LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO i
 
 MIKABEAU 
 
 P. F. WILLERT, M.A. 
 
 FELLOW AN'D TUTOR OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 iLontion 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 NEW YORK I THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1898 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 PEEFACE 
 
 IN the preface to a brilliant little biography of Mirabeau 
 published in " Les grands Ecrivains fra^ais " series 
 (Hachette, 1891) M. Rousse tells us that everything we 
 need wish to know about Mirabeau may be found in 
 the memoirs published by M. Lucas de Montigny 
 (8 vols., Delauney, 1835), in the exhaustive work of 
 MM. Louis and Charles de Lomenie (Les Mirabeau, 
 5 vols., Dentu, 1878-1891), and in the correspondence 
 between Mirabeau and La Marck edited by M. de 
 Bacourt (2 vols., Meline, Cans, and Cie., 1851). If we 
 add to these works the Souvenirs sur Mirabeau of Dumont 
 (1 vol., Bossange, 1832) and the life of Mirabeau written 
 by Professor Alfred Stern (Das Leben Mirabeaus, 2 vols., 
 Cronbach, 1889), this last the most complete, impartial, 
 and interesting biography of the orator existing, we are 
 not likely, when endeavouring to acquaint ourselves 
 with Mirabeau, to be led into error by want of know- 
 ledge of the facts or of competent guidance. Yet we 
 shall only be learning to know him as he appears to the
 
 vi MIRABEAU 
 
 eyes of others. Long extracts from his letters and 
 works are indeed given by M. de Montigny, but they 
 are carefully selected and arranged to produce the 
 impression desired by the piety of the "adopted son." 
 The two volumes of M. de Bacourt contain Mirabeau's 
 letters to La Marck, Lafayette, and others, as well as 
 his notes for the Court ; but in this correspondence he 
 is less the real Mirabeau than the Mirabeau he wishes to 
 be thought by those whom he addresses. 
 
 Dumont, no doubt, gives us a good and authentic 
 portrait, but he is rather disposed to represent Mirabeau 
 as a wonderful and mighty machine set in motion by 
 himself and his Swiss friends, and to ignore the pro- 
 minence of genius which employed him and them as 
 pliant and serviceable tools. M. Charles de Lom^nie is 
 biassed against his hero, and although too conscientious 
 to be guilty of anything approaching to misrepresentation, 
 he, to say the least, is neither blind nor kind to his faults. 
 
 Even Professor Stern, who can scarcely be surpassed 
 for judicial fairness and sane judgment, occasionally 
 "imputes himself." This, indeed, seems to me the error 
 into which it is all but impossible not to fall when 
 passing judgment on the life of a man such as Mirabeau, 
 swayed by the most various impulses, uninfluenced by 
 any religious or moral principles, unsoured by any grain 
 of conscience. It is difficult not to argue "What a 
 scoundrel should I be were I to act thus : therefore 
 what a scoundrel was he ! " Not at all. If we may use
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 the language of the schools, for him the major premiss 
 of the moral syllogism did not exist. 
 
 The reader's knowledge of Mirabeau is likely, there- 
 fore, to be more complete and more immediate if in 
 addition to the books already mentioned he will also 
 read the Letters from Vincennes published by Manuel 
 (4 vols., Garnery, 1792), and the (Euvres de Mirabeau, 
 Discours et Opinions (9 vols., edited by Merilhon, 1826). 
 As I have said elsewhere, it is when reading the Letters 
 from Vincennes that we seem to be brought most nearly 
 into something like personal contact with the author, to 
 realise what manner of man he was, and to understand 
 the fascination Avhich he exercised over all who met 
 him, except pedants and prigs like Necker and Lafayette. 
 
 I do not know that much of importance has been 
 written in English about Mirabeau, except an essay by 
 Macaulay (Miscellaneous Writings, vol. ii. p. 70, edition 
 1860). The compound name coined for him after his 
 own fashion by Macaulay Wilkes-Chatham is by itself 
 alone worth the whole of Carlyle's fanciful rhapsody 
 (Miscellanies, vol. v. p. 201, edition of 1872).
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Family and Parentage of Mirabeau 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The education of Mirabeau In disgrace with his father Campaign 
 in Corsica Reconciliation with the Marquis Marriage First 
 lettre de cachet Castle of If and Pontarlier Elopement with 
 Sophie de Monnier Vincennes .... Page 15 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Mirabeau presents himself for trial His suit against his wife 
 Madame de Nehra Visit to England Financial Pamphlets 
 Mission to Berlin Page 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Mirabeau attacks Calonne and Necker Publication of the Mon- 
 archic Prussienne Negotiations with Montmorin New 
 reconciliation with his father First meeting with La Marck 
 Publication of the Berlin Letters Candidature in Provence. 
 
 Page 66
 
 MIRABEAU 
 
 CHAPTEE V 
 
 The meeting of the States-General Position of Mirabeau in the 
 Assembly The Stance Eoyale Mirabeau at length is heard 
 Dismissal of Necker Fall of the Bastille . . Page 83 
 
 CHAPTEE VI 
 
 Mirabeau's popularity Generosity of La Marck The Declaration 
 of Rights The 4th of August .... Page 106 
 
 CHAPTEE VII 
 
 The veto Mirabeau supports Necker His greater influence in 
 the Assembly The 5th of October The King brought to 
 Paris Mirabeau offers his services . . . Page 118 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII 
 
 Mirabeau's first advice to the Court Negotiations with Lafayette 
 
 He fails to prevent the exclusion of Ministers from the 
 
 Assembly Page 131 
 
 CHAPTEE IX 
 
 Policy of the Constituent Mirabeau's treaty with the Court His 
 advice to the King and Queen .... Page 149
 
 CONTENTS xi 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 The right of declaring war The Feast of the Federation Inter- 
 view with the King and Queen Despondency of Mirabeau 
 He inclines to the Left Page 164 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Mirabeau and the Church His understanding with Montmorin 
 Policy proposed by him Page 190 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Mirabeau President of the Assembly Conference with Malouet 
 Not trusted by the Court Defies the Jacobins Policy as 
 member of the Diplomatic Committee Illness and death. 
 
 Page 201
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Family and Parentage of Mirabeau. 
 
 MADAME DE STAEL, in her often-quoted description of the 
 first meeting of the Estates-General in 1789, remarks 
 that of the men of letters, the merchants, the numerous 
 lawyers, and few nobles who were the chosen representa- 
 tives of the Commons of France scarcely any were known 
 and none celebrated except the Count of Mirabeau. He 
 alone attracted the eyes of all spectators, and, once seen, 
 arrested their attention. His vast shock of hair made 
 him conspicuous among the crowd. His very ugliness 
 added to the impressive vigour of his countenance, 
 " swart, prodigious, patched with foul moles and eye- 
 offending marks," but instinct with indomitable energy 
 and conscious power. The fear inspired by his un- 
 principled character strangely heightened the general 
 opinion of his ability. Other eye-witnesses have recorded 
 that, when this striking figure was recognised among the 
 deputies of Provence, the applause with which they at 
 first were greeted sank in a murmur of disapprobation. 
 
 "In every company of every rank," wrote Arthur 
 Young a few days later, "you hear of the Count of 
 $ B
 
 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 Mirabeau's talents, that he is one of the first pens of 
 France and the first orator, and yet that he could not 
 carry from confidence six votes on any question in the 
 Estates." Mirabeau was indeed far more than the first 
 orator : he was the greatest statesman, or rather the 
 only great statesman, in that body to which the future 
 destinies of France were committed. "When words 
 only are needed," said his friend the Count of La Marck, 
 " there is no lack of talents in this assembly, but when 
 something more than words is required, you have no 
 rival." He did indeed combine nearly every qualifica- 
 tion of a consummate politician. A strong and practical 
 intellect unfettered by phrases, formulas, and systems, 
 versatility in the choice and adaptation of means, a clear 
 and tenacious grasp of the end to be attained, skill in 
 the management of men, a marvellous power of in- 
 fluencing and winning the confidence of those who were 
 brought into personal relations with him, an insight 
 into the future which attained to something little short 
 of prophecy. " Mirabeau," says Madame de Stael, " knew 
 everything and foresaw everything." The great orator 
 has often been represented as the prime agent in the 
 Eevolution, as the very incarnation of the revolutionary 
 spirit, and indeed that wonderful time, when the dis- 
 appearance of all barriers left a free field to every 
 ambition and every ability, produced but one other who 
 could compare with him as a born leader and chief of 
 men. Yet, had Mirabeau never existed, the French 
 Kevolution would probably have run the same course ; 
 had his life been protracted the event would have been 
 the same, the ruin of the Monarchy not less tragic and 
 complete.
 
 I FAMILY AND PARENTAGE 3 
 
 Private and even public vices have not proved 
 obstacles to the ambition of men far more criminal and 
 not less profligate. In public life Mirabeau had, as we 
 shall see, principles, and to these principles he was 
 essentially faithful ; nor was he without private virtues, 
 or at least such amiable qualities as pass current for 
 virtues in social intercourse. It would be unjust to 
 compare him with an unscrupulous time-server like 
 Talleyrand, or even, as was done by his father, to a 
 mischievous and entirely selfish intriguer like the 
 Cardinal de Retz, and he would certainly have recoiled 
 with horror from such a crime as the execution of the 
 Duke of Enghien. How came it, then, that talents so 
 great proved so unprofitable to him who was endowed 
 with them, and of so little service to his country 1 The 
 answer to this question is to be found not in anything 
 that Mirabeau said or did after he had become a member 
 of the Assembly, but in the circumstances of his previous 
 life. 
 
 Gabriel Honore de Eiqueti was born on the 9th of 
 March 1749 at Le Bignon, near Nemours, the favourite 
 residence of his father, the Marquis of Mirabeau, the 
 disciple and successor of Quesnai, renowned, and at 
 that time still admired, as " the Friend of Humanity." 
 Gabriel Honore was the fifth child and the second son. 
 His elder brother had died in his third year from 
 drinking the contents of an inkhorn, the victim of a 
 taste strangely abnormal, though not without a certain 
 appropriateness in the child of a family singularly 
 addicted to the use and abuse of that liquid. 
 
 No Montmorency or Rohan could exceed the Marquis 
 of Mirabeau in pride of birth. The orator was fond of
 
 4 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 repeating, if indeed he did not invent, his father's boast 
 that an intermarriage with the Medici was the only blot 
 on his scutcheon. Yet the descent of the Riquets 
 for such was the original name of the family from 
 Arrighettis, noble exiles from Florence who settled in 
 Provence during the thirteenth century, seems to have 
 been a baseless invention. At a time when the Medici 
 were intermarrying with princes and kings, the founder 
 of the family of Mirabeau was a thriving citizen of 
 Marseilles, who amassed a fortune by trading in coral 
 and manufacturing cloth, while he raised himself in 
 public estimation by an aristocratic marriage and the 
 capable discharge of municipal office. This Jean Riquet 
 or Riqueti bought in 1570 the estate and castle of 
 Mirabeau, a fief of the old Prove^al family of Barras. 
 
 In 1660 Thomas de Riqueti entertained Lewis XIV. 
 in his house at Marseilles. Honore, the son of Thomas, 
 was created Marquis of Mirabeau in 1685. Great 
 personal beauty, more than common talents, hot blood, 
 overweening pride, and self-complacent eccentricity were 
 the characteristics of the family during the eighteenth 
 century. But the Friend of Humanity went too far 
 when he boasted that the world had been learning 
 during five hundred years to tolerate Mirabeaus, who 
 were not as other men. The respectable country gentle- 
 men who, during the seventeenth century, intermarried 
 with the old houses of Provence, did nothing to startle 
 the world. The first original in the family appears to 
 have been one Bruno de Riqueti, who commanded a 
 company in the musketeers of Lewis XIV. "Bruno," 
 said his great nephew, the father of Mirabeau, "had as 
 much wit as courage, biit was mad, insolent, and vicious."
 
 I FAMILY AND PARENTAGE 5 
 
 The next generation to Bruno produced a Mirabeau 
 who would have been famous if indomitable courage 
 and extravagant pride could secure fame. This is that 
 Jean Antoine, Marquis of Mirabeau, whose life, written 
 by his son the economist in the vigorous, straight- 
 forward, and racy style which he unfortunately con- 
 sidered to be beneath the dignity of his philosophical 
 speculations, was plagiarised by his grandson the orator. 
 
 A favourite officer of the Duke of Vend6me, the 
 Marquis of Mirabeau served with distinction in many 
 campaigns, fighting with reckless valour. At Cassano 
 he was shot through the arm and neck, and lay among 
 the dead while the tide of battle rolled over his body. 
 A lucky chance stopped the haemorrhage of a wound 
 which had injured the jugular vein, and a desperate 
 operation saved his life. But the tendons of the neck 
 were so cut that the Marquis could henceforth only 
 hold up his head by the assistance of a silver band or 
 stock. Although he called the day of Cassano that of 
 his death, he was still singularly handsome, and it does 
 not appear strange that he should have been the success- 
 ful suitor of a Provencal beauty Fra^oise de Castellane- 
 Norante or if strange, not because of his forty-two 
 years and scarcely less numerous scars, but on account 
 of the reputation he had gained for extravagant self- 
 assertion and choleric obstinacy. Fran9oise de Castellane 
 bore her lord seven children, of whom only three boys 
 were living when their father died at the age of seventy- 
 one. 
 
 Of the eldest of these sons the biographer of Mira- 
 beau, however narrow the limits to which he is confined, 
 must speak at some length : for unless we know his
 
 6 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 father it is impossible to understand the son ; the 
 younger must be dismissed in a few lines. Yet the 
 temptation to linger is great ; among the French nobility 
 of the eighteenth century few characters can be found 
 as attractive as that of the second son, Jean Antoine, 
 Bailli de Mirabeau. It has justly been said that his 
 life was as simple, as straightforward, as full of practical 
 common sense, of unaffected heroism and self-sacrifice 
 as that of his eldest brother was artificial, pedantic, 
 egotistical, and confused by chimerical schemes the 
 offspring of an extravagant self-conceit. 
 
 Received soon after his birth into the order of Malta, 
 he began when only thirteen his naval career on the 
 royal galleys. For twenty years he was almost con- 
 stantly engaged in active service, repeatedly wounded, 
 and once taken prisoner. Post-captain at thirty-three, 
 he was shortly afterwards appointed Governor of Guade- 
 loupe. On his return he might have become Minister 
 of Marine through the influence of the Abbe^ de Bernis, 
 the friend of the Marquis of Mirabeau and of Madame 
 de Pompadour, had it not been known that he meditated 
 reforms alarming to the official world. The Marquis 
 made the one good investment of his life when he found 
 the 150,000 livres which enabled his brother to defray 
 for a year the expenses of the office of general of 
 the galleys of Malta, and thus to secure a claim to the 
 next good commandery vacant. In addition to this he 
 obtained two other benefices, and the grand-mastership 
 of the order appeared to be within his grasp, when, 
 finding that his brother wished him to come home, ho 
 left Malta. Henceforth he lived chiefly at Mirabeau, 
 supplying the place of the absentee master, and
 
 I FAMILY AND PARENTAGE 7 
 
 assisting his brother with his advice, his sympathy, 
 and his purse. Although his income was close upon 
 70,000 livres, the only luxury he permitted himself was 
 the collection of a fine library. Mirabeau used to 
 declare that his uncle had but one weakness, his affec- 
 tionate faith in his brother. It would be more just to 
 say that nothing we are told about the Marquis does 
 him so much credit as the unchanging love and con- 
 fidence between the brothers. 
 
 The elder, Victor de Biqueti, Marquis of Mirabeau, 
 was born on 4th October 1715. He was educated by 
 the Jesuits at Aix till his fourteenth year, when he 
 obtained a commission in the regiment his father had 
 commanded. 
 
