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MIRABEATJ, COMTK DE. 



MIRABEAU, COMTE DE. 



cachet ' against his son, and confining him in several state prisons in 

 succession. His first imprisonment was in consequence of a lov affair, 

 after which Mirabeau served for some time in the army, on leaving 

 which he married a young lady who had been promised to another. 

 His dissipation however rendered the match an unhappy one; be 

 became encumbered with debts, bis father obtained an interdict 

 against him which declared him incapable of administering his pro- 

 perty, and moreover a lettre-de-cachet, by which he was confined in 

 the castle of Joux, in the Jura mountains. He was then twenty-five 

 years of age. His captivating address won over the commandant of 

 the fort, who allowed him to walk about the neighbouring town of 

 Pontarlier, where he made the acquaintance of a young lady, the wife 

 of an old man who was a magistrate in that province. Mirabeau 

 seduced her, and carried her off to Holland. This is the person to 

 whom he afterwards addressed several licentious works under the 

 name of Sophie. For this offence the parliament of Dijon condemned 

 him to death ' par contumaoe.' 



In Holland, Mirabeau began to work for the booksellers as a means 

 of subsistence. While he was thus employed he was seized by the 

 agents of the French police, with the consent of the Dutch authorities, 

 and was finally shut up in the dungeon of Vincinnee, mar Paris, where 

 he remained more than three years. During his confinement he went 

 through a courte of general reading, made translations from Latin and 

 modern foreign authors, formed a collection of extracts, and wrote 

 sever.il works, most of which were of the amorous kind, and some of 

 them obscene. He also carried on a correspondence with his mistress 

 Sophie, which was published after his death. 



On his release in 1780 he wrote his work 'On the Lettres de Cachet 

 and ou Mate Prisons,' which made a di ep imprestion on the public. 

 Repairing to Pontarlier, he pleaded his own cause and that of his 

 mi-trrMs, and compelled the hueband to enter into a compromise by 

 which the prosecution was quashed. 



About 1784 he visited Loudon, where he became acquainted with 

 RouilK. From England he wrote his 'Letters to Chnmtort,' in which 

 he praised the institutions of the country. " Mirabeau," says Ms friend 

 and biographer Dumnut, " was then engaged in a work on the American 

 op. cr of Cincinnatus, and he had in his portfolio plans and sketches of 

 sevciai other works, upon which he took good oare to consult every 

 peiaon capable of affording him information. He was then poor, and 

 obliged to live by his writing!". He wrote his 'Dontes sur la Libert^ 

 de 1'Escaut ' (<>r 'Considerations on the Navigation of the Schelde ') 

 from a letter by Mr. Chauvet, which gave him the first idea of the 

 work. Huviug become acquainted with a geographer, he began to 

 think of writing a uuiveri-al geography. Had any oue shown him the 

 elements of Chinese grammar, he would, I have no doubt, have 

 attempted a treatise on the Chinese language. He studied a subject 

 while he was writing upon it, and he only required an assistant who 

 should furnish matter to him. He could contrive to get notes and 

 additions from twenty different bands; and had he been offered a 

 good price, 1 am confident that he would have undertaken to write 

 ev> 11 an encyclopaedia. His activity was prodigious. If he worked 

 little himself, he made otherx work very hard. He had the skill of 

 finding out men of talent, and of successfully flattering tho.-e who 

 could be of use to him ; he worked upon them by means of insinua- 

 tions of friendship and of ideas of public benefit. His interesting and 

 animated conversation was like a hone which he used to sharpen his 

 tools. Nothing was lost to him ; he collected with care anecdotes, 

 conversations, and thoughts; appropriated to his own benefit the 

 fruits of the reading and study of his friends ; knew how to use the 

 information thus acquired so as to appear to have always possessed 

 it ; and when he had begun a work in earnest, it was seen to mnke a 

 rapid and daily progress." (Durnont's ' Kecollt ctions of Mirabeau.') 



I'll'; above sketch, by a clevir and impartial friend of Mirabeau, 

 gives an insight into the versatile character of this remarkable man, 

 who might be styled the Alcibiades of the French revolution. 



In 1786, Mirabeau 's abilities having become known, he was employed 

 by the French minister Calonne on a secret mission to Berlin, where 

 he sjient about eight months, and witne-sed the last days of the great 

 Fredeiic, and the beginning of the reign of hia weak successor. On 

 his r- turn to Franca he wrote his work, * De la Monarchic 1'russieune,' 

 which was compiled from very good materials that he had obtained at 

 Berlin. He also published an ' Histoire Secrete de la Cour de Berlin,' 

 whi<:h contains many scandalous anecdotes, and which the French 

 gover/iineut caused to be burnt by the hand of the public executioner. 

 He was paid twice for this work : once by the French minister Mont- 

 morin for suppressing it, and a second time by the bookseller for 

 piiblinlnn.' it.. 



It ws about this time, in the latter part of 1788, that Dumont 

 became acquainted with Mirabeau, who- character then stood very 

 low even in Paris, in consequence of his law-suits with his family, bin 

 elopements, bin imprisonments, and his licentious character, so that 

 his acquaintances were almost ashamed of seeing hia). He was at 

 one time connected with Calonne and the other enemies of Necker, 

 agaiimt whom lie wrote several pamphlets. He published also a 

 ' Li tier ' to the new King of Prussia, an ' Address to the Batavians ' 

 on the disturbances then existing in Holland, and a ' Letter to 

 Jcweph II.,' all of which are .remarkable for their turbulent tone. He 

 wrote likewise an ' Kssai sur la Secte des Illumines,' and a ' Lettre sur 



Cagliostro,' in which he exposed that impostor. His reputation as a 

 writer stood very high, although he was indebted to his friends for 

 most of his materials. 



The convocation of the States-General in 1789 opened to Mirabeau 

 a new and brilliant career. Two years before he had attended tho 

 assembly of Notables, to which he acted as secretary. He now pre- 

 sented himself before the states of Provence as a candidate for repre- 

 senting that province in the States-General, but he was rejected by the 

 nobles on the ground of not being possessed of any fief. The true 

 reason was that he was disliked, not so much for his irregular conduct 

 as for the bold attacks which he made upon exclusive privileges. 



Mirabeau then offered himself as a candidate to the Tiers-Etat, or 

 Commons, and was returned to the States- General for both the towns 

 of Aix and Marseille. He chose to eit for the former, but he paid a 

 visit to Marseille to testify his gratitude to the citizens who had given 

 him their votes, and was received in triumph. In the midst of his 

 success however he showed himself a friend to social order, and by his 

 personal influence repressed the disorders of the populace, which had 

 broken out in alarming riots both at Marseille and at Aix. It is 

 Mirabeau's peculiar boast, that throughout his political career his 

 passions and party feelings never got the better of his judgment ; he 

 always remained master of himself ; he knew where to stop, and where 

 others ought to have stopped. Whilst Brissot, Barnave, Sieyes, Potion, 

 and others had chiefly in view the temporary triumph of their respective 

 parties or systems, Mirabeau saw farther; he weighed the ultimate 

 consequences of the measures that were agitated, and he looked to the 

 permanent welfare and eecuiity of France, and to the establishment 

 of an orderly rational government. 



At the beginning of the great dispute between the two privileged 

 orders and the third estate concerning their mode of sitting and of 

 voting, Mirabeau opposed the motion of the Breton members, that 

 the third estate should assume the title of the National Assembly, 

 regardless of the other two orders. Instead of this he proposed a 

 deputation to the clergy to invite them, " in the name of the God of 

 peace,'' to join the Commons. This step however proving fruitless, 

 Kieyes proposed to send a last message to the privileged orders, to 

 request them to repair to the common-hall of the States, in order to 

 verify their respective powers, and to judge as iu default those who 

 should not appear. That very day Mirabeau, foreseeing the conse- 

 quences of the motion, requested an interview with Malouet, tho 

 personal friend of the ministers Necker and Montmorin, and told him 

 that he was the friend of rational liberty ; that he saw the storm 

 which was impending, and that the question now was, whether the 

 monarch !ind monarchy should outlive its fury. " There are," said 

 he, " among ourselves (in the third estate) several hot-headed dange- 

 rous men. In the ranks of the aristocracy the clever men have no 

 common sense, and among the fools I know of several who are 

 capable of setting fire to the gunpowdi-r and blowing us all up in tho 

 air. You, fir, are the friend of M. Necker and of M. de Montmorin ; 

 I do not like either of them, and I do'not suppose that they like me, 

 but that is of no consequence, provided we can understand each other. 

 I should wish to know their intentions, and I request a private con- 

 ference with them. They would be very guilty, or very short-sighted, if 

 they expected to deal with the present States-General as former ministers 

 have dealt with those assemblies in the old times of the monarchy. 

 That cannot now be. They ought to have a plan of conduct based 

 upon certain principles for the interest of the monarchy ; if that plan 

 is reasonable, I shall engage to support it, to prevent the invasion of 

 democracy which threatens to overwhelm us." Malouet was delighted 

 with the proposal, for he was aware of Mirabeau's power among the 

 Commons, but the two ministers received the offer coolly, and Necker, 

 having at last consented to see Mirabeau, asked him, in a distant 

 supercilious manner, what proposals he had to make ? Mirabeau 

 offended at the word "proposals," answered in a few sharp words and 

 went away to the assembly. In passing by Malouet he whispered to 

 him, " Your friend is a fool ; he will hear of me again by and by." 

 To the honour of Mirabeau it must be said this feeling of irritation 

 was transient, and that in tho momentous discussions that followed, 

 his pique against the minister did not carry him beyond the bounds 

 which he had already prescribed to himself. (Droz, 'Histoire clu 

 Rcgne de Louis XVI.,' Paris, 1839.) 



On the 15th of June, when the Commons were deliberating on the 

 name which they were to assume, Mirabeau, after observing that tho 

 obstinacy of the privileged orders was inexcusable, that the third 

 estate was evidently in the right, and that for this very reason they 

 ought to avoid taking extremu measures, which are the last resource 

 of despair, and 'theirs certainly was not a desperate situation, continued 

 thus: "You cannot constitute yourselves as the States-General, 

 because that denomination implies three orders, and the three orders 

 certainly are not here. Will you assume another synonymous denomi- 

 nation, implying that you are the representatives of the whole nation ? 

 You will still require the king's sauction ; you cannot do without it, 

 if jou mean to impart legality to your resolutions." He then proposed 

 to assume the title of " representatives of the People." But in France 

 the word "people" had by long abuse become a word of contempt. 

 Mounier proposed the title of " Assembly of the majority of the 

 Deputies deliberating in the absence of the minority duly invited 

 and not appearing." But this title was too long. The discussion 



