4 Fred Morroin Fling 



volumes, containing a large number of hitherto impublished 

 documents, are a vast storehouse of information. 



The two small volumes of the Zurich professor cut but a 

 sorry figure by the side of the ponderous tomes of his French 

 contemporaries. But if his work be inferior in quantity it cer- 

 tainly is not in quality. For, possessing resources that even 

 the Lomenies did not command, he saw and presented some 

 points more clearly than they are presented in the work of the 

 French historians. If the young student of history would see 

 the German critical spirit at, its best, let him study Stern's 

 "Das Leben Mirabeaus. " 



These are the great biographies of Mirabeau. There are in 

 addition to these several valuable short works: two excellent 

 biographies for the general reader by Rousse and Mezieres; an 

 able paper by Gradnauer on "Mirabeau's Gedanken uber die 

 Erneuerung des franzosischen Staatswesens, " and a series of 

 exceedingly valuable papers by Decrue with the title "Les 

 idees politiques de Mirabeau." The last mentioned articles 

 contain some excellent bibliographical notes and make a good 

 'ntrodnction to the work of the French statesman. 



In English there is practically no life of Mirabeau. Little 

 has been written about him and that little is now out of date. 

 Carlyle's work^ was done before the publication of the "Cor- 

 respondence entre le Comte de Mirabeau et le Comte de la 

 Marck,"'-^ It assumed also the perfect reliability of the "Mem- 

 oires de Mirabeau,"^ an idea of which Louis de Lomenie has 

 disabused us. Stephens, in the first volume of his "History 



' History of the French Revolution and essay upon Mirabeau. 



* Correspondance entre le Comte de Mirabeau et le Comte de La Marck 

 pendant les annees 1789, 1790 et 1791, recueillie, mise en ordre et publiee 

 par M. Ad. de Bacourt, ancien ambassadeur de Prance pres la cour de 

 Sardaigne. Paris, Veuve Le Normant, 1851, 3 vole. 



^ Memoires biographiques, litt^raires et politiques de Mirabeau, ecrits 

 par lui-m6me, par son pere, son oncle et son tils adoptif. Paris, 1834-1835, 

 8 vols. 



48 