 After serving a year Victor de Mirabeau was sent 
 to an academy at Paris : one of those establishments 
 in which young nobles were taught the accomplishments 
 of a soldier and a gentleman riding, fencing, dancing, 
 and in their spare hours some smattering of polite 
 letters. 
 
 He had taken the precaution to suppress a letter 
 from his father to the head of the academy authorising 
 and asking for strict discipline. He was accordingly 
 allowed to do pretty much what he pleased, and what 
 pleased him was not edifying. His excesses were, he 
 confesses, surprising at so early an age, and they 
 entailed the natural consequences an illness, from 
 which he soon recovered, and an empty purse, which 
 his father refused to fill. In the winter of 1731 a 
 strange figure was often to be seen in the pit of Parisian 
 theatres a boy of remarkable beauty, with clear-cut 
 features, bold eyes, and hair streaming in long elf-locks
 
 8 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 below his shoulders, the cross of a knight of Malta 
 hanging over his tattered clothes, who with his com- 
 panions disturbed actors and audience by noisy dis- 
 approbation and tumultuous applause. The ragged 
 young reprobate became the favoured lover of an actress 
 hardly older than himself, from whom in the following 
 summer he parted with tears and despair to take the 
 command of a company in his regiment. 
 
 Licentiousness carried to the verge of erotic mania 
 was the vice which proved the curse of Mirabeau, 
 which blunted his sense of honour and degraded though 
 it could not dull his powerful intellect. This failing of 
 the great tribune may be explained, perhaps even pitied, 
 as an hereditary taint. His father's youth was excep- 
 tionally dissolute, even for the eighteenth century. He 
 himself laments his degradation in a letter, written when 
 he was twenty-five, to his friend the moralist Vauven- 
 argues : " Sensuality is the bane of my imagination. 
 I shall dearly rue my follies and that licentiousness 
 which has become my second nature." 
 
 The Marquis Jean Antoine died in 1737. His 
 property was embarrassed by unfortunate speculations 
 and by a taste for ostentation ; yet he left his successor 
 a net income of 16,000 livres, sufficient for a country 
 gentleman content to live quietly on his estate, though 
 very insufficient for one who aspired to play the part 
 of a great noble, and whose head was full of schemes 
 for improving his property which were to be an example 
 to others and the means of obtaining the wealth which 
 should enable the Mirabeaus to occupy their proper 
 place in the world. 
 
 After several campaigns the young marquis left the
 
 i FAMILY AND PARENTAGE 9 
 
 army (1743) and reflected that he owed it to the 
 future greatness of his house to marry an heiress. 
 A friend suggested the only daughter of M. de Vassan 
 a general officer who had assumed the title of marquis 
 in right of his wife, the owner of estates in the Limousin, 
 in Poitou, and in Perigord. Although he had known 
 the father for five years and had formed the meanest 
 opinion of his character and capacity, the imagination 
 of the Marquis of Mirabeau was fired by the prospect of 
 acquiring broad domains scattered over a wide area, and 
 thus raising his family "from provincial to national 
 importance." 
 
 The father and mother of the heiress would only 
 give their daughter an income of 4000 livres, secured 
 on a fief in Perigord ; they refused to settle even the 
 reversion of their estates upon her. But nothing could 
 damp the ardour of the suitor. Disregarding the re- 
 monstrances of his lawyer, he persisted in signing the 
 marriage contract, and, as if the most passionate of 
 lovers, hurried off next day to his unseen bride who 
 was living in the Limousin with her mother. The 
 marriage was immediately celebrated, but not before 
 the Marquis had discovered that his mother-in-law's 
 mind was unsound : she had, he says, been in a mad- 
 house before the birth of her daughter; her temper 
 perverse " the most irritable and irritating woman in 
 the world " ; and that the education of his bride had 
 been detestable. 
 
 Marie Genevieve de Vassan appears at the time of 
 her marriage to have been an ignorant girl, half educated, 
 spoilt by a weakly obstinate mother and a foolish father, 
 with violent passions and ill-balanced mind, inheriting,
 
 10 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 as her husband complains, all the faults of her odious 
 parentage. If an extant portrait is to be trusted, she 
 was not altogether bad-looking, but the expression of 
 her face was sensual and impudent. She was not with- 
 out wit and could be vivacious, but her chatter was 
 unrestrained by any tact or sense of propriety. She 
 was always, says the Marquis, in extremes, sulkily 
 morose or petulantly loquacious, indolent, slatternly, 
 without modesty or decency. This and much more, in 
 extraordinary and repulsive detail, is written by him to a 
 married daughter ; and what must we think of the father 
 who in a letter of advice to his child points his moral 
 by a description of the follies and vices of her mother ? 
 
 The intermittent but exacting fondness of his wife, 
 her not unreasonable jealousy and anger, were equally 
 irritating to the Marquis. He proposed an amicable 
 separation ; her father was dead, she might live with and 
 take care of her mother. At first she refused, but ab 
 length, when the health of Madame do Vassan was 
 failing, and the disposition she would make of her 
 property uncertain, the Marchioness was persuaded to 
 go to her mother. In her absence the Marquis dis- 
 covered proofs of his wife's dishonour, " of shame over 
 which an honourable man could not throw his cloak," 
 so indisputable that she could no longer refuse her 
 consent to a formal separation. She undertook not to 
 come to Paris or in any way molest her husband on 
 condition of receiving a moderate allowance. 
 
 Unfortunately Madame de Mirabeau was an in- 
 veterate gambler and a very foolish one, the born prey 
 of sharpers and adventurers. She anticipated her 
 allowance and ran into debt. The creditors plagued
 
 I FAMILY AND PARENTAGE 11 
 
 her husband, who deducted payments made to quiet 
 them from her income. Hence complaints that he 
 did not perform his part of the compact. To prevent 
 further scandal and to secure himself against annoyance, 
 the Marquis applied for and obtained from a minister 
 related to his wife a lettre de cachet confining her to a 
 convent at Limoges. 
 
 He had some years previously denounced an abuse 
 of arbitrary power, the victims of which were imprisoned 
 without form of trial and often ignorant both of their 
 offence and of their accuser. He himself would never 
 so he wrote have recourse to such an odious in- 
 strument of oppression while laws and law-courts, 
 however defective, existed. Yet this was to be the 
 first of the long series of lettres de cachet by which a 
 philosophic and humanitarian marquis, fallen on evil 
 days, sought to maintain some authority over his per- 
 verse generation. 
 
 Every year the Marquis drew up a domestic budget 
 with an explanatory preamble justifying to his posterity 
 his administration of the family fortunes. Occasionally 
 he has misgivings, but on the whole he applauds his 
 financial skill, which, like that of the French Govern- 
 ment, consisted in paying one debt by incurring another 
 and a heavier. He seems to have felt, like many a 
 systematic prodigal, that the sting of a deficit is gone 
 when set forth in an elaborate balance - sheet. But 
 every year his net income dwindled, and at last it 
 altogether disappeared, although the gross income which 
 he derived from his estates increased, owing to the rise 
 in the value of landed property, which continued from 
 the end of the Seven Years' War to the Revolution.
 
 12 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 An expenditure which always exceeded his income, 
 a taste for building and for costly and experimental 
 improvements, the wish to increase the importance of 
 his family by buying land with money borrowed at a 
 higher rate of interest than could possibly be hoped 
 from the investment, unsuccessful litigation and an 
 extravagant family, might well account for the ruin of 
 a more solidly established fortune. But for the liberal 
 assistance of his brother the Marquis of Mirabeau might 
 have starved. 
 
 Even before his wife had left him he had found else- 
 where the comfort and sympathy she could not give. 
 His connection with Madame de Pailly, a clever and 
 attractive Swiss lady married to an elderly countryman 
 who had served in the Swiss Guards, was not of a kind 
 to be condemned by the public opinion of the day. 
 The forms of propriety were observed. The most 
 respectable friends of the Marquis, the Countess of 
 Ro.chefort and her subsequent husband the Duke of 
 Nivernois, admitted Madame de Pailly to their intimacy. 
 But the part of extralegal stepmother was not an easy 
 one to play, even for a woman as full of tact as Madame 
 de Pailly undoubtedly was. It could not but be that 
 occasions of offence would arise as the children of her 
 friend grew up. 
 
 We may now perhaps form some notion of the 
 influences which were to shape the childhood and youth 
 of the future statesman. A father, as Carlyle describes 
 him, "of the pedant species, his pedantry carried to 
 such a pitch as becomes sublime," with "an endless 
 unfathomable pride, which cloaks and nowise extin- 
 guishes an endless vanity"; always satisfied that he
 
 i FAMILY AND PARENTAGE 13 
 
 saw farther and more clearly than any one else, and 
 always expressing his impressions without reticence in 
 the most trenchant and forcibly graphic language ; 
 capable indeed of seeing either side of a question or 
 of a character with singular insight, but quite in- 
 capable of seeing more than one side at a time. 
 A mother indolent, slovenly, frivolous, and passion- 
 ate; indulgent to her children, not from affection, 
 but from indifference or out of opposition to her 
 husband. The demoralising experience of a strange 
 disregard of reticence and decency on the part of both 
 parents, and of constant bickerings and quarrels, which 
 as time went on became more and more open and 
 unseemly, until they ended in a complete rupture, and 
 the mother's place was taken by a stranger, who, what- 
 ever her merits, was in a position so false that although 
 she might attempt good she was certain only to do 
 mischief. Even had Gabriel Honore de Riqueti been 
 born a docile child of gentle temper and with little 
 original corruption of nature, it would have been 
 sanguine to augur much good from an education carried 
 on under such conditions. His younger brother, 
 " Barrel " Mirabeau, whose childhood caused his father 
 little anxiety, and who seems to have combined an 
 amiable disposition with considerable talents, turned 
 out a dissipated spendthrift. The daughters of the 
 family, three of whom survived childhood, cannot be 
 quoted as proving anything for or against the influences 
 of their home. They were from an early age immured 
 in a convent. The eldest took the veil and died 
 insane. The next sister, Madame du Saillant, was 
 married at sixteen and became the mother of eighteen
 
 14 MIRABEAU CHAP, i 
 
 girls and one boy; gentle and affectionate, the most 
 soothing woman in the world, says her uncle the Bailli, 
 she was a comfort to her father, and, assisted by her 
 husband, acted the part of a peacemaker in the family 
 quarrels. The third daughter, Madame de Cabris, beautiful, 
 witty, and worthless, was a firebrand ; and as she at one 
 time had been her father's favourite child, so when she 
 turned against him she became the object of his deepest 
 aversion. His eldest son, he complained, was a mis- 
 chievous madman without conduct or principles, but 
 his heart was not wholly bad ; his youngest daughter's 
 diabolical malice was inspired by her corrupt and un- 
 feeling heart.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The education of Mirabeau In disgrace with his father Campaign 
 in Corsica Reconciliation with the Marquis Marriage First 
 lettre de cachet Castle of If and Pontarlier Elopement with 
 Sophie de Monnier Vincennes. 
 
 To assist him in the education of his son for his 
 literary work, his position as a leader of thought, as a 
 reformer, and as a man of the world left him little leisure 
 to devote to his children the Marquis of Mirabeau 
 found a tutor of unimpeachable economic orthodoxy, 
 one Poirson, a worthy man apparently, who spared no 
 pains in forcing all he knew into the receptive head of 
 his pupil, and endeavoured to carry out conscientiously 
 his patron's system of education. A child precocious in 
 body and mind, overflowing with life and energy, and, 
 like his father, passing rapidly from mood to mood, was 
 kept under the severest discipline, drilled and driven, 
 and so far as it lay in the power of father and tutor 
 never for one moment allowed to be himself. It was in 
 vain that the Bailli told his brother that this system of 
 compression might end in a startling explosion, and that 
 comparative strangers like the Baron of Gleichen bade 
 him beware lest he should manufacture a scoundrel out 
 of the materials meant by nature for a great man.
 
 16 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 Nothing could shake his confidence in Poirson or in his 
 own method. 
 
 When Mirabeau was only five his father writes " that 
 his knowledge is the wonder of Paris, that he has few 
 vices but no feeling he is mere sand, keeping no im- 
 pression " ; a few days later " that he has suddenly 
 become roguish, inquisitive, and meddlesome, a pretty 
 handful, but a strict watch is kept over him." A little 
 afterwards he despairs of ever training him into a 
 Mirabeau, but as for his favourite vice, lying, he shall 
 unlearn it or he will disown him. He was scarcely ten 
 when the Marquis complained " my eldest boy will sell 
 his name," but a month afterwards declared "that there 
 remains in him no trace of temper, baseness, or untruth- 
 fulness." Then again : " He is one whom you may call 
 ill-born, who hitherto promises to become nothing but 
 a madman ; almost invincibly maniac, with all the vile 
 qualities of the maternal stock into the bargain. As he 
 has a great many masters, and all from the confessor to 
 his playfellows are so many reporters to me, I see the 
 nature of the beast, and do not think we shall ever 
 make anything of him." 
 
 By the time Mirabeau was fifteen his father com- 
 plained that Poirson could do nothing with so perverse 
 a creature. Accordingly Gabriel Honore", no longer 
 Count of Mirabeau, lest he should discredit the name, 
 but Baron of Pierre Buffiere, a fief of his mother's, was 
 sent to Versailles to be under the care of a M. de Sigrais, 
 a soldier and a scholar. M. de Sigrais received his 
 pupil with the worst of characters. The Marquis never 
 failed, wherever his son went, to describe him beforehand 
 as the most abandoned and hopeless though plausible
 
 ii CHOQUARD'S ACADEMY 17 
 
 scoundrel. He soon wrote to his brother complaining 
 of the want of insight and weakness of the tutor. " He 
 is under the charm, he is fascinated. He extols his 
 prodigious memory which can contain all things, yes, as 
 sand receives every impression and loses it as quickly, 
 he magnifies his kindheartedness, which is nothing but 
 cheap and flabby good-nature towards his inferiors, who 
 make him feel at his ease and to whom he is attracted 
 by his instinctive meanness : he praises his cleverness 
 which is that of a poll parrot. In short he is completely 
 ruining him, and I shall see to this at once." 
 
 M. de Pierre Buffiere was accordingly removed from 
 Versailles and sent to Paris to the academy of the 
 Abbe Choquard, " a stern man and one who knew when 
 needful to punish severely." Choquard's Academy was 
 a fashionable establishment and in good repute. The 
 physical education of the boys was promoted by the 
 most varied exercises, from boxing to the elaborate 
 horsemanship of the haute faole, from French ballet- 
 dancing to Prussian drill. While intellectually what 
 could be more advanced in the eyes of the Marquis 
 than a school where the truths to be derived from the 
 Tableau Economique of Quesnai were expounded by a 
 disciple of the Friend of Humanity 1 Here Pierre 
 Buffiere was allowed to remain for two years, winning 
 prizes and not apparently suffering any of those punish- 
 ments to which his father had hopefully looked forward. 
 We have a description of the impression he made on 
 his schoolfellows in a letter written long afterwards by 
 one of them, Gilbert Elliot, the first Lord Minto, to his 
 brother Hugh after meeting Mirabeau in London. " I 
 was agreeably surprised by a visit from our old and 
 

 
 18 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 persecuted schoolfellow Mirabeau. I found him as 
 ardent a friend as I left him and as little altered as 
 possible by twenty years of life, of which six have been 
 consumed in prison and the rest in personal and domestic 
 trouble. He is as overbearing in his conversation, as 
 awkward in his graces, as ugly and as misshapen in face 
 and person, as dirty in his dress, and withal as perfectly 
 suffisant as we remember him twenty years ago at school. 
 I loved him, however, then and so did you, though, as 
 he confesses, you sometimes quarrelled with him, being 
 always somewhat less patient in admitting extreme 
 pretensions than me." 
 
