285 



MIRABEAU, COMTE DE. 



MIRABEAU, COMTE DE. 



2E6 



the plan. The force with which he presented so commonplace a 

 subject was miraculous : he elevated it to sublimity. They who heard 

 that speech never forgot it. No attempt was made to reply : the 

 assembly was subjugated by the power of a superior mind, and the 

 project was adopted unanimously. " From that day Mirabeau was 

 considered as having no rival in the assembly : there were indeed 

 other orators, but he alone was eloquent; and this impression was 

 stronger, because in his speech on. this question he was obliged to 

 depend entirely upon his own resources; for it was an unexpected 

 reply, and could not therefore have been prepared." (Dumont's 

 ' Recollections.') Mol<5, the celebrated actor at the Theatre Franjais, 

 was so struck with the force of Mirabeau's eloquence and the brilliancy 

 of his delivery, that, approaching the orator with visible emotion, 

 "Ah ! monsieur le comte," said he, in a pathetic tone of voice, " what 

 a speech! and with what an accent did you deliver it! You have 

 surely missed your vocation." Mirabeau was by no means displeased 

 at this singular^ompliment. 



After the removal of the Assembly to Paris, some negociations were 

 entered into for bringing Mirabeau into office. Necker had nearly 

 agreed to it, and the king was about to consent; but Mirabeau's con- 

 dition was, that he should remain member of the Assembly, without 

 which ho felt that his taking office would be of*no use. Suspicions of 

 the scheme having been bruited about, some of hia antagonist-), of 

 Lameth's party, moved that no minister should be a member of the 

 Assembly, llirabeau in vain opposed the motion, which was carried 

 by a feeble majority. Ha appealed to the usage of the English 

 parliament, but this appeal told against himself; for the least iJea 

 of imitation offended the pride of the innovators, who pretended to 

 establish a monarchical form of government, without preserving a 

 single element of monarchy. " We are not English, and we want 

 nothing English," was the reply on such occasions. 



.Mirabeau was one of the lirst to propose a martial law to put down 

 the insurrecti >ns which had then become extremely frequent all over 

 France. The law was passed on the 19th of October, notwithstanding 

 violent opposition ; and, strange to say, Mirabeau's popularity was 

 not affected by it. 



About November of the same year Mirabeau unexpectedly com- 

 municated to Dumont a plan to draw the king away from Paris. 

 After placing him in Metz or some other strong fortress, amidst faith- 

 ful troops, he was to appeal to the people by proclamation, to dissolve 

 the Assembly, and order an immediate election of fresh deputies. 

 Mirabtau wag to remain at Paris, and watch the motions of the 

 Assembly ; and, as soon as the royal proclamation should appear, he 

 cxpecte/l to induce all the moderate members to separate from the 

 rest and follow the king. Mirabeau represented this plan as the only 

 thing by which France could be saved from complete disorganisation. 

 Dumont strongly remonstrated against the plan, and Mirabeau 

 acknowledged to him that it had originated with the court party, and 

 that he had intended to co-operate in the movement, in order to direct 

 it in favour of liberty; "otherwise," said he, "it will only lead to 

 new errors and the total ruin of the country. If the plan does not 

 succeed, the monarchy is lost" Dumont represented to him that he 

 would most probably be made use of only as a tool, and then dis- 

 carded as a victim. A few days afterwards Mirabeau told him that 

 the plan was given up, and the affair remained a secret. 



During the year 1790, Mirabeau continued to hold the first rank as 

 a leader of the National Assembly. He supported the law for the sale 

 of church property in order to pay off the national debt, but with 

 some restrictions in favour of the actual possessors, which restrictions 

 were however disregarded. He also supported the issue of asaignata 

 or bonds on the security of that property, but limited their issue to a 

 fixed amount. He also proposed, at Dumont's suggestion, a plan of 

 gradual elections, by which a citizen should have to exercise certain 

 civil functions for a stated period in order to qualify him to become a 

 deputy to the legislature. This motion was at first received with 

 favour by most members both of the right and the left section of the 

 Assembly, but Lauieth, Barnave, and some others looked upon it as 

 an aristocratic snare ; they moved and carried an adjournment, and 

 the motion was ultimately lost. In the important discussion on the 

 right of peace and war, he declared, to the great dismay of the 

 democrats, that the king ought to be invested with this prerogative, 

 and supported hia opinion by a logical and brilliant speech. Barnave 

 opposed him, attacked Mirabeau violently, accused him of incon- 

 sistency, ridiculed his system, was cheered by the left side, and by the 

 people in the galleries, and received with acclamations by the people 

 out of doors, whilst cries of 'a la lanterne ' resounded against 

 Mirabeau. The debate wag adjourned. The next day a libel was 

 hawked about the streets with this title in large capitals : " The 

 great treason of the Comte de Mirabeau," in which he wag accused of 

 bribery. The paper was shown to him as he entered the Assembly : 

 he glanced at it, and said, " I know it all ; I shall leave the house 

 either triumphant or in pieces." He ascended the tribune amidst the 

 moat profound silence : " For several days past," said he, " the section 

 of this Assembly which wishes for the king's assent in questions of 

 peace and war has been represented as hostile to public liberty ; 

