226 



MIHABEAU 



MIRACLE 



president of the Jacobin Club; ntt well an an ad- 

 ministrator of the Seine department, and in the 



January following one of its eight directors; but 

 by Lafayette's influence he was defeated ill his 

 candidature for the otlice of its procuicm -general 

 syndic, as well as for the presidency. He was 

 chosen. ho\\e\er. commandant of the battalion of 

 National Cuards of his district, and on .Uiiiiary *1. 

 Kill, was at last elected president of the Assembly 

 for the fortnight, and none showed more dignity 

 ancT impartiality in the office. He overthrew the 

 proposed law against emigration, and that same 

 evening at the Jacobin Club bore down all opposi. 

 tion by his irresistible eloquence, and left the club 

 amid thunders of applause. He opposed vigorously 

 the motion of Sieves (March 22) that in the event 

 of the king's death the regent should l>e elected by 

 the Assembly, as an abandonment of the hereditary 

 principle, and carried his point. But his health 

 was fast sinking, although he refused to allow him- 

 self any relaxation a splendid atonement of self- 

 sacrifice for the errors of his youth. His last battle . 

 was on the rights of property in mines, into which 

 debate he threw himself with tin- enthn.sia.siic 

 chivalry of friendship, for it was a question closely 

 affecting the interests of his dear friend DelaMarck. 

 He returned from the Assembly utterly exhausted, 

 with the words, ' Your cause is won, but I have 

 got my death-blow.' On the last day of his life he 

 said, with the prophetic foresight of genius, ' I carry 

 with me the ruin of the monarchy. After my death 

 factions will dispute alwuit the fragments.' AS he 

 looked on the sun ho exclaimed, ' If that is not 

 Cod, it is at least his cousin.' The famous chemist 

 Cabanis from the first gave no hone, and on the 

 morning of Aiiril 2, 1791, after a night of agony, 

 when speech had gone, he wrote on a slate, 'Sleep 

 I wish only to sleep,' and a few moments after 

 his heart had ceased to l>eat. He was buried in 

 the I'antheon amid universal mourning, his funeral 

 procession extending for about four miles. Another 

 National Assembly, the Convention, two and a 

 half years afterwards, when the papers revealing 

 the secret relations of Mirabeau and the couit 

 were discovered in the king's iron chest, ordered 

 the body to be disinterred from the I'antheon and 

 cast into the churchyard of Saiiitc-Catherine. 



'Do not rejoice over the death of .Mirabeau,' 

 said the king to Marie Antoinette; 'we have 

 suffered a greater loss than you imagine.' That 

 loss was the one influence that might still have 

 saved the throne, and averted a deluge of blood in 

 which the light of liberty was itself extinguished. 



'His writings were collected by Blanrliard (10 vols. 

 1822). For bis life, see especially the Mfmoirct Kegra- 

 phu/utu, LMtrairet, et Politiqnettle Mil-" 1 """ 



mtme, par inn Pfre, trm Oiiele, tt "in h'il* A imuf 

 Lucas de Montigny, son of Madame de Nehra (8 vols. 

 1834 ; Kng. trans, down to the commencement of his 

 public life, in 4 vols. 1835-30). See also Dummit, 



niri mr Miral#au(\KXl\, anil A. Stern. AM Men 

 Mirnli'itiit (2 vols. 1889); and for liN political idea* es| M -- 

 dully M. de liaoourt's Corre*pan'l<i '"'' '< I'mntrde 

 Miralxau tt le Comle de In Marck (3 V<>!H. 1X.M ). Lo- 

 ni. -ni. '-, work. Let Mirabrau (5 vols. 187H !>1 1, is mostly 

 upon his father and uncle. Other works of value arc 

 Mezleres, I'" >li .Mirnlxmi ilsirj.; I'lim. r/ OoBotom- 

 l,:ir ,1, Mir,il,iu Keyhaz (1874); H. Keynald, Mir,< 

 beau ft la Conttituante (1873) ; and Aulard, / 

 l*irlriii'iiiniri invliint la RJmlution 1 

 Set also the Histories of the Revolution of C'arlyli . V. n 

 SJ-IN-I, and 11 Morse Stephens (vol. i.); and essays by 

 Carlyle ( Miteellnnitt, vol. iv.) an.) Henry Keeve (Royal 

 and BepuUiean France, vol. i. 1872). 