 Mirabeau was now seventeen, an age when it was 
 necessary that a young noble should begin his military 
 career. His father took great pains in the selection of 
 a regiment, and could not possibly have made a worse 
 choice. The regiment of Berri-Cavalerie was com- 
 manded by the Marquis of St. Lambert, a young and 
 distinguished officer but a strict and pedantic martinet, 
 and a convinced physiocrat, constant in attendance at 
 the meetings of the sect. What a heaven-sent chance ! 
 A cavalry colonel of economic orthodoxy, who would 
 severely punish the slightest irregularity of conduct ! 
 Could any young man, not hopelessly perverse, go 
 wrong under such a commanding officer? 
 
 During a year's service with his regiment in garrison 
 at Saintes, Pierre Buffiere quarrelled with his colonel, 
 spent many days under arrest, seduced a policeman's 
 daughter, and finally, on the complaint of St. Lambert, 
 was imprisoned by order of the minister of war in the 
 island of Rhe. Hence loud outcries from his father, 
 lamentations and talk of sending the vicious incurable
 
 ii CORSICA 19 
 
 prodigal to Surinam or some other tropical colony, where, 
 if the climate did not soon relieve the family from this 
 disgrace, his misdoings would no longer disturb the 
 paternal philosophy. The Friend of Humanity had 
 apparently forgotten the boyish knight of Malta, the 
 frequenter of pothouses, the terror of theatrical audiences, 
 the lover of Mademoiselle Dangeville, the memory of 
 whom might have taught him a little more indulgence 
 to the first excesses of his son. 
 
 The governor of Rhe had been prepared to receive 
 his prisoner by the usual letter of introduction, couched, 
 so the Marquis thought, in very moderate terms, since 
 he only described his son as hot-headed, utterly perverse, 
 and a liar by instinct. But the gaoler yielded to his 
 prisoner's singular power of personal fascination a 
 power, grumbled his father, which alone made it desir- 
 able in the public interest that he should be hanged. 
 His captivity was easy, and at the end of six months the 
 intercession of the governor obtained for him his release 
 and a commission in an expedition against Corsica 
 (April 1769). 
 
 In Corsica M. de Pierre Buffiere served in such a 
 way as to obtain the warm approbation of his superior 
 officers. His major long afterwards declared he had 
 never met a man with greater natural aptitude for 
 military command than the Count of Mirabeau. This 
 was his own opinion, for he boasted that he had com- 
 pletely mastered the art of war and had acquainted 
 himself with all that had ever been written on the 
 subject, also that he possessed every quality of a great 
 soldier calm intrepidity, quick perception, prompt 
 decision.
 
 20 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 The Bailli de Mirabeau was not wanting in insight. 
 He was prejudiced against his nephew, but after he had 
 seen him on his return through Provence he loudly 
 celebrates his acquirements and talents. " If not worse 
 than Nero he will be better than Marcus Aurelius. . . . 
 If he is not the cleverest impostor in the world he will 
 be the best material to be found for Pope, Commander 
 by sea and land, Lord Chancellor, or even agriculturist. 
 You were something when twenty-two, but not half of what 
 he is." The Marquis received these rhapsodies coolly. 
 Perhaps his suspicions of his brother's judgment were 
 excusable, since he found that Mirabeau shared his 
 uncle's enthusiasm for feudalism, thought no profession 
 so noble as the Navy, and pencil in hand took careful 
 notes of the Bailli's instructive conversation. 
 
 He bade his brother be on his guard against the 
 golden tongue of the plausible prodigal, to beware lest 
 while he was trying to be his guide on the path of 
 honour the rascal should find an opportunity of emptying 
 his pockets. If his repentance was really sincere, let 
 him apply himself to the study of physiocratic wisdom 
 as expounded in the paternal books, and to the practical 
 application on the estate of Mirabeau of the true prin- 
 ciples of rural economy, discoverable in the same works. 
 The Bailli joyfully wrote that his nephew had borne 
 even this test, the political economy had indeed proved 
 a little hard of digestion, but no practical work came 
 amiss to Pierre Buffiere or surpassed his capacity. 
 
 When this discipline had lasted three months the 
 Marquis allowed himself to be in some measure appeased. 
 He was willing to see his son, who might again style 
 himself Count of Mirabeau. The Friend of Humanity
 
 II RECONCILIATION 21 
 
 was on the whole satisfied with his repentant prodigal. 
 He marvelled at his power of work, his exuberant 
 energy and vitality. The Bailli had suggested that it 
 would be well for him to marry : but where could a 
 suitable wife be found ? The Czarina Catherine might 
 have been a match for him, but who else 1 Perhaps he 
 was best fitted for a soldier's life, but it was a time of 
 peace, and the tedious idleness of garrison life in some 
 provincial town would be the ruin of a nature so restless, 
 so open to temptations of every kind. He made some 
 attempts to obtain active service for him as a volunteer 
 in Hungary or elsewhere, but without success. 
 
 Meantime Mirabeau lived on at home, and sought in 
 every way to propitiate his father, whose agent he 
 became in negotiations with his mother, with whom he 
 had previously professed to sympathise ; and whom, 
 when he again became her ally, he addressed in terms of 
 the warmest affection. He now spoke of her with a 
 frank contempt, most unseemly in the mouth of a son, 
 to be explained but not excused by the indecency with 
 which the Marquis exposed the frailties of his wife to 
 her children. 
 
 He was next sent to maintain his father's seigniorial 
 rights at Mirabeau. There were scarcely, he wrote 
 after his arrival, six nobles in Provence who were not 
 at law with their vassals. The peasantry resented any 
 strict enforcement of their feudal obligations and sought 
 to extend their common rights to the utmost. The 
 future champion of the third estate is said to have 
 treated his father's vassals with insolence and harshness. 
 He himself claims to have acted with singular for- 
 bearance, and that he was unpopular during his residence
 
 22 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 at Mirabeau does not prove the charges brought against 
 him. 
 
 It was towards the end of 1771 that Mirabeau had 
 been sent to the South. In the beginning of that year 
 his father wrote of him with satisfaction, almost with 
 enthusiasm : " My son now deserves my confidence. He 
 is a very demon for performing impossibilities." We 
 are reminded of Mirabeau's answer to his secretary : 
 "Impossible! let me never hear that foolish word." 
 The Marquis as a token of his favour had allowed him 
 to visit Versailles. He dwells complacently on his son's 
 success as a courtier, boasts that he was as sociable as 
 he himself was reserved, that he had a terrible gift of 
 familiarity, found his way into every circle, claimed 
 cousinship with Guemenees, Carignans, Noailles, and the 
 rest, button-holed old Maurepas, astonished the hangers- 
 on of the Court, upset the dignity of dowagers, and was 
 generally thought as wild as an unentered hound. This 
 is very probable, but we must for once suspect the 
 Marquis of parental partiality when he adds that 
 Mirabeau's deportment was respectful without servility, 
 easy but not familiar, that he never presumed, " usurped 
 nothing and obtained all." 
 
 Marriage with an heiress who had nothing to recom- 
 mend her but her expectations, had proved so miserable 
 a failure in the case of the Marquis that we should 
 scarcely have expected to find the experiment repeated 
 in the next generation. 
 
 Yet as early as the summer of 1770 the Bailli, 
 spending the season at Aix, cast his eye on the greatest 
 heiress of Provence, Marie Margaret Emilie de Covet de 
 Marignane, as a suitable match for his nephew. In
 
 n MARRIAGE 23 
 
 September of the same year Madame de Cabris wrote to 
 her brother : " I warn you as a friend that Mademoiselle 
 de Marignane is engaged to the son of the President 
 d'Albertas. You have not been quick enough. But 
 don't grieve, she is hideous and very short." At the 
 end of 1771 Mirabeau found the young lady still 
 unmarried, though anxious to escape from the tutelage 
 of her grandmother. Her mother was dead. Her father 
 lived the life of an indolent man of pleasure. He 
 troubled himself little about his daughter, and left the 
 choice of her husband to be decided by her own caprice 
 and by the intrigues of her relatives. The number of 
 suitors and the conflicting views of the family as to their 
 merits enabled Mirabeau to carry away the prize from 
 the flower of the gilded youth of Aix, who were attracted 
 rather by the future wealth of Mademoiselle de Marignane 
 than by her personal attractions : yet these were not so 
 absolutely wanting as Madame de Cabris would have had 
 her brother believe. She was, it is true, small, swarthy, 
 and crooked; but her dark eyes were lively and ex- 
 pressive, her hair magnificent, she had a fine voice and 
 sang well. She had at least two tastes, music and 
 extravagance, in common with her future husband. If 
 not witty, she possessed the vivacity and high spirits 
 which may pass for wit, and a talent for mimicry which 
 enabled her to tell stories, many of them over broad, 
 very divertingly. 
 
 The Marquis, who had looked coldly on his son's 
 wooing, made a provision for him which was not illiberal 
 when his embarrassed circumstances are taken into 
 account. Besides handsome presents to his daughter-in- 
 law, he settled on the young couple an income of 6000
 
 24 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 livres which was to rise by annual additions of 500 1. to 
 8500 1. They could live rent free at Mirabeau, where 
 their table might be supplied by the produce of the 
 estate and of Mirabeau's gun, for he was an indefatigable 
 sportsman and game was plentiful. The Marquis of 
 Marignane was more stingy. An annuity of 3000 1. 
 was a very poor dowry for the heiress of extensive and 
 unencumbered estates. 
 
 Unfortunately Mirabeau possessed all the qualities 
 and inclinations which enable a man to ruin himself in 
 the shortest possible time love of display, the costly 
 tastes of a man of pleasure and of a virtuoso, the most 
 childish and improvident profusion. By the time he 
 had been married fifteen months his debts amounted to 
 some 200,000 1., he had pawned his wife's jewels, and 
 had begun to cut down the timber at Mirabeau. 
 
 The Marquis, who at first augured little good from 
 his son's marriage, had become more hopeful. He was 
 charmed by the letters of his daughter-in-law. The 
 birth of a little Victor delighted him and was celebrated 
 by illuminations and rustic festivities at Le Bignon, his 
 residence near Paris, suitable to an Arcadia a la Jean 
 Jacques. The idyllic dreams of the poor Friend of 
 Humanity were rudely broken. Letters came from the 
 President of the Parliament of Aix and from M. de 
 Marignane filled with accounts of the extravagance 
 and misdeeds of Mirabeau his prodigalities, his de- 
 baucheries, his insolence, his violence, for he had hustled 
 the President d'Albertas in the streets of Aix, affecting 
 to scorn the spurious Maupe'ou Parliament. He was even 
 more lavish of his blows than of his money. Servants 
 fled from him, no bailiff dared approach him. He was
 
 ii FIRST LETTRE DE CACHET 25 
 
 in the hands of the Jews, wrote his father-in-law, and 
 something must be done to save him. Indeed he had 
 himself told the family lawyer that sooner than be left 
 to the mercy of his creditors, he would beg his father to 
 obtain a lettre de cachet committing him to the Castle of 
 If or any other fortress. 
 
 It was clear therefore he would regard as a favour a 
 royal order which confined him to Mirabeau. M. de 
 Marignane begged the Marquis to obtain such an order 
 as speedily as possible. Once "in the king's hands," the 
 prodigal would no longer be liable to arrest for debt, 
 and it would be possible to effect a compromise with the 
 Jews ; there would also be less opportunity for further 
 extravagance. In his disappointment the Marquis pro- 
 tested that the scoundrel deserved to be left to rot on 
 the straw of a debtor's prison, but finally consented to 
 apply for the desired order forbidding the Count to 
 leave the Castle of Mirabeau ; and afterwards on reports, 
 false or exaggerated, of misdoings in his ancestral home, 
 sale of furniture, waste of timber, and the like, for 
 another lettre de cachet ordering him to betake himself to, 
 and remain at, the neighbouring little town of Manosque. 
 
 These royal orders, afterwards cited as proofs of 
 paternal cruelty and oppression, were, it is obvious, 
 desired by Mirabeau as a protection against his creditors. 
 As the king's prisoner he was secured against any civil 
 or criminal action. His family also obtained a sentence 
 from the Chatelet of Paris "interdicting" him as a 
 prodigal, i.e. rendering him incapable of contracting 
 debts and of concluding any monetary contract. This 
 he protested against at the time as unjust and degrading. 
 Yet he never took any steps to be relieved from the
 
 26 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 disability. He no doubt found it convenient to be so 
 far an outlaw that his creditors had no legal remedy 
 against him. At the time of his funeral the bill for his 
 wedding-suit was still unpaid. 
 
 At Manosque the Mirabeaus lodged in the house of 
 friends, whose son was at home on leave from his 
 regiment. In the monotonous dulness of a little country 
 town an intrigue with a young woman, who was not 
 without attractive social gifts, was a pleasant diversion 
 to a youthful musketeer. Madame de Mirabeau was weak 
 in character and had been ill educated among domestic 
 examples of lax morality ; whatever principles she may 
 have had were shaken by the example of her husband's 
 libertinage and by the pains he had taken to emancipate 
 her from the prejudices of a religion disdained by his 
 philosophy. It is not therefore strange that she should 
 have yielded to a passing caprice. 
 
 A letter which fell into Mirabeau's hands acquainted 
 him with his wife's infidelity. However superior he 
 might be to prejudices, the discovery was mortifying. 
 He seems at this time to have been really attached to 
 his wife, and in any case such treachery must have 
 wounded his self-esteem. That he determined to pardon 
 the offence is less a proof of insensibility than of self- 
 control and of a natural equity which prevented him 
 from feeling greatly indignant with others for not 
 observing in their actions a higher standard of morals 
 than his own, and to which, as well as to a disposition 
 not easily moved to lasting anger or hatred, we may 
 ascribe the singular absence of revengeful or rancorous 
 feelings which distinguished him both in public and in 
 private life. He insisted that his wife should dismiss
 
 n DOMESTIC TROUBLES 27 
 
 her lover in a letter which was to be returned to him, 
 and of which he afterwards made an unfortunate use. 
 He wrote himself to the faithless friend, overwhelming 
 him, so he thought, by his indignant virtue, contemptu- 
 ous magnanimity, and withering scorn. As we read this 
 effusion, we seem to be listening to St. Preux seeking to 
 obtain damages against a seducer of his Julie from the 
 virtuous sympathy of a jury of Parisian shopkeepers. 
 
 It may have been a prudent wish to secure her from 
 further temptation, rather than a sublime impulse to 
 return good for evil, which prompted Mirabeau to assist 
 in negotiating the marriage of his wife's lover with a 
 daughter of a neighbour of his sister, Madame de Cabris. 
 Some difficulty arose, which Mirabeau imagined his 
 personal intervention would remove. Kegardless of the 
 royal order confining him to Manosque, he hurried to 
 the country house of the father of the young lady ; and, 
 returning, visited his sister at Grasse. Madame de Cabris, 
 young, beautiful, witty, and unprincipled, the absolute 
 mistress of an imbecile husband, was certain to afford 
 abundant and welcome material for the scandal which 
 enlivened the dulness of an idle and narrow provincial 
 circle. One morning the citizens of Grasse were startled 
 to find their walls and doors placarded with doggerel 
 verses defaming the persons and morals of the ladies of 
 the place. Since Madame de Cabris, whose notorious 
 gallantries made her the most obvious mark for such 
 ribaldry, was spared, there was little difficulty in guessing 
 from what quarter the libel proceeded. Hence general 
 indignation, of which a certain Baron of Villeneuve- 
 Mouans made himself the mouthpiece in uncompli- 
 mentary criticism of Madame de Cabris and her family.
 