 rumours of treason and corruption are artfully spread about ; popular 

 vengeance is invoked to support the tyranny of party opinions. 1 also, 

 whom a few days ago they wanted to carry in triumph, I hear myself 



now _ proclaimed in the streets as a great conspirator. I did not 

 require this lesson to remind me that there are only a few steps between 

 the capitol and the Tarpeiau rock; but a man who wishes to bo 

 useful to his country, who cares little for the vain celebrity of a day, is 

 not easily overcome ; he expects his reward from his conscience and 

 from time, the incorruptible judges of us all. I shall therefore re- 

 sume the question in debate, and explain the true point of contention 

 with all the clearness I am capable of." He then repeated the objec- 

 tions of Barnave, maintained his former opinion, and urged it with 

 redoubled force. He saw in the eyes of the audience the certainty 

 of his triumph, and stopping rather abruptly, he concluded, in an 

 ordinary and careless tone, with these words : " I think, gentlemen, 

 that the real point in debate is now well known, and that M. Barnave 

 haa not at all touched the question at issue. It would now be for me 

 a task too easy and irrelevant to follow my opponent throughout hig 

 accessory details, in which, if he has shown a, certain talent, he hag 

 not exhibited the least knowledge of state or worldly affairs. He has 

 declaimed at length about the mischief which absolute kings can do 

 and have done, but he has not observed that in our constitution the 

 monarch is no longer absolute, and cannot act arbitrarily, and he has, 

 above all, completely abstained from speaking of the evils resulting 

 from popular movements." Mirabeau left the tribune amidst a thunder 

 of applause, which lasted for many minutes. His triumph was again 

 complete, and his opinion prevailed. 



He opposed the violent measures proposed against emigration, saying 

 that it was tyrannical to interfere with the locomotive faculties of 



individuals that such restrictions could not be carried into effect 



that he, for one, would not obey them and as the extreme left 

 became louder and louder in their marks of disapprobation, he fixed 

 bis eyes upon them imperiously, and cried out with a voice of 

 thunder, " Silence aux trente voix" (silence, you thirty votes) ; and the 

 extreme left quailed before him, and was silent accordingly. On the 

 question of the regency he told the Assembly to judge for themselves, 

 and not to heed the shouts out of doors ; he told them that the very 

 people who were applauding them to-day would shout still louder 

 were they to see them some other day on their way to the scaffold ; 

 and at that moment a loud cheer from the galleries seemed to confirm 

 Mirabeau's prediction. 



Thus did this extraordinary man, while crushing the old aristocracy 

 with one hand, repress the fury of the democratic faction ou the other. 

 Hardly disguising his contempt for the intellectual capacity of most 

 of his colleagues, he still kept them all in awe ; and while openly 

 asserting his independence of clubs, and factions, and mobs, he 

 retained his popularity to the last even with the lowest populace. 

 " Our little mother Mirabeau " wag the endearing nickname which tho 

 fishwomen of Paris, who sometimes graced the galleries of the legisla- 

 ture with their presence, applied to him. 



Mirabeau, assisted by Dumont and others, edited a journal entitled 

 at first, 'Journal dea Etats-Gdneraux,' aud afterwards ' Courir de 

 Provence,' which gave a clever and tolerably impartial report of the 

 proceedings of the National Assembly, until about the middle of 1790, 

 when it wag forsaken by its original founders, and retained nothing of 

 its former character except the name. 



In January 1791, Mirabeau was named president of the National 

 Assembly. " Never had this office been so well tilled ; he displayed in 

 it a new kind of talent. He introduced a degree of order and clear- 

 ness in the proceedings, of the possibility of which no member had 

 previously the least conception. He simplified forms ; he could 

 render the question clear by a single word, aud also by a single word 

 put down tumult. His regard for all parties, the respect he always 

 paid to the Assembly, the precision of his observations, and his answers 

 to the several deputations at tho bar answers which, whether pre- 

 pared or extempore, were always remarkable for dignity and elegance, 

 and satisfactory even while conveying a refusal ; in short, his activity, 

 his impartiality, and his presence of mind, increased his reputation 

 and added splendour to his talents, in an office which had proved a 

 quicksand to several of his predecessors. He had the art of fixing the 

 general attention even when, being no longer able to speak from the 

 tribune, he seemed to have forgone his most valuable prerogative. 

 His enemies, who were jealous of his eloquence, and had voted him 

 president 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. 



" He was far from enjoying good health at this time. 'If I believed 

 in slow poisons," he said to me, ' I should think myself poisoned ; for 

 I feel that I am dying by inches that I am being consumed in a slow 

 fire.' I observed to him, that his mode of life would long ago have 

 destroyed any mau leas robust than himself. Not a moment of rest, 

 from seven in the morning till ten or eleven at night ; continual con- 

 versations and altercations; agitations of mind and excitement of 

 every kind; too high living, at least as regards food for he was very 

 moderate in drink. 'You must,' I said, 'be a salamander, to live in 

 the fire which is consuming you.' Like all public and ambitious men, 

 in then: moments of ennui and fatigue, he entertained at times 

 thoughts of retiring from public life. The irritation of his system at 

 this time produced violent attacks of ophthalmia ; and I have seen 

 him, whilst he was president of the National Assembly, sometimes 

 apply leeches for his eyes in the interval during the adjournment of 