ANDRK BOMKACK HUM'KTI. VICOMTF. DC MIRA- 

 BEAT, brother of the preceding, was liorn 30th 

 NovemlxT 1754 at Bignon, and from an early age 

 was notorious for his ill regulated life and for a 

 thirst tha' earned him the nickname of ' Barrel 



Mirabeau.' It was as he said tlie only vice bis 

 brother nod left for him. He fought with distinc- 

 tion in the American war, and at the outbreak of 

 the Devolution was returned to the States gcm-ial 

 by the nobility of Limoges. Heie lie showed him- 

 sell a 1'ietce aiistocrat in )Hilicy, and after the deal li 

 of liU brothel he quitted Fram-e, and lai-e.l on the 

 Hhine the ' Hnssards de la Molt,' a legion of 

 embittered tmigrtt, with whom he began in \llr2 a 

 bloiMly partisan waif a re against his country. He 

 w.-t^ liin through by accident, l.">th September of the 

 same \car. at Freiburg in Uieisgau. 



Miracle* a term commonly applied to certain 

 marvellous works (such as healing the sick, 

 raising the dead, changing of water into wine) 

 asciilx-d in the Bible to some of tlie ancient pro- 

 phets, and to Jesus Christ and his follower-. It 

 signifies simply that which is wonderful a thing 

 or a deed to be wondered at, being derived directly 

 from the Latin iiiii-nriitiiiii, ' a thing unusual 

 object of wonder or surprise. The same meaning 

 is the governing idea in the term applied in the 

 New Testament to the Christian lunacies, trrat, 

 'a marvel,' 'a portent;' besides which, we also 

 find them designated i/i/niin>ris, ' [lowers,' with 

 reference to the power residing in the miracle- 

 worker, and xfiiifitt. 'signs,' with a reference to 

 the character or claims of which they 

 assumed to lie the witnesses or guarantees. Under 

 t li.-se different names the one fact recognised is a 

 deed acknowledged by the common judgment of 

 men to exceed man's ordinary powers ; in other 

 words, a deed siifKi-nntnml, lieyond the common 

 powers of nature, as these are understood by men. 



In the older .-peculations on the subject, a 

 miracle was generally defined to I* a violation 

 or suspension of the order of nature. \Vhile, on 

 tlie one hand, it was argued that such a violation 

 or suspension was absolutely impossible and incred- 

 ible, it was maintained, on tlie other, that the 

 Almighty, either by His own immediate agency, or 

 by tlie agency of others, could interfere with the 

 ojieiation of the laws of nature, in order to secure 

 certain ends which without that interference could 

 not have Ix'cn secured, and that there was nothing 

 incrfdihle in the idea of a law lieing suspended by 

 the I'crsoii by whom it had been made. The laws 

 of nature and the will or providence of (MM! 

 were, in this view, thus placed ill a certain aspect of 

 opposition to each other, at point* here and there 

 clashing, and the stronger arbitrarily asserting its 

 raperionty. Such a view has, with the advance of 

 philosophical opinion, appeared to many to IKJ 

 inadequate as a theory, and to give an unworthy 

 conception of the Divine character. The UMMI 



principle of Law, as the highest col pi ion not only 



of nature, but of Divine Providence, in all its 

 manifestations, has asserted itself more dominanlly 

 in the realm of thought, ami led to the rejection of 

 the apparently conllicting idea of ' interference, ' 

 implied in the old notion of miracle, tinier in 

 nature and a just and iincnpricious will in Cod 

 were felt to l>e first and absolutely necessary prin 

 ciples. Tin- idea of miracle, accordingly, which 

 seems to ! now most readily accepted by tlie 

 advocates of tlie Christian religion, has ita root in 

 this leco^'iiised necessity. 



All law is regarded as the expression, not of a 

 lifeless lorce. but of a |>crfectly wise and just will. 

 All law must develop itself through natural pheno- 

 mena] but it is not identified with or bound down 

 to any necessary series of these. If we admit the 

 mainspring of the universe to l>e a living will, then 

 we may admit that the phenomena through which 

 that " ill. acting in the form of law, expresses itself, 

 may vary without the will varying or the law being 

 broken. ' We know absolutely nothing of the modo 

 of operation in any recorded miracle ; we only sea 