 28 MIRABEAU OHAr. 
 
 While staying with his sister, Mirabeau, on an 
 excursion into the country, saw M. de Mouans, who, 
 white umbrella in hand, was watching his workpeople. 
 He rushed upon him, tore from him the sunshade, and 
 broke it on his back. The combatants closed and fell 
 over one of the little stone terraces usual in Provence. 
 They rolled struggling and kicking upon the ground, 
 while Madame de Cabris and a friend the sister-in- 
 law, indeed, of the unhappy Mouans leant convulsed 
 with laughter against a wall. 
 
 To be beaten, and to seek reparation in a law-court, 
 as M. de Mouans thought fit to do, was in those days 
 hardly consistent with the character of a gentleman ; 
 to charge Mirabeau with an attempt at premeditated 
 murder, when he had no weapon but the umbrella of 
 his victim, was absurd ; but it was scarcely less absurd 
 for the aggressor to plume himself on this ignoble scuffle 
 with a fat and wheezy middle-aged man as a chivalrous 
 and heroic vindication of his sister's character the 
 sister of whom he afterwards said that to be a wanton 
 was her most venial vice. 
 
 After this proof that the order confining his son to 
 Manosque was no security against further escapades, 
 the Marquis obtained a lettre de cachet committing him 
 to the custody of the governor of the Chateau d'lf, a 
 fort on an island off Marseilles, best known probably to 
 the reader as the prison of a more innocent victim 
 Edmond Dantes, Count of Montecristo. He hoped 
 also that this show of parental rigour might induce 
 M. de Mouans to drop a criminal prosecution begun at 
 Grasse. Yet it neither was nor was meant to be 
 wholly an act of kindness, as some biographers have
 
 n CHATEAU D'lF 29 
 
 imagined it was in part a punishment, for the Marquis 
 asked that his son should be placed under severe 
 discipline and treated as a criminal. 
 
 Mirabeau, as usual, fascinated his gaoler, who 
 declared that his prisoner had never given him or 
 any one else the smallest ground of complaint, and that 
 when he left he would carry with him the friendship 
 and respect of every one in the place. Moved partly by 
 this, partly by the intercession of his brother the 
 Bailli, the Marquis of Mirabeau asked that his son 
 might be removed to less rigorous captivity in the hill 
 fort of Joux, near Pontarlier. 
 
 Although the Friend of Humanity was neither such a 
 tyrant nor so avaricious as was generally believed on 
 the evidence of his domestic enemies, yet we cannot 
 acquit him of all responsibility for his son's faults and 
 misfortunes. " Believe me," Mirabeau wrote to his 
 father, "there are men who need employment, and I 
 am one of the number." He had done well when on 
 active service in Corsica, and not amiss when fully 
 occupied in his father's affairs. Leisure in which such 
 a busy brain, such fiery passions must find work for 
 themselves, could not but be fatal to him. The Marquis 
 still had influential friends at home, and powerful 
 admirers and disciples abroad. If in time of peace he 
 could not obtain employment for his son in the French 
 arrny, he might surely have found a sphere for his 
 energies abroad. The king of Sweden was eager to do 
 honour to the Friend of Humanity, and Gustavus III., 
 a demagogue as able and ambitious as ever wore a 
 crown, might have found the future tribune of the 
 French people a useful instrument.
 
 30 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 Mirabeau was condemned to the idle life of a prisoner 
 in a dreary fort perched on a mountain, above a dull 
 little frontier town, where, so he afterwards insisted, he 
 was subject to the caprice of a harsh and tyrannical 
 gaoler. In reality M. de Saint-Mauris, the governor of 
 Joux, seems to have been as indulgent to his prisoner 
 as the commandant of the Castle of If. The treatment 
 Mirabeau received throughout his various imprison- 
 ments is a proof that the kindly sensibility of the latter 
 part of the eighteenth century had penetrated to the 
 most unlikely places to the offices of the police and 
 to the gaols. Not only was he permitted to go and 
 come as he pleased during the day, M. de Saint-Mauris 
 allowed him to take a trip across the frontier into 
 Switzerland, and endeavoured to procure for him what- 
 ever relaxation the neighbourhood afforded, whether 
 of sport or society. 
 
 He nowhere found a warmer welcome, nor one more 
 to his taste, than in the house of the most important 
 inhabitant of Pontarlier, the Marquis of Monnier, late 
 president of the Chambre des Comptes of Dole. The 
 traditional romance of Mirabeau and Sophie de Monnier, 
 the creation of the inventive genius of the orator and 
 of the wish of his earlier biographers to gratify the 
 sentimental taste of their public, a romance half accepted 
 by the natural piety of the "Adopted Son," represents 
 the president as a harsh, avaricious, atrabilious old man, 
 the jealous and unsympathetic husband of a lovely, 
 accomplished, and artless girl. All this, except the 
 age of M. de Monnier, appears to be pure fiction. 
 
 The ex-president received the prisoner most kindly. 
 Mirabeau himself says : " He listened with pleasure to
 
 ii SOPHIE DE MONKIER 31 
 
 the story of my misfortunes, and even of my faults, and 
 was prodigal of encouragement and advice." So far 
 from being jealous, he welcomed the visits of his young 
 friend, who does not hesitate to give the most odious 
 explanation of the blindness of M. de Monnier to an 
 intrigue which had begun to be notorious. Sophie's 
 confession, " I grossly abused my husband's confidence," 
 disproves the insinuation, which, moreover, is quite 
 inconsistent with her equally baseless complaints of his 
 jealousy. 
 
 Sophie herself, of whom Mirabeau wrote that directly 
 he saw her his heart was irresistibly and permanently 
 enslaved " ut vidi, ut perii " that she attracted not 
 by the allurements of the senses, not even by her gentle 
 grace, her maidenly timidity, her sweet sensibility, but 
 by her soul fashioned by nature in a moment of prodigal 
 beneficence, this Sophie appears to have been a very 
 ordinary young woman. A buxom Burgundian with 
 irregular features, pleasant eyes, and a bright complexion, 
 comely enough at twenty but likely, as she herself said, 
 to be plain at forty. She had awkward manners and 
 little education, though her father, the President de 
 Kuffey, was a friend and correspondent of Voltaire and 
 Buffon. Before she made the acquaintance of Mirabeau, 
 a flirtation with an officer, to whom she had both written 
 compromising letters and given money, had been the 
 talk of the neighbourhood. 
 
 We cannot follow the tragi- comedy of the loves 
 of Sophie and Gabriel in detail, however amusingly 
 and instructively characteristic of morals and manners 
 under the decadent monarchy, and of an administra- 
 tion arbitrary in form and careless of legality, but in
 
 32 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 practice well meaning, irresolute, and full of sentimental 
 weakness. 
 
 Sophie declared her honour so outraged by some 
 tardy suspicions and precautions on the part of her 
 husband that she returned to her father's house at Dijon. 
 Her lover followed and had the audacity to pursue her 
 to a ball given by the Grand Provost the head of the 
 police of the province M. de Montherot. He caused 
 himself to be announced by the burlesque title of the 
 Marquis of Lancefoudras. Urged on by the parents of 
 Madame de Monnier, the Grand Provost had no choice but 
 to order the arrest of the escaped prisoner. Yet he did 
 so reluctantly. A prison, said this official, a man of 
 sentiment, was no place for the son of the Friend of 
 Humanity, and he wrote strongly in his favour to 
 Malesherbes, then Secretary of State. "Fair Helen 
 caused the conflagration of Troy. Another Helen, for 
 anything that is passable is beautiful here, has been the 
 cause of this fire, which unless quenched, may cause 
 endless mischief. ... To send M. de Mirabeau back to 
 Pontarlier would imperil the repose of a respectable 
 family, the safety of M. de Saint-Mauris, who is useful 
 to the State, and of M. de Mirabeau himself, an opening 
 bud not the less promising because not without thorns." 
 
 Mirabeau, while at Joux, had invited his wife to 
 accompany him in his flight to some foreign country, 
 where he might find a career open to his talents. If 
 she were with him he knew that he would not be left to 
 starve. She had coldly refused, but now Madame de 
 Monnier was willing, even eager, to be his companion, 
 and could provide resources for herself and her lover 
 until he obtained some employment. She was again at
 
 II AMSTERDAM 88 
 
 Pontarlier, had easily imposed on the doting credulity 
 of her husband, and had been able to supply her lover 
 with the means to fly from Dijon. After which, 
 escaping in male attire, and carrying off all the money 
 and jewels on which she could lay her hands it was 
 but fair, she said, she should resume her dowry now 
 that she was joining the husband of her choice she met 
 Mirabeau at the nearest place across the Swiss frontier. 
 
 Society in France during the last century was tolerant 
 in the extreme of the liaisons, however notorious, of 
 married women, but an elopement was a scandal in the 
 eyes of the world, as well as a serious offence against 
 the law. The fugitives therefore, under the name of 
 M. and Madame de Saint-Mathieu, sought refuge in 
 Amsterdam, a large city, much frequented by strangers, 
 where they might hope to escape notice. For the police 
 of one country would not unfrequently conduct refugees 
 from another back to the frontier over which they had 
 escaped ; or even allow them to be arrested where they 
 were living. 
 
 During the seven months (September 1776 May 
 1777) which the pair spent in Holland, he was not 
 always " the most perfect lover," nor she " the kindest 
 and most tender of mistresses," but hard work, privations 
 cheerfully borne, and such innocent recreation as was 
 afforded by a common taste for music, raised their life 
 above the low level of the previous intrigue. When 
 Sophie's money was spent Mirabeau trusted to his pen 
 for support. While still at Pontarlier he had, by the 
 indulgence of M. de Saint-Mauris, visited Neufchatel, 
 and had entered into relations with a publisher there, 
 who printed for him an anonymous Essay an Despotism 
 
 D
 
 34 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 This work attracted considerable attention. It deals 
 in such generalities as were then likely to be popular, 
 but the author's genuine aversion to despotism inspires 
 more than one passage with a rhetoric which rings true 
 and is not unworthy of the future orator. Mirabeau 
 introduced himself as the author of this essay to 
 the Dutch publishers, and gladly performed whatever 
 task they would -entrust to his hands. Nothing came 
 amiss, whether reviews, paragraphs for the newspapers, 
 translations from the English, or more original work, 
 such as a pamphlet Avis am Hessois denouncing the 
 traffic carried on by German princes in the flesh of their 
 subjects. In his Essay on Despotism he had called the 
 king the paid servant of his people ; he now reminded 
 the Germans that princes exist only for the good of their 
 people. 
 
 Mirabeau might have continued to live unmolested 
 in Holland had his father not found that he could be as 
 troublesome there as if at large in France. The suit of 
 the Marchioness of Mirabeau for a judicial separation, 
 which would deprive her husband of the control of her 
 property, was about to be heard. Her son protested 
 that he would give two years of his life to be with her 
 and to be able to assist her lawyers with his advice and 
 knowledge of domestic details. But, since this might 
 not be, he would do what he could. He accordingly 
 composed a pamphlet entitled Anecdote a ajouter au 
 nombreux Recueils des Hippocrisies Philosophiques (sic), 
 more annoying probably to the Marquis from the ridicule 
 which it poured on the economists and their leader, 
 who was described as an ignorant pedant aspiring to 
 instruct princes and to reform agriculture, although he
 
 ii VINCENNES 35 
 
 did not know the difference between wheat and rye, 
 than from the attack upon him personally as the worst 
 of husbands and the most tyrannical of fathers. Five 
 hundred and fifty copies of this precious production 
 were sent by the author to his mother for circulation in 
 France, and with them six hundred copies of a Mtmoire 
 in which not only her husband but also the du Saillants 
 and bitterest of all to the Marquis Madame de Pailly 
 were slandered with utmost virulence. The bale was 
 dispatched to the Marchioness under cover addressed to 
 Sartines, the head of the police, who, less her friend 
 than she supposed, sent copies to her husband and con- 
 fiscated the rest. 
 
 Could the Marquis under such provocation abide by 
 his determination to trouble himself no more about " the 
 pestilent madman " ? Must he not defend his reputation, 
 the honour of his family against such foul attacks ? He 
 accordingly, in concert with the family of Madame de 
 Monnier, procured through the French Embassy at The 
 Hague the arrest and extradition of the fugitive couple. 
 
 The loves of Gabriel and Sophie ended (May 1777) 
 with imprisonment, for him during forty-two months in 
 the keep of the Castle of Vincennes, for her, until the 
 birth of her child, in a sort of private house of correction 
 in Paris, and afterwards in a convent at Gien. Before 
 Mirabeau was brought to Vincennes the criminal judge 
 of the Bailliage of Pontarlier, at the suit of M. de 
 Monnier, had condemned him in default to be decapitated 
 for the abduction of Madame de Monnier, while she her- 
 self had been sentenced to imprisonment for life. 
 
 Mirabeau's confinement was at first severe. His cell 
 was but ten feet square, without a fireplace ; he had
 
 36 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 neither paper nor books, saw no one, and was only 
 allowed to walk for an hour daily in a little garden 
 between the great keep and the lofty walls of the Castle 
 of Vincennes. But no sooner had he been able to speak 
 with the authorities than he won their favour. It was 
 the old story, his gaolers and the police became his 
 warmest partisans. They granted to him whatever 
 indulgences could make solitary confinement more 
 endurable ; but however well he was treated, solitary 
 confinement could not be other than torture to a being 
 of such intense vitality, restless energy, and feverish 
 passions. He was allowed to look at the outside world 
 from the battlements of his prison, and to spend as much 
 time as he pleased in the garden, where, when the 
 doctors declared that it was necessary to his health, he also 
 took horse exercise. But it was his marvellous power 
 of work, his incessant intellectual activity, which 
 enabled him to exist during those four years. He can 
 scarcely have spent an unoccupied moment, so extensive 
 was his reading, so innumerable the pages of his writing : 
 one or two long letters daily, piles of commonplace 
 books and translations, besides original compositions of 
 the most various description. He was supplied with 
 periodicals and journals as well as with books, and he 
 appears to have read pen in hand, amassing a vast store 
 of extracts, which he afterwards used without scruple, 
 appropriating without acknowledgment whatever seemed 
 serviceable. 
 
 The compulsory study and meditation of these years 
 were not wasted. He came out of prison with a mind 
 matured, if not sobered, by reflection, and enriched by 
 omnivorous reading. He complained that his health
 
 II VINCENNES 87 
 
 had been ruined his letters from Vincennes constantly 
 tell of haemorrhage, " nephritic colics," racking pains 
 sufficient to melt the stoniest heart. His eyes certainly 
 suffered from constant study and defective light. But 
 his father, who saw him soon after his release, said that 
 he looked well, somewhat thinner, and grown. For it 
 is a remarkable fact, a proof perhaps of his abnormal 
 vigour, that Mirabeau, though twenty -eight at the 
 beginning of his imprisonment, was two or three inches 
 taller when it ended. Had he been free, it is not 
 uncharitable to suppose that his constitution would 
 have been more impaired by the excesses and adventures 
 of a libertine and restless life. 
 
 All to whom the name of Mirabeau is known have 
 probably heard of the collection of his letters written 
 during his imprisonment at Vincennes, published in 
 1792 by one Manuel, procureur-syndic of the munici- 
 pality of Paris. Manuel asserted that the letters 
 had partly come into his possession after the sack of 
 the Bastille, where all documents relating to the 
 prisoners there and at Vincennes were preserved, and 
 had partly been entrusted to him by friends of the 
 orator. Soon after his imprisonment Mirabeau was 
 able to correspond with Sophie through the police 
 agent, Brugnieres, who had effected their arrest. The 
 captor had been captivated by his prisoner on the journey 
 from Holland, and took advantage of his official position 
 to visit him, and to do what he could to serve him. 
 Before long Mirabeau contrived to obtain the much 
 more valuable favour of le Noir, the lieutenant of police, 
 no friend to the economists, for he had been dismissed 
 by Turgot, and had only recovered his office after the
 
 38 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 fall of that minister. He was therefore well disposed 
 to one who represented himself as hated by his father 
 not so much for the venial errors of youth, as for lapses 
 from physiocratic orthodoxy. 
 
