perverse censoriousness. His philanthropy assumed the more definite form of a morality, grim, austere, and pompous, as became the nature of the man. He called his children together, was reconciled to them, and declared himself only fit now for sitting in the chimney-nook, and "patching his brains together again." Yet scarcely had he ceased from his lifelong and ineffectual struggles, when the aggrandizement of his family name,—that object at which he had so long aimed,—was suddenly achieved by a stroke of destiny. The French revolution opened up for his gifted son a path to the highest influence and renown. The hereditary pride of the old Marquis was at length gratified. He died on the 13th July, 1789, when the name of Mirabeau had already become famous throughout Europe.