94 EAltLY LIFE OF M1RABEAIT. 



and unaccountable persecution which magnified the errors of youth 

 into crimes, and exaggerated his faults with persevering malignity. 



The struggle between him and his father commences almost at his 

 twelfth year. We trace the feelings of the latter in his letters, gra- 

 dually proceeding from carelessness, or involuntary aversion, to deep 

 and settled hatred ; ending in the most unrelenting persecution. To 

 what cause we are to attribute this unnatural exhibition of character 

 in a man of confessedly superior powers of mind, as well as amiable 

 and gentle disposition, it may be difficult to determine. M. Montigny 

 labours hard to prove that it was the result of unnatural prejudices, 

 and he gives a manuscript letter of Mirabeau in which he himself ex- 

 presses a similar conviction. Without attempting to decide how far 

 this may serve to clear up a circumstance, which may be very satis- 

 factorily accounted for, by the consideration of the wild and reckless 

 bent of a character so entirely opposed to that of his father, we shall 

 proceed to notice the fluctuations of feeling and opinion in the mar- 

 quis's own words, before matters had come to extremities. 



At one time Gabriel is described as possessed " of abundance of 

 talents and wit, but with a still greater allay of faults blended in his 

 subsistence, and yet, perhaps, at bottom he has not the vices attri- 

 buted to him, nor the inserted virtues which I could have wished to 

 put in their place." A little farther on we find " this child promises 

 to turn out a fine creature, and close to this, though he may be said 

 to be only just born, extravasation has already set in. He is of a 

 perverse disposition, fantastical, fiery, troublesome, with a propensity 

 towards evil before he knows what it is, or is capable of committing it." 



Again : " He has a noble heart beneath the jacket of a boy, pos- 

 sessing a strange instinct of pride, and of noble pride the embryo 

 of a disorderly bully, that would swallow the whole world before he 

 is twelve." And farther on, " An intellect, a memory, a capacity, 

 that seize, amaze, terrify ;" and as a set off to this, " A nothing em- 

 bellished with fooleries, who will throw dust in the eyes of soft 

 ones, but who will never be more than the quarter of a man, 

 if perchance he will be any thing." From this epoch the cor- 

 respondence exhibits the aversion of his father and his consequent 

 severity perpetually on the increase. The intrigues of an artful 

 woman, named Madame de Pailly, and of an old servant, named 

 Grevin, both of whom exercised great influence over the mind of the 

 marquis, are actively employed in aggravating those feelings and 

 deepening the enormity of the follies of the wild and reckless Gabriel. 

 He was taken from the guidance of his old preceptor Poisson, and 

 handed over to a Monsieur Segrais; but Segrais was fascinated by 

 his new pupil, and this was not pleasing to the father. " You are 

 acquainted," says he, " with the noble and almost romantic soul of 

 Segrais he is struck he is fascinated he lauds the memory that 

 absorbs every thing without bearing in mind that the sand likewise 

 receives all impressions and that it is not sufficient to receive, but 

 that it is more important to retain and preserve ; he vaunts his 

 goodness of heart, which is nothing more than flashy rollicking good 

 humour with the low people who. flatter him, with whom an inbred 

 low ness leads him to associate. He praises his quickness, resembling 