 Sophie's confinement was expected ; it was impossible 
 for the sensibility of le Noir to refuse to the unhappy 
 lovers such comfort as they might derive from letters 
 necessarily innocent, since they must pass through his 
 office. There is a difference between the earlier letters 
 in Manuel's series, those conveyed by Brugnieres, and 
 the later, a difference which we should expect, since the 
 latter were read by the police, and had to be returned 
 to them by the recipients. It is now also known that 
 there was another, a secret correspondence, not less 
 voluminous, probably carried on by the help of the 
 turnkeys of the prison, whom Mirabeau had found 
 means to bribe. A great number of the letters which 
 passed secretly between the lovers came into the 
 hands of M. de Montigny, and many of them were 
 destroyed by him out of tenderness to the memory of 
 Mirabeau. The heir of the "adopted son" entrusted 
 those which had been kept, together with other 
 documents relating to the orator, to M. de Lomenie. 
 From what the latter tells us it appears inexplicable, 
 in the first place, why these letters were not destroyed 
 as soon as read, and in the second that the piety of 
 the adopted son should have spared any from the flames. 
 If he kept the least discreditable, what must those have 
 been which he burnt? 
 
 The existence of this secret correspondence, which 
 began in the spring of 1778, and during the first year 
 of which the lovers exchanged some 370 letters, shows
 
 II V1NCENNES 39 
 
 that those in Manuel's collection, written subsequently 
 to the earlier part of that year, were not so much 
 intended for Sophie, as for the edification of the 
 authorities, to secure their sympathy, to put the past 
 conduct of the writer in the most favourable light, 
 to throw the blame of whatever he had done amiss 
 upon others, and to excite compassion by the descrip- 
 tion of his bodily and mental sufferings. He would 
 insert just so much of the raptures of a lover, so much 
 of what was intimate and personal, as might prevent 
 the police from supposing that he had any other means 
 of communication ; and it is amazing how little reticence 
 he apparently judged to be natural in letters which 
 were to be read by a third person and preserved in the 
 public archives. 
 
 The four volumes published by Manuel are the best 
 known of Mirabeau's works, and on the whole they 
 enable us to form a better conception of the writer 
 than anything else from his pen that has been printed. 
 The student of his life cannot but ask what was the 
 secret of the charm which this man exercised over those 
 who came in contact with him? We are indeed told 
 that the glance of his penetrating and often insolently 
 defiant eyes could be singularly caressing, that a winning 
 smile changed the whole expression of the rough-hewn 
 face. There is something, no doubt, more flattering and 
 convincing in the endearments of a lion who could rend 
 us than of a lapdog, and Mirabeau must at all times 
 have appeared the embodiment of suppressed energy and 
 power. When reading the letters from Vincennes, we in 
 some degree feel as if in his actual presence. In them, 
 notwithstanding much mawkish and second-hand senti-
 
 40 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 mentality, much that is insincere and artificial, not- 
 withstanding rhapsodies that ring false and purple 
 patches stolen here and there, we can recognise the 
 geniality, the elasticity of spirits, the wide intellectual 
 interests and sympathies, the clear insight and absence 
 of bitterness, that must have made the society of such 
 a man, gifted as few have been with the power of oral 
 expression, singularly fascinating. What else he wrote 
 during his captivity need not detain us. The titles 
 bear witness to the variety of his studies, but there is 
 less in the voluminous collection to raise than to degrade 
 his reputation. 
 
 After Mirabeau had been a year and a half in prison 
 he lost the only child of his marriage, a boy of promise 
 a blow more felt by the grandfather and grand-uncle, 
 whose hopes for the future of their house it shattered, 
 than by the mother, who was living a gay life of balls, 
 concerts, and theatricals, in the society of her father 
 and his elegantly dissipated friends. The idea of 
 releasing the prisoner and effecting a reconciliation 
 between him and his wife occurred to the Bailli, and 
 was by him cautiously suggested to his brother. The 
 Marquis affected to be deaf to such hints. Six months 
 later he wrote to his friend, Le Franc de Pompignan, 
 Voltaire's rhyming butt as if nothing was farther 
 from his thoughts than to release "a monster loaded 
 with public and private crimes, and with all the 
 ignominy of his debts, rascalities, and frauds, notoriously 
 guilty of having libelled his father by paragraphs in all 
 the public prints of Europe, and in pamphlets published 
 for no other purpose." 
 
 But while posing as the stern vindicator of public
 
 ii VINCENNES 41 
 
 and private morals, he allowed a friend to hint to 
 the prisoner that there was one mediator whose in- 
 tervention might be efficacious the Countess of Mira- 
 beau. The Marquis was anxious to appear to yield 
 only to the prayers of his daughter-in-law, both because 
 concession to her would imply least inconsistency, and 
 because by interceding for her husband she would to 
 some extent commit herself to a reconciliation with 
 him. So with rage in his heart Mirabeau set himself 
 to compose letters to his hated wife, which in their way 
 are works of art, breathing respectful tenderness, regret 
 for the past, scarcely hinted hope for the future. At 
 length Madame de Mirabeau coldly expressed a wish that 
 such liberty might be given to the prisoner as would 
 test the sincerity of his repentance. Mirabeau purchased 
 freedom at the price of a double degradation. His 
 father helped to destroy whatever sense of honour he 
 retained by insisting that he should humiliate himself 
 with hypocritical apologies to his wife, and should take 
 a part against his mother, indecent in any case, but 
 after what had passed between them doubly dis- 
 honourable. 
 
 Of the actors in this unpleasing scene in Mirabeau's 
 life only one leaves the stage in a way to excite any 
 sympathy. The love of Madame de Monnier was deep 
 enough to be unselfish. She urged her lover to write 
 to his wife, to be reconciled to her, if that was the 
 necessary condition of his liberty. She even wrote 
 to his father, taking upon herself the whole blame of 
 their elopement. The tragic end of Sophie de Monnier 
 may atone for much that was amiss. Once again she 
 and her lover met for a few days. But only to find
 
 42 MIRABEAU CHAP, n 
 
 that his passion had expired possibly it had long been 
 dead while amorous rhetoric and sentimental fancy 
 were masquerading in its semblance. She went on living 
 in her convent at Gien. Neither her past life nor new 
 scandals prevented her from being well received by the 
 society of the neighbourhood. She became engaged to 
 a respectable gentleman, but he died before the wedding- 
 day, and Sophie committed suicide (September 1779). 
 The news of her death was abruptly told to Mirabeau 
 by a colleague in the Assembly. He turned pale, 
 mastered his emotion, and, leaving his place, was not 
 again seen for several days.
 
 CHAPTEE III 
 
 Mirabeau presents himself for trial His suit against his wife 
 Madame de Nehra Visit to England Financial Pamphlets 
 Mission to Berlin. 
 
 MIRABEAU was at liberty and endeavoured to earn a 
 complete pardon by zealously assisting his father in 
 his lawsuit with the Marchioness. Just released from 
 prison, convicted of abduction and adultery and sentenced 
 to death by the court of Pontarlier, he not only inter- 
 viewed official persons, but appeared in open court as 
 his father's representative and browbeat the lawyers 
 on the other side. He had even the assurance to ask 
 Maurepas in the name of the Marquis for a lettre de 
 cachet banishing a lover of his sister Madame de Cabris. 
 " Your father," answered the Prime Minister, " mistakes 
 me for his man of business. It is intolerable that there 
 should be no end to the scandals in your family. The 
 king will hear no more of them." Notwithstanding 
 Mirabeau's efforts, his mother obtained her separation 
 from her husband and the control of her property. The 
 actions she subsequently brought against the Marquis 
 for dilapidation and waste completed their common 
 ruin. Law, cards, and the scoundrels into whose hands 
 she fell reduced her to abject poverty.
 
 44 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 The Marquis released his son in the hope that he 
 would be reconciled to his wife ; but the Countess could 
 hardly be asked to share the fortunes of a man under 
 such a sentence as had been passed on the seducer of 
 Madame de Monnier. That sentence was in contumadam, 
 that is to say it only took effect after the lapse of five 
 years, provided that the accused had not previously 
 "purged his contumacy," i.e. presented himself before 
 the court ; if he did so the case had to be heard afresh. 
 Mirabeau accordingly surrendered himself at Pontarlier 
 (February 1782) to stand his trial. 
 
 The local court was no match for the brazen effron- 
 tery, the ingenious quibbles, and ready tongue of the 
 strange criminal who treated not the witnesses only, 
 but the judges themselves as if he had been on the 
 bench and they trembling in the dock before him. 
 After the case had been transferred to the Parliament 
 of Besan9on, and Mirabeau had spent some three months 
 in prison, it was finally agreed, thanks to the exertions 
 of his brother-in-law du Saillant, assisted by the family 
 of Madame de Monnier, that the proceedings against 
 Mirabeau and Sophie should be dropped. 
 
 The "rehabilitation" was perhaps as complete as 
 could have been expected under the circumstances, but 
 great expense had been incurred. The old Marquis 
 was very angry. Fearing, or affecting to fear, another 
 lettre de cachet, Mirabeau once more crossed the frontier 
 to Neufchatel. He hoped to obtain a little money by 
 the sale of some of the MSS. compiled at Versailles. 
 At Neufchatel he made the acquaintance of several of 
 the leaders of the liberal party at Geneva, who, after a 
 successful attempt to overthrow the ruling oligarchy, had
 
 ill HIS SUIT AGAINST HIS WIFE 45 
 
 been driven into exile by French intervention. Two 
 of these men were afterwards of the greatest service to 
 him, important members of the workshop which turned 
 out the innumerable pamphlets, newspaper articles, and 
 speeches circulated with his trademark. Claviere, a 
 banker, the deviser of Assignats and the future finance 
 minister of 1792 ; Duroveray, a lawyer who subsequently 
 drafted most of Mirabeau's Letters to his Constituents, 
 and acted for some time as editor of his newspaper. 
 Laying aside once more his resentment, the Marquis 
 advised his son to visit Provence, and to open, with the 
 help of his uncle, the campaign which was to restore 
 to him his wife. His own fertility of resource would 
 suggest a plan of operations, by which her reluctance 
 and the opposition of those who were interested in 
 keeping them apart might be overcome. Any means 
 were fair to obtain so good an end. But publicity and 
 the scandal of a lawsuit must be avoided. 
 
 The Bailli had bitterly resented the libels and insults 
 published by his nephew against the head of the family. 
 He wrote that he was surprised at the depth of the 
 aversion he felt for the reprobate. But forewarned was 
 not forearmed. With his eyes open the honest sailor 
 once more fell under the charm (October 1782). Each 
 successive letter he wrote after Mirabeau's arrival in 
 Provence shows him to be more and more appeased. 
 In the end he vaunts the poor fellow's amiability and 
 docility, and is convinced that though his shortcomings 
 have been many, he has more frequently been sinned 
 against than sinning. 
 
 A demand for separation on the ground of cruelty, 
 infidelity, and desertion was the answer of the Countess
 
 46 MIRABEAU OHAP. 
 
 to a formal summons to return to her husband's roof. 
 Mirabeau thought, and not without reason, that he could 
 easily meet such charges. Passionate he perhaps had 
 been, but the particulars of cruelty alleged were 
 trumpery inventions, and he could produce letters 
 subsequently written by his wife in terms of the tender- 
 est affection. The charge of desertion was absurd in 
 the mouth of a woman who had been deaf to her hus- 
 band's entreaties that she should join him at If and 
 Pontarlier. His adultery, indeed, had been notorious, 
 but the law has ever been indulgent to the unfaith- 
 fulness of the husband. He applied to the "Lieutenant- 
 General " of Aix and his assessors for a writ ordering 
 his wife to take up her abode under her husband's roof, 
 or, as was usual pending a suit for separation, in a 
 convent. 
 
 The bar of Aix was exceptionally brilliant, but the 
 advocates most in repute had been retained by Madame 
 de Mirabeau. Her husband was not sorry to conduct his 
 own case. He was full of confidence in himself, and 
 determined to seize this opportunity of exciting popular 
 sympathy and of proving that he was no ordinary man. 
 He was successful in obtaining his writ from the court 
 of first instance, although opposed by Portalis, not less 
 distinguished as an advocate than afterwards as one of 
 the principal compilers of the Civil Code. Mirabeau's 
 speech, which was carefully written, is remarkable for 
 tact, eloquence, and pathos, although it contains a char- 
 acteristic instance of his audacious plagiarism, a passage 
 copied verbatim from the most celebrated peroration of 
 Bossuet. The audience was entirely carried away ; it is 
 said that M. de Marignane himself wept.
 
 in HIS SUIT AGAINST HIS WIFE 47 
 
 But this was only a preliminary skirmish, and useless 
 to Mirabeau except as a prognostic of victory. The 
 Countess at once appealed to the Parliament against 
 the decision of the lower court, and her advisers at- 
 tempted to obliterate the favourable impression made 
 on the public by publishing a violent Mdmoire. In this 
 they supported their charges true and false against 
 Mirabeau by copious extracts from his father's corre- 
 spondence with his daughter-in-law and M. de Marignane. 
 He replied by a printed statement of his case not wanting 
 in dignity and moderation. 
 
 His opponents were not a little perplexed and 
 alarmed. Not the populace only, many of his own class 
 who had hitherto avoided him began to express their 
 sympathy. He must be spurred, said one of Madame 
 de Mirabeau's counsel ; when he feels the spur he will 
 start like an unbroken colt and rush headlong into any 
 pitfall. Portalis accordingly opened the case before the 
 Parliament with a long and virulent invective in which 
 the charges of the Mdmoire were repeated and amplified. 
 He attacked and calumniated the Marquis of Mirabeau 
 not less savagely than his son. After Portalis had 
 spoken the court adjourned for several days, during 
 which Mirabeau prepared his reply. He had the as- 
 sistance of his counsel Jaubert, and of a young lawyer 
 of talent, afterwards his private secretary and devoted 
 friend, Pellenc. The position of the parties, Madame de 
 Mirabeau a leader of Provencal society, her husband's 
 notoriety, the reputation of his father, the eloquence 
 of his previous speech, curiosity as to how he would 
 meet the furious onslaught of Portalis, the attraction of 
 sensational and scandalous details, raised public expecta-
 
 48 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 tion to the highest pitch. The Provencal gentry were 
 still in their town houses ; and not a few foreigners 
 were at Aix, enjoying the pleasant southern spring and 
 gay society of the place ; among them was the brother of 
 the queen, the Archduke Ferdinand, Governor of the 
 Milanese, and his wife. The strangers were scarcely 
 less eager partisans than the natives. A young English- 
 man, Lord Peterborough, would have drawn his sword 
 in the public walks on M. de Gallifet, the boon com- 
 panion of the Marquis of Marignane, had not Mirabeau 
 himself interfered. Mirabeau's speech more than fulfilled 
 the highly-raised expectations of the crowded audience. 
 It has been often said that he sacrificed his case to an 
 oratorical triumph, to the desire of humiliating his 
 opponents, of casting back on them some part of the 
 shame under which they had hoped to overwhelm him, 
 that, carried away by the fervour of his rhetoric, he 
 forgot the moderation he had hitherto observed in 
 speaking of his wife, and by publicly disclosing her 
 dishonour made a future reconciliation impossible. 
 
 But it was not so. In the first place, nothing 
 Mirabeau said was spoken in haste. He read a carefully 
 prepared speech. In the next place, the alarm of the 
 other side at his vigorous offensive tactics was so great 
 that they now for the first time showed themselves 
 prepared to accept a compromise. It was proposed that 
 the Countess should retire for two years into a convent 
 where her husband might visit her, on condition that 
 he should at the next sitting of the court explain away 
 the charge he had made against her. The letter she 
 had written to her lover at her husband's dictation, 
 which had been produced by him in court, admitted
 
 in HIS SUIT AGAINST HIS WIFE 49 
 
 of interpretations more or less charitable. It was the 
 repetition by Mirabeau of the accusation after he had 
 undertaken to withdraw it, which made the friends of 
 the Countess irreconcilable and finally determined the 
 verdict of the Parliament. He might easily have said 
 that the wish he had at all times expressed for his 
 wife's company, the steps he was now taking to recover 
 it, proved that, even if she had allowed her affections to 
 stray, he had never believed that she had been otherwise 
 unfaithful. Instead of this he apologised for her error 
 in a vein of maudlin sentiment. " She who fell, yet 
 repented and sinned no more, is not less worthy, nay, 
 she is more worthy of respect than many a one who 
 has never been tempted and never fallen" and so 
 forth. 
 
 Although unsuccessful in his suit, for the Parliament 
 by a bare majority decided in his wife's favour, 
 Mirabeau obtained an amount of popularity and 
 notoriety which must have gone far to console him. 
 His reputation as an orator was established. His 
 victory over the most rising member of the most 
 brilliant bar in France had been decisive. It is said 
 that Portalis was carried fainting out of court, after 
 listening in pale and trembling agitation to the wither- 
 ing and not unmerited rebuke with which Mirabeau 
 replied to the indecent extravagance of the abuse 
 lavished on his father as well as on himself. 
 
 Mirabeau determined to appeal from the decision of 
 the Parliament of Aix to the Council of State. His 
 father objected, dreading further expense and further 
 disclosures discreditable to the family; and since his 
 advice was disregarded, declared that henceforward he 
 
 E
 
 50 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 would have nothing to do with his unworthy son and 
 his affairs. 
 
 We have seen that Mirabeau first interfered in the 
 quarrel between his parents as his father's agent. His 
 zeal had been so great as to provoke his mother to fire 
 a pistol at his head. Then he had as warmly espoused 
 the cause of his " loved and respected Mama " against 
 " the hypocritical tyranny " of her husband. Next he 
 had not been ashamed, as the representative of the 
 Marquis, to assist in the public exposure of his mother's 
 frailties. To change sides a third time must, it might 
 seem, have been impossible for the most brazen effrontery. 
 Yet on his return from Provence, Mirabeau not only 
 declared himself once more the partisan of Madame de 
 Mirabeau, but was also able to persuade her to allow 
 him to retain the greater part of a loan of 21,000 livres 
 raised on the estate, the life-interest in which she had 
 recovered. He was thus, for the first time in his life 
 and for the last, until he concluded his treaty with the 
 court, in possession of a considerable sum of ready 
 money. He wasted nothing by paying his debts, but 
 took expensive lodgings, and began to live the life of a 
 man of pleasure and fashion. 
 
 We must pass rapidly over the next six years, in 
 order that some space may be left for those two during 
 which the biography of Mirabeau is little else than the 
 history of the French Eevolution. 
 
 In 1783 his faculties were fully developed, his 
 character formed, nor did his political principles alter 
 between 1783 and 1789. The abolition of feudalism 
 and of privilege, complete toleration, civil liberty and 
 equality, limited monarchy with representative institu-
 
 in HENRI ETTE DE NEHRA 51 
 
 tions, a fiscal system based on sound economic prin- 
 ciples, allowing the greatest possible freedom to trade 
 and manufactures, and a national system of secular 
 education such were in his view the just claims of 
 the nation. These reforms he demands in his first 
 political writings. These, he insists in his advice to 
 the court during the last year of his life, were the 
 benefits conferred by the Revolution on France, which 
 she must never be asked to forego. But if his 
 principles, his talents, and his character were the same 
 in 1783 and 1789, his knowledge and experience were 
 greatly extended during this period by travel and by 
 intercourse with many remarkable public men, while 
 he became generally known, and his reputation as a 
 serious politician was established by his writings. 
 
 It has been said that had Mirabeau succeeded in 
 regaining his wife, he would have secured the oppor- 
 tunity and the means of living such a life that the 
 Revolution would have found him an influential and 
 respectable member of society. But would he have 
 profited by the opportunity? No income could have 
 sufficed for the expense of a man who, as his father 
 said, would squander in a week all the treasures of 
 Our Lady of Loretto. Nor could the frivolous and in- 
 different Countess, the object of his contempt and 
 aversion, have effected a reformation in his character 
 and life vainly attempted by the affection of a far 
 superior woman, whom he both loved and respected. 
 
 Mirabeau's corpulence, his scarred and bloated face, 
 made him appear older than his age, thirty-six. His 
 reputation was what it deserved to be. His fortunes 
 were at their lowest ebb, and appeared little likely to
 
 52 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 improve. Henriette van Haren, the natural daughter 
 of a Dutch gentleman, but French by education, a 
 beautiful girl of nineteen, who was living a quiet and 
 blameless life on a small annuity left to her by her 
 father, determined to sacrifice everything in order 
 that she might give a man so out of favour with 
 fortune the happiness which, he declared, and she 
 believed, he could find only in her society. Sensible 
 and sober, of a serene and placid disposition, she 
 might not unreasonably think herself the companion 
 most likely to save him from future errors ; and the 
 hope of rescuing an amiable profligate by the influence 
 of their affection has at all times been a snare to 
 some of the best of her sex. "I sacrificed," she says, 
 " my quiet life to share the storms of his adven- 
 turous existence. I vowed to live for him alone, to 
 follow him everywhere, to brave all if I could be of 
 use to him in good fortune or in bad. I leave the 
 friends of Mirabeau to judge whether I faithfully 
 fulfilled the task I deliberately undertook." Nor was 
 this solicitude for her lover's welfare merely a senti- 
 mental commonplace or an excuse to herself or others 
 for the gratification of selfish passion. She assures us 
 that she was never, in the ordinary sense of the term, 
 in love with Mirabeau ; and what we learn from other 
 sources disposes us to believe that her affection was 
 indeed calmer and more unselfish than that feeling 
 to which the name of love is generally given. 
 
 Madame de Nehra, as she was called, had no relations, 
 and had apparently the freedom from prejudice so 
 disregard of conventional morality was called- common 
 at that time among the adepts of the popular
 
 in HENRIETTE DE NEHRA 68 
 
 "philosophy." Yet that such a girl, unblinded by 
 passion, knowing to what chances she exposed herself, 
 consented to become the mistress of such a man is another 
 remarkable proof of that indescribable fascination of 
 which we have so often seen the effect. " When I first 
 saw him," she says, " I thought his appearance most 
 unpleasing; I started back with repulsion. But, like 
 many others, I not only by degrees became accustomed 
 to his features, I even came to think them well suited to 
 his genius. His countenance was expressive, his mouth 
 charming, his smile very attractive." 
 
 All who saw her, men like Dumont and Romilly, 
 or the respectable Lord Minto, little likely to be 
 impressed by meretricious graces, spoke of Henriette de 
 Nehra with admiration and respect. The old Marquis, 
 at a time when he was most embittered against his son, 
 wrote to his brother that all who had seen her agreed 
 that she was charming and pitied her innocent simplicity. 
 Mirabeau's letters to her, very unlike those he addressed 
 to Sophie, are such as might have been written to an 
 honoured wife. " Dear love," he says, " I have only had 
 one really happy day in my life, that on which I learnt 
 to know you, that on which you gave me your friend- 
 ship ... no happiness is possible away from you. 
 Every feeling, from the most trivial impression to the 
 loftiest thought, which I do not share with you, is 
 worthless . . . your absence deprives me of what is best 
 in me. Were you to abandon me I might seek forget- 
 fulness in dissipation, not to find pleasure but death." 
 For five years Henriette was his good genius. Although 
 she was faithful to Mirabeau in thought and deed, both 
 while she lived with him and afterwards till her death,
 
 54 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 her easy principles and the absence of passion and vanity 
 in her affection prevented her from deeply resenting his 
 numerous infidelities, so long as she possessed his confi- 
 dence and unshaken friendship. 
 
 The only result of the appeal to the Council of State 
 had been a quarrel with the Keeper of the Seals, 
 Miromenil, whom Mirabeau attacked so violently in a 
 pamphlet, that he thought it prudent to avoid the 
 expected lettre de cachet by a visit to England. No 
 sooner had he reached London than he wrote to Sir 
 Gilbert Elliot, who was willing, so far as he was able, 
 to serve him. Duroveray and others of the Swiss 
 refugees, whose acquaintance he had made at Neufchatel, 
 introduced him to Burke and to Samuel Romilly, and 
 through the latter he became known to Lord Lansdowne. 
 He also visited Burke at Beaconsfield. 
 
 Mirabeau admired little in England except the inde- 
 pendent spirit of the people. A riot in London was, he 
 said, a pleasant contrast to the servility of Paris. In 
 many respects he thought the British constitution 
 defective, and the administration abominably corrupt. 
 It was, in his eyes, a marvellous proof of the benefits of 
 civil liberty that this alone had raised a people so little 
 favoured by nature above the inhabitants of other 
 countries. He was repeatedly present at debates in the 
 House of Commons, where he must have learnt a great 
 deal that was of use to him when a member of the 
 National Assembly. 
 
 His means did not allow him to see much of English 
 society. Sir Gilbert Elliot took him down to Bath, 
 where his family was staying, and describes how 
 Mirabeau frightened his sister-in-law by his vehement
 
 in VISIT TO ENGLAND 55 
 
 and, as he imagined, irresistible attentions ; engrossed 
 his host from morning to night ; wore out Lady Elliot's 
 patience by his self-satisfied loquacity; terrified her 
 little boy by his caresses; and in short made himself 
 so unendurable in a fortnight, that she insisted that if 
 he visited Minto he must lodge with the gamekeeper. 
 The truest friend he made in England, Romilly, says 
 that his vanity was excessive ; that he was violent 
 and impetuous, dictatorial and intolerant in society. 
 Indignant at a paradoxical defence of the severity of the 
 English criminal law attempted over the dinner-table by 
 Wilkes, he determined to crush him by his eloquence. 
 He poured forth a vehement declamation in which, so he 
 himself boasts with all his strange absence of humorous 
 self-appreciation, he spoke of the profound immorality 
 of the English demagogue. We can imagine the squint 
 and leer of his cool and self-possessed opponent. At the 
 table of Lord Lansdowne, so he relates in a letter 
 written to Romilly, 1 who was on circuit, he met Gibbon, 
 who spoke with ignorant assurance about continental 
 politics. "I contented myself," he writes, "when Lord 
 Lansdowne insisted that I should give my opinion, by 
 answering in these few words" and then follows a 
 harangue of three pages, in which, as he flatters himself, 
 he summarily disposed of Mr. Gibbon and his " elegant 
 but not valuable " history. The remarkable fact about 
 this meeting is that at the time (March 1785) the author 
 of the Decline and Fall was most certainly at Lausanne. 
 The elucidation of the mystery must be left to the 
 ingenuity of the reader. 
 
 1 Memoirs of Sir S. Romilly, vol. i. p. 311. Cf. the miscellaneous 
 works of E. Gibbon, etc., vol. ii. p. 374, ed. of 1814.
 
 56 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 Romilly was attracted by the instructive and enter- 
 taining conversation of his new acquaintance ; he was 
 convinced that "his ambition was of the noblest kind, 
 and that he proposed to himself the noblest end, but 
 that he was unscrupulous about means." To the last 
 Romilly remained his friend, and persisted in his 
 charitable judgment of a man whose defects, which he 
 allowed were great, must have been of a kind repugnant 
 to his refined and almost puritanical nature. But 
 Mirabeau had, he insisted, many very good qualities as 
 well as great talents, was capable of very warm friend- 
 ship, and often exerted the greatest zeal and made 
 considerable sacrifices to serve his friends. He emphatic- 
 ally asserts his conviction that in public affairs he never 
 suffered himself to be bribed to do that which his own 
 heart and judgment condemned. 
 
 While in London Mirabeau translated and printed as 
 his own a pamphlet by Romilly's friend, Benjamin 
 Vaughan, on the opening of the Scheldt, and also a 
 work entitled Considerations on the Order of Cincinnatus, 
 which consisted of an essay he had written some time 
 before with the assistance of Chamfort, together with 
 remarks by Dr. Price, a letter of Washington, another 
 of Turgot, and other second-hand matter. It must be 
 owned that, as Dumont says, if each of his assistants had 
 claimed the part they had contributed to his works, 
 little would have been left ; but it is fair to add that 
 that little is just what gives life to the whole. Here 
 and there a brilliant touch, a luminous thought, an 
 original expression, an apostrophe full of fire and 
 eloquence. 
 
 Mirabeau possessed the remarkable gift of discovering
 
 in VISIT TO ENGLAND 57 
 
 obscure men of talent, of giving to all the kind of 
 encouragement they needed, of inspiring them with his 
 OATO fervour, of making them eager in the accomplish- 
 ment of some work of which he was to have all the 
 credit. As Romilly says, he was a great plagiarist, but 
 from avarice, not from poverty : whatever he found 
 forcible or beautiful he considered a kind of common 
 property. 
 
 Mirabeau felt himself out of his element in England, 
 where it was clear that there was no career open to him. 
 Madame de Nehra accordingly went to Paris to discover 
 whether he could safely return to France. She obtained 
 an interview with M. de Breteuil, and an assurance 
 that her friend had nothing to fear. She hoped to 
 persuade Mirabeau to live cheaply in some quiet place, 
 where he might devote himself to the production of 
 some serious and important work which should establish 
 his reputation as an author and a publicist. But he 
 found employment in Paris which was more to his taste 
 than dull and studious days in some half-ruinous manor- 
 house. 
 
 His acquaintance with the Swiss liberals stood him 
 in good stead. Several of these, of whom Claviere and 
 Panchaud are the best known, had settled in Paris and 
 were distinguished in the stock-jobbing world by their 
 acuteness, perhaps also by their comparative probity. 
 Panchaud, a successful banker, was reputed to be the 
 most skilful operator on the Stock Exchange, and deeply 
 versed in all the mysteries of finance. His hospitable 
 house was open to all men of quality whose need or 
 ambition attracted them to a method of gambling in 
 which private information, obtained at the very centre
 
 58 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 of the financial and political world, appeared to offer 
 a sure means of correcting the fickleness of fortune. 
 Claviere introduced Mirabeau to Panchaud, and at the 
 banker's table he frequently met Talleyrand, and 
 Lauzun, then a fashionable roue and the boon com- 
 panion of the Duke of Chartres. 
 
 In spite of all misgovernment under Lewis XV., the 
 mere cessation of war had enabled capital to increase 
 during the last years of his reign, and wealth had grown 
 with even greater rapidity after the accession of his 
 grandson. The number of joint-stock companies which 
 came into existence are a proof that the people were 
 saving and investing. The rise of a rich middle class, 
 who resented the privileges and the insolence of men 
 inferior to them in wealth, and not superior in education 
 and culture, was among the causes of the Revolution. 
 The growth of capital enabled ministers whose credit 
 was far inferior to that of Necker to float their loans, 
 and encouraged them to plunge into a deeper gulf of 
 insolvency. 
 
 The most important joint -stock concern was the 
 Caisse d'Escompte, of which Panchaud had been one of 
 the chief founders under the auspices of Turgot in 
 1776. This establishment, besides doing the business 
 suggested by its name, was a bank of deposit and issue. 
 It was closely connected with the Bank of St. Charles, 
 a State bank founded in 1782 by Cabarrus in Spain, 
 the shares of which were for the most part held in 
 Paris, and were, like those of the Caisse d'Escompte, at a 
 high premium. Calonne was not over pleased with the 
 popularity of these companies. Their shares were more 
 tempting to investors than the public funds, and he
 
 in FINANCIAL PAMPHLETS 59 
 
 thought that the value of the national securities was 
 thus depressed, and the difficulty of getting new loans 
 taken up increased. Panchaud had quarrelled with the 
 Caisse d'Escompte, and for other reasons, speculative and 
 private, both he and Claviere were anxious to see a 
 fall in its shares, and in those of the Bank of St. 
 Charles. Mirabeau was glad of an opportunity to 
 advertise himself as a man skilled in finance at a 
 time when politics and finance were almost synonyms. 
 How to meet the growing deficit was the Sphinx's 
 riddle which each successive minister must solve or 
 perish. He therefore readily allowed his stock-jobbing 
 friends to put him in the forefront of the battle. 
 Between May and December 1785 he published five 
 pamphlets two of them fair-sized books attacking in 
 succession the Caisse d'Escompte, the Bank of St. Charles, 
 and the Water-works of Paris Company. It needed, he 
 said, nothing but industry and a knowledge of the four 
 rules of arithmetic, and of the conjugation of the verb 
 avoir, to qualify a man as an authority in financial sub- 
 jects. But he took care to secure the help of those who 
 possessed more special knowledge. Claviere, according 
 to Brissot, a rich mine of uncut diamonds, supplied him 
 on this, as on many subsequent occasions, with the 
 greater part of his facts and arguments. Mirabeau was 
 just the man to give brilliancy to the rough diamonds of 
 his friend by his cutting, and to set them to the best advan 
 tage. The book on the Caisse d'Escompte was solid and 
 sensible, attracted considerable attention, and raised the 
 author's reputation. The next production published 
 under his name, criticising the Bank of St. Charles, was 
 written by desire of the Comptroller-General. Mirabeau
 
 60 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 characteristically persuaded Claviere and Brissot, the 
 future Girondist, then living the precarious life of a 
 wandering journalist, to hand over to him the MS. 
 of a work they had written on the subject. He altered 
 a few details, breathed life into the whole, and astonished 
 Calonne by producing in eight days a book of over 
 300 pages. The shares of the Bank of St. Charles began 
 to fall ; they had reached 800 livres, they stood before 
 long at 320. The minister for many reasons did not 
 wish that it should be known that he had instigated this 
 attack on the bank. A decree of the Council of State 
 suppressed the pamphlet as " written by one of those 
 individuals who have the audacity to discuss matters of 
 importance, although too ignorant to do so with any 
 profit to the public." Mirabeau thought himself 
 shabbily treated, but concealed his anger in the hope 
 of some lucrative public employment. In the meantime 
 he kept his name before the public by an onslaught on 
 the Water-works Company. After the publication of 
 Mirabeau's tract the shares of the Water-works fell 
 nearly 44 per cent. This, following on the rapid 
 depreciation of the shares of the Caisse d'Escompte, 
 and of the Bank of St. Charles, produced a panic on the 
 Stock Exchange. Instead of the depreciation of other 
 securities causing the public funds to rise, they fell in 
 sympathy with the market. Calonne, himself a share- 
 holder, by the king's generosity, in the Water-works, 
 was easily persuaded that he had made a mistake in 
 encouraging the bears. He was very angry with 
 Mirabeau, who thought it prudent to follow the advice 
 of Talleyrand and to visit Berlin. He had for some 
 time meditated a book on the Prussian Monarchy, and
 
 in FINANCIAL PAMPHLETS 61 
 
 he naturally wished to see the founder of that remark- 
 able state, the most striking figure in the history of the 
 eighteenth century. But if the journey to Berlin was a 
 retreat, it was a retreat with beating drums and colours 
 flying. 
 
 Beaumarchais, even more prominent as stock-jobber 
 and promoter than as wit and playwright, had taken up 
 the cudgels for the Water-works Company in a pamphlet 
 containing a good deal of indifferent pleasantry and 
 much personal abuse of Mirabeau, the "hireling of 
 unscrupulous speculators." Beaumarchais can hardly 
 have been conscious how much heavier metal was 
 carried by the adversary he rashly challenged, how 
 impenetrable the armour of his brazen assurance : at all 
 events he was silenced by the first broadside poured 
 into him. And yet it must have needed all Mirabeau's 
 effrontery, all his useful want of humour, to enable him 
 to assume the tone of a severe moralist offended by the 
 licence of Beaumarchais' plays. He solemnly rebuked 
 the author of Figaro for the want of decorum in 
 his life, for the adventures by which he had risen to 
 wealth and notoriety, for his intimacy with questionable 
 characters. He repelled with virtuous indignation the 
 monstrous charge that he was a venal hireling, he who 
 only sought to atone for youthful errors by his zeal in 
 the cause of truth, and by defending the interests of the 
 poor against monopolising capitalists. After crushing 
 Beaumarchais, he intended to show Calonne that he was 
 not a man to be taken up and dropped with impunity. 
 He composed a letter to him, a book in volume. He 
 declared in the tone of something more than an equal 
 that the time was come when he had no alternative but
 
 62 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 to summon the minister before the bar of public opinion, 
 and to call upon the nation to judge between them. 
 
 Talleyrand, Lauzun, and other friends persuaded 
 Mirabeau not to publish this invective, while they con- 
 vinced Calonne that it was better that a man capable of 
 writing it should be his ally than his enemy. 
 
 Mirabeau meantime with his "horde," as he called it 
 Madame de Nehra, the adopted son, servants, and 
 secretary had arrived at Berlin. The king, who had 
 noticed his name among the list of strangers, granted 
 him an audience. Frederick expressed a hope that they 
 might frequently meet, but politely ignored the hint of 
 his visitor that, had his previous life made him worthy 
 of such a privilege, it would have been his highest 
 ambition to serve so great a prince. 
 
 Mirabeau spent several months at Berlin, seeing 
 every one who was worth seeing, or from whom any- 
 thing could be learnt, using to the utmost his mar- 
 vellous faculty of assimilating the ideas and information 
 of others, storing his capacious memory and voluminous 
 note-books with whatever might be of use at some future 
 time. He improved his knowledge of the international 
 politics of Europe by frequent conversations with Ewart, 
 the Secretary of the British Legation, and with Dohm, 
 an accomplished official of the Prussian Foreign Office. 
 In his spare moments he attacked the Illuminati in a 
 pamphlet on Cagliostro and Lavater, or pleaded the 
 cause of the Jews in a work on Moses Mendelssohn. 
 Then he paid a hurried visit to Paris, ostensibly for the 
 purpose of obtaining payment of the arrears of the 
 allowance settled on him by his father at the time of 
 his marriage, in reality to see Calonne, who had been
 
 in VISIT TO BERLIN 63 
 
 persuaded by their common friends to entrust him with 
 a secret mission in Berlin. It was obvious that a new 
 reign was at hand, and a more clear-sighted observer 
 than the Count of Esterno, the French envoy at the 
 Prussian Court, might be useful. 
 
 In the summer of 1786 he returned to Berlin. Ver- 
 gennes, the minister of foreign affairs, objected to 
 employing a man in whom he felt no confidence ; and, 
 though he yielded to Calonne, he attached no import- 
 ance to Mirabeau's mission. He did not even read his 
 letters. Sixty-six of these, some very lengthy, were 
 written between July 1786 and January 1787. They 
 were deciphered by Talleyrand, who omitted much that 
 he thought indiscreet or likely to injure the writer. 
 In 1788 Mirabeau said the four beings in the world 
 clearest to him were Madame de Nehra, Talleyrand, 
 Lauzun, and Panchaud. It is true that a year earlier 
 he had lamented that he was still obliged to keep on 
 terms with "a being so vile as Talleyrand, sordid, 
 greedy, and designing, who delighted only in filth and 
 gold, who had sold his honour and his friend, and would 
 sell his soul if a purchaser could be found for such vile 
 trash." But such diatribes, " Mirabelles " Beaumarchais 
 called them, whether from the pen of Mirabeau or 
 of his father, must not be taken too seriously. They 
 often only express, in the style peculiar to the family, 
 a passing mood of annoyance. 
 
 After Talleyrand had edited Mirabeau's dispatches 
 they were submitted by Calonne to the king, who 
 appears to have regarded them rather as amusing, 
 though uuedifying, light literature than as of any 
 political importance. They are, indeed, much more
 
 64 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 like the composition of an unscrupulous " special corre- 
 spondent " than of a serious diplomatist, letters which, 
 written for a newspaper, would make the fortune of 
 any editor bold enough to print them. Mirabeau never 
 wrote anything else so clever, so amusing, and so 
 original. Personal details, gossip, and scandal occupy 
 as much space as matters of more serious political 
 interest. Interviews with people of importance are 
 reported, in which Mirabeau, by his own account, showed 
 all the unconsciously impertinent self-sufficiency, the 
 calm assumption of infallibility, which delight us in a 
 well-known newspaper correspondent of our own day. 
 In his more serious mood he describes with remarkable 
 insight the symptoms and the causes of the dangers 
 which threatened the state of Frederick the Great. He 
 discerned the real weakness of Prussia, which was con- 
 cealed by the glory of the late reign, and by the pos- 
 session of an army of 190,000 men accustomed to 
 victory. But this very weakness made it desirable that 
 France should ally herself with Prussia rather than 
 with Austria, and he advocates at the same time a good 
 understanding with England, founded on the community 
 of mercantile interests which would be the result of free- 
 trade between the countries. 
 
 During the winter of 1786-87 Mirabeau's position 
 at Berlin became more and more uncomfortable. The 
 French envoy, Esterno, had done his best to enlighten 
 the Germans as to the antecedents and the reputation of 
 the interloper. But much was Mirabeau's own fault. 
 Prince Henry had at first treated him with real kindness. 
 But he soon found himself obliged to be on his guard 
 against the pushing familiarity of his new acquaintance,
 
 in VISIT TO BERLIN 65 
 
 who, bitterly offended by what he considered the prince's 
 fickleness, revenged himself by describing the man whom 
 he had pronounced to be " half hero half sage " as one 
 of the most abject of the human race, defaming him, 
 says Gibbon, "with the wit and malice of a demon." 
 He offended the new king by a letter of over sixty pages, 
 in which he instructed him in the tone of a heaven-sent 
 teacher as to what he should do or leave undone. 
 Much indeed of the counsel he gives is excellent. He 
 could scarcely touch political subjects without feeling 
 the inspiration of genius. Everywhere and at all times, 
 here as in his advice to Lewis XVL, he is true to the 
 fundamental articles of his creed, complete civil equality, 
 toleration, freedom of the press, a uniform system of 
 public education, free-trade. He, indeed, says nothing 
 about representative institutions to the king of Prussia, 
 but he warns the successor of Frederick II. and the 
 contemporary of Joseph II. that he should make it his 
 pride not to govern over much. 
 
 Mirabeau determined to leave Berlin. His debts 
 were growing, and Calonne was deaf to complaints 
 about the insufficiency of his pay, and to demands for 
 more lucrative and honourable diplomatic employment. 
 Above all he was anxious to be back in France. It 
 needed not his prescience to know that stirring times 
 were at hand times when, as he hoped, it would be 
 asked not what a man had been or had done, but what 
 he was and what he was capable of doing.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Mirabeau attacks Calonne and Necker Publication of the Man- 
 archie Prussiennc Negotiations with Montmorin New 
 reconciliation with his father First meeting with La Marck 
 Publication of the Berlin letters Candidature in Provence. 
 
 MIRABEAU claims to have first suggested to Calonne 
 that he should summon the Notables, and he hoped 
 to be one of the two secretaries of that assembly. 
 When he found himself passed over, his indignation 
 was great. To Talleyrand and other friends of Mira- 
 beau Calonne said with careless indifference that a little 
 money would put all right. "I will teach him," ex- 
 claimed Mirabeau, "that though I may be a useful 
 tool to use I am a dangerous one to throw away." 
 
 He made good the threat by publishing a pamphlet 
 which gave the minister ample reason to repent that he 
 had slighted the claims of so sturdy a beggar. We 
 have seen how Mirabeau had been employed to write 
 down certain securities ; more recently, fearing that a 
 general panic might lead to a fatal collapse in the funds 
 of his bankrupt Government, the minister had tried to 
 sustain prices by purchasing with public money the 
 shares of companies attacked by the bears not perhaps, 
 as was suspected, without hope of private profit. This 
 unworthy jobbing was attacked by Mirabeau in a
 
 CHAP, iv ATTACKS ON NECKER 67 
 
 pamphlet now published, the Dtnonciation de V Agiotage, 
 which is in form little else than a long harangue ad- 
 dressed to the Notables. The result was a tenth or, 
 as Mirabeau preferred to call it, a seventeenth lettre de 
 cachet confining the author to the Castle of Ham. The 
 victim had ample warning and crossed the frontier. In 
 a month he was able to return to Paris. Calonne, 
 convinced that he was not less formidable as an enemy 
 than useful as a friend, wrote a most amicable letter. 
 This was a crisis when it behoved every good patriot to 
 support a reforming Government, and "it would be 
 unworthy of him to sacrifice the public good to any 
 private resentment." 
 
 Necker was Calonne's most dangerous rival. In the 
 Dtnonciation de I' Agiotage Mirabeau had already pointed 
 out the fatal results of the reckless borrowing practised 
 by the popular financier. In a short pamphlet, pub- 
 lished a month later (Premiere Lettre sur V administration 
 de M. Necker), he accused him of having overthrown 
 by his intrigues the only minister (Turgot) capable of 
 effecting the regeneration of the country, and of ignor- 
 ance of the true principles of political economy and 
 finance. 
 
 A second and more virulent attack (Seconde Lettre sur 
 V administration de M. Necker} was a return for the re- 
 newed civility of Calonne. The attempt of Necker to 
 show that the deficit he had been accused of leaving his 
 successors to deal with had been exaggerated was re- 
 futed, and the writer calls upon those " who still believe 
 that it is possible to love their God, their country, and 
 their king, without worshipping M. Necker," to judge 
 whether appeals to his character and his virtues are a
 
 68 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 sufficient proof of the ex-minister's assertions; to say 
 whether his boast that he could raise whatever money 
 might be required by loan, without imposing fresh 
 taxation, ought not to be his shame ; whether this is not 
 the way to intoxicate the rulers of a country, to per- 
 suade them that those warlike schemes of ruin and 
 destruction which are the curse of mankind are easy 
 of execution. "Credulous nation!" he concludes. 
 " Hasten to admire him whom your children will 
 curse ! " 
 
 As a matter of fact, the prudish pedantry, the 
 sentimental vanity, the carefully cultivated popularity 
 of Necker were scarcely less likely to injure France 
 than the Avant of principle and frivolity of Calonne, and 
 they were infinitely more irritating to Mirabeau. There 
 were two men to whom he had a natural antipathy, 
 who exasperated him more than all others, whom he 
 may almost be said to have hated, and who were in- 
 sensible to the fascination he exercised over most of 
 those with whom he came in contact, and unfortunately 
 these men, Necker and Lafayette, were just those with 
 whom it was most important in the interests of his own 
 ambition and of France that he should have a good 
 understanding. If Necker had yielded to his influence, 
 the Revolution might have been averted ; if Lafayette 
 had accepted his proffered alliance, it would have run 
 a different course. But both Lafayette and Necker 
 were ostentatiously honourable men, vain and self- 
 satisfied, jealous of their popularity, of very second-rate 
 ability, and uneasily conscious and impatient of the 
 superiority of the man whom they affected to despise. 
 
 During the first months of the ministry of Lomenie
 
 iv BOOK ON PRUSSIA 69 
 
 de Brienne, Mirabeau was occupied with the work on 
 the Prussian Monarchy, which was to establish his 
 reputation as something more than a pamphleteer and 
 political free-lance. In the summer of 1787 he again 
 visited Germany to discuss the compilation with his 
 collaborator, Major Mauvillon, a German officer of 
 French extraction, who was teacher of tactics at the 
 Military Academy of Brunswick. Mauvillon collected 
 and arranged the statistics and other information, the 
 accuracy of which gives some value to what is other- 
 wise a very dull book. The purple patches added by 
 Mirabeau here and there to the four folio volumes are 
 neither numerous nor of conspicuous merit. The 
 generalisations are vague or commonplace. Yet the 
 book when published (July 1788) produced the effect 
 at which the author aimed. "Society," says M. de 
 Lomenie, " in that age of amiable frivolity was very 
 respectful to works which made a parade of gravity and 
 erudition. Those who in their heart thought them 
 dull and clumsy dared not say so, lest they should be 
 considered unenlightened." Mirabeau's name as a 
 politician was greatly raised by the publication of the 
 Monarchic Prussienne. 
 
 Since their last rupture the Marquis had expressed 
 the utmost contempt of his son's literary productions. 
 He was a "stock-jobber's hireling," a "mad dog ready to 
 be set at any one, and as eager to bite this man as 
 that," "an incendiarist able to play no part but that 
 of Samson's foxes," etc. He was a little better 
 pleased by the attacks on Necker, the enemy of the 
 economists and of free-trade. He could scarcely refuse to 
 bless altogether the Prussian Monarchy. The delicate
 
 70 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 flattery of the dedication was balm to wounds inflicted 
 by public neglect. " I have not dared," said the author 
 addressing his father, " to ask your permission to 
 publish this book under your auspices. I shrank from 
 the pain I should have felt had it been withheld, and 
 even then I could scarcely have refrained from dedi- 
 cating it to you"; and he added that in proportion as he 
 became a better citizen and a better man he more and 
 more felt how great an honour it was to have such a 
 father. 
 
 The contents of the book seemed to prove that these 
 were not idle words : in it the old physiocrat recognised 
 the fruits of his teaching. Some at least of the good 
 seed thrown on to that teeming soil had struck root, 
 and had forced its way through the rank growth of weeds. 
 The Marquis lamented the writer's Voltairian attitude 
 to religion, his hostility to the Catholic Church, but this 
 was compensated by his economic orthodoxy. When 
 Colbert was a god and Necker his prophet, it was a 
 consolation to find sound doctrine vindicated by one who 
 aspired to be a leader in the new France. It delighted 
 him to read that " when the rulers of states are well in- 
 structed they will only strive to fulfil two functions, 
 viz. to secure external peace by a good defensive 
 system, and to preserve order at home by an exact, 
 impartial, and inflexible administration of justice." 
 
 Pamphlets, letters, and newspaper articles continued 
 to pour from Mirabeau's workshop. His name was 
 ever before the public. On every subject he offered 
 his advice. He propounded with undoubting assurance 
 his nostrums, often borrowed without acknowledgment 
 from his friends, for every ailment which afflicted the
 
 IV NEGOTIATIONS WITH MONTMORIN 71 
 
 body politic. Such persistent self-advertisement, such 
 emphatic dogmatism, and in justice we must also add so 
 much common sense and insight, could not but raise the 
 public estimate of the Count of Mirabeau. He became 
 prominent among the reformers. He was one of the 
 founders of the Constitutional Club, of which the few 
 lawyers whose views were really liberal, as well as 
 Lafayette, Condorcet, and Talleyrand, were members. 
 He was active in the society for emancipating the negroes 
 promoted by Brissot, which was also a centre of radical 
 propaganda. Yet he let it be known that he was no 
 irreconcilable enemy to the Government. 
 
 Vergennes, haughty and tenacious of old traditions, 
 had been succeeded as minister of foreign affairs by 
 Montmorin, whose timid mediocrity was more likely to 
 be impressed by the plausible adventurer. " Consider, 
 M. le Comte," Mirabeau wrote, "that the same talent 
 which has been able, supported by public opinion, to 
 hold its own against the Government, would, if employed 
 by you, be still better able to assist the ministry. An 
 active life is more to my taste than a speculative, and I 
 should prefer to serve the Government by my acts, 
 rather than to risk incurring your displeasure by my 
 advice. In the king's service I am ready either to use 
 or to venture my head ... I place myself entirely at 
 your disposal." 
 
 Montmorin received Mirabeau, listened to what he 
 had to say, but gave him no office, diplomatic or other ; 
 he was too much the friend of Necker. The most he 
 would do was to find the money for a paper which was 
 to insinuate views favourable to the ministry. Mirabeau, 
 who was one of the first fully to recognise the power of
 
 72 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 the press, never ceased to urge upon the Government the 
 importance of using it to influence public opinion ; but 
 anonymous authorship was not to his taste, and only 
 one or two numbers of the projected publication were 
 published. The minister was probably glad to let the 
 scheme drop when he found that the editor only meant 
 to defend the measures of his employers when he 
 approved of them ; when he did not, he thought it 
 much to abstain from criticism. Mirabeau had no love 
 for the Parliament which had opposed all the reforms 
 he had most at heart ; but, since the almost incredible 
 mismanagement of the Government had enabled the 
 inveterate partisans of privilege to masquerade once 
 more as the champions of liberty, he could with difficulty 
 be induced to attack the lawyers lest while tearing the 
 mask off these hypocrites he should appear to be the 
 apologist of arbitrary power. When at length he 
 yielded to Montmorin's request, and published his 
 Rdponse aux alarmes des bons Citoyens (May 8, 1788), he 
 contrived that it should be at once a defence of the 
 Government, an attack on the Parliament, and a pro- 
 fession of his liberal faith. Privilege, he wrote, is 
 doomed. The liberty of the individual must be secured, 
 the press must be free, the representatives of the nation 
 must meet periodically. The prince who did so much 
 to secure American liberty must wish to be the king of 
 freemen (Francs) and not of serfs. 
 
 On August 11, 1788, he wrote to Mauvillon : "You 
 will see what a nation this will be on the day when it 
 obtains a constitution, on the day when talent becomes 
 a power in the State. On that day I trust you will 
 also hear something of your friend." Yet he was not
 
 iv A PRACTICAL POLITICIAN 73 
 
 without prophetic forebodings, for a few days later he 
 writes to another correspondent : " The states-general 
 are inevitable, and the more so because we need them 
 to re - establish our monarchical constitution. This 
 lunatic of an archbishop would in his delirium lead us 
 to anarchy and democracy. Unless we are careful 
 these people will destroy the monarchy and hurl us 
 into an abyss of misery. We shall now have the 
 charlatan Necker, the king of the mob, in which alone 
 there remains any energy, and which, if he has his way, 
 will under his guidance end by destroying everything." 
 Mirabeau was a practical not a theoretical politician, 
 and, although he had a clear and consistent conception 
 of the reforms which were needed, he does not appear 
 to have had any decided views as to the precise shape 
 to be given to these reforms, still less as to what the 
 constitution of the country should be. " Let us," he 
 writes to a bookseller of Strasburg at a time when he 
 had some thought of becoming a candidate for the 
 representation of Alsace "let us above all be on our 
 guard against antiquarianism ; let us disregard what 
 has been, and consider only what ought to be, and let 
 us not attempt too much." By this he does not mean 
 that he would disregard the teaching of experience, and 
 construct a constitution on a priori principles ; he is 
 alluding to the minute and trivial researches, then 
 occupying so much attention, into forms of election and 
 ceremonial observed at former meetings of the Estates. 
 Certainly if the States-General were to serve any useful 
 purpose it was necessary that their constitution should 
 be determined, not by old precedents, but by the new 
 requirements of the country. That the Government of
 
 74 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 France should be monarchical Mirabeau never doubted. 
 Late in the autumn of 1788 he wrote to Lauzun, who 
 had republican proclivities : "I shall be a zealous 
 royalist, because I am profoundly convinced of the 
 necessity of restoring the authority of the crown." He 
 desired that which was afterwards the aim of the 
 wisest and most moderate of the Constituent Assembly 
 an alliance of the king and people against the partisans 
 of oppression and privilege. 
 
 Although unable to persuade the ministers to give 
 him official employment, Mirabeau impressed them with 
 the conviction that his services in the Estates might be 
 useful, and disposed them to assist in securing his 
 election. For the purposes of his candidature he 
 needed, if not the active help, at least the countenance 
 of his father. At the request of Montmorin the bishop 
 of Blois, a connection of the family, tried to effect a 
 reconciliation between the Marquis and his son. But 
 the wish to discuss the Monarchic Prussienne with 
 the author, and to instruct him on one or two points 
 where he had gone astray, had more weight in deter- 
 mining the old Marquis to admit the offender to his 
 presence than any ministerial mediation. " To my 
 own surprise," he wrote to his brother, "I cannot help 
 thinking that obstinate and unceasing labour may work 
 even this miracle, and make an honest man of the 
 count. ... It is long since they have seen such a head 
 in Provence, the husk which made it but wildly rever- 
 berating brass is broken. ... I have myself discovered 
 real genius in some things he has said and written. 
 His untiring and indeed unequalled power of work, his 
 imperturbable self-confidence and innate arrogance,
 
 iv RECONCILIATION WITH HIS FATHER 75 
 
 united with a great deal of what is called esprit, have 
 made him a person of importance in the world of 
 finance, in the press, and more especially in modern 
 politics. He proclaims openly that he will not suffer 
 France to be demonarchised, and he is at the same time 
 the friend of the leaders of the Third Estate " ; and the 
 old man goes on to vaunt the imposing effect on the 
 crowd of his son's bold onslaughts on the Bank of St. 
 Charles, on the stock-jobbers, on the Emperor, of his 
 aristocratic manners, his respectful self-assertion with 
 the great, agreeable pleasantry with women, of his 
 ostentation, his splendid dress in a slovenly generation, 
 his crowded ante-chamber, two and even three secre- 
 taries, of his masterful impetuosity on all occasions. 
 Certainly, when he wrote in this strain, the Friend of 
 Humanity was under the spell, and we smile, remember- 
 ing Elliot's account of Mirabeau's dirty untidiness, or 
 the Count of La Marck's description of his first meeting 
 with his future friend, which took place in the summer 
 of 1788, at a dinner given by the Prince of Poix, the 
 governor of Versailles. Mirabeau was, says La Marck, 
 tall, but at the same time stout and heavily built. 
 His unusually large head was made to appear still 
 larger by a mass of curled and powdered hair. His 
 coat buttons were of some brightly coloured stone, and 
 the buckles of his shoes enormous. His dress was 
 an exaggeration of the fashion of the day, and in bad 
 taste. In his eagerness to be polite he made absurdly 
 low bows, and began the conversation with pretentious 
 and rather vulgar compliments. His manners wanted 
 the ease which is acquired by mixing in good society, 
 and this awkwardness was most conspicuous when he
 
 76 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 addressed the ladies. It was only when the conversa- 
 tion turned on politics that the eloquence with which 
 he poured forth a copious store of just and brilliant 
 ideas fascinated his audience, and made them forget 
 all superficial absurdities. Yet much that appeared 
 absurd and exaggerated in the dress and manner of the 
 future orator may have been well suited to the part he 
 was about to play before the mob of Provence, the 
 crowded benches and the noisy galleries of the 
 Assembly. The refined and quiet elegance, the un- 
 impassioned politeness and delicate irony which char- 
 acterised the well-bred gentleman of that generation, 
 were singularly unsuited to the stormy political life 
 of a people intoxicated with newly won liberty and the 
 unwonted excitement of public deliberation. Mirabeau's 
 loud dress and emphatic manners, not less than his great 
 bulk and marked features, were as much in place when 
 his voice rose in deep and deliberate thunder above the 
 clamour of a disorderly debate, as they appeared out of 
 place at a Versailles supper-table. 
 
 Although the Marquis had been reconciled to his son, 
 he refused to give him, by conveying to him one of his 
 Provencal estates, an indisputable place among the 
 nobility of that province, who claimed to admit to their 
 body only the actual tenants of fiefs. Yet Mirabeau's 
 position had never been better than when he left Paris 
 for his electoral campaign. Old scandals had been in 
 great measure forgotten. He had not only gathered 
 round him a few friends whose talents and knowledge 
 he could use as his own ; he had also become influential 
 among the men who, whether lawyers like Duport and 
 Fre"teau de St. Just, journalists like Brissot, or restless
 
 iv THE LETTERS FROM BERLIN 77 
 
 aristocrats like Talleyrand and Lauzun, were desirous 
 of change from patriotism, or ambition, or love of 
 intrigue. 
 
 The numerous pamphlets and tracts on every subject 
 of public interest, published in his name and more or 
 less written by him, contained nothing inconsistent with 
 his loudly professed zeal for the public good, as at once 
 the friend of progress and liberty and a loyal subject of 
 the French Monarchy. He was prepared to advocate 
 moderate and practical reforms with all the fire and 
 vehemence, with all the contagious ardour which un- 
 happily is most commonly shown in the pursuit of what 
 is mischievous, or at best impracticable and Utopian. 
 He had the enthusiastic moderation, the fervent common 
 sense which is the most rare and precious quality of 
 genius, and which is especially valuable to the political 
 reformer. But at the very moment when it was most 
 important that he should do nothing to revive the 
 memory of old misdoings, he chose by an act of wilful 
 and dishonourable folly to prove that they were appar- 
 ently right who maintained that no trust could safely 
 be placed in a man of such a character. The publication 
 of his secret correspondence from Berlin with the French 
 Government was more fatal than all his other errors in 
 its effects on his future position in the Assembly. 
 Towards the end of 1788, after his infidelities, his absurd 
 and passionate jealousy, and his not less agitating fits 
 of remorse had driven Madame de Nehra from him, and 
 had thus removed the only check on his prodigality, his 
 pecuniary embarrassments were more than ever pressing. 
 The reigning favourite, a passionate and unscrupulous 
 woman, the wife of his publisher Lejay, suggested that
 
 78 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 the necessary supplies might be obtained by the publi- 
 cation of the secret correspondence from Berlin. It is 
 characteristic of Mirabeau's strange want of any sense of 
 honour that he should have committed such an out- 
 rageous breach of confidence with a light heart. He 
 had already reached Aix (January 1789) when he heard 
 of the scandal excited in Paris by the publication. 
 Montmorin and the Government were furious. It was 
 believed by many that Mirabeau had been bribed by 
 the queen to print these letters in the interest of her 
 brother, as an obstacle to that good understanding with 
 Prussia which their author had hitherto advocated. 
 Others more charitably thought that his enemy Beau- 
 marchais had obtained a copy of the correspondence, 
 which he now published to blast Mirabeau's reputation 
 before the meeting of the Estates. The Constitutional 
 Club proposed to expel him, unless he could show that 
 he was not personally responsible. Mirabeau took the 
 matter very coolly. He protested that he could not 
 understand all this outcry. It must be got up by the 
 partisans of Necker, by hypocritical enemies who, under 
 a show of righteous indignation, were seeking to satisfy 
 a resentment of which they dared not avow the true 
 motives. It was only after he had returned to Paris 
 towards the end of February (1789) and found that he 
 was about to be prosecuted before the Parliament, that 
 he explicitly declared that he had never sanctioned the 
 publication, and that the letters had been mutilated, 
 interpolated, and envenomed (empoisonnfos). Never, said 
 Montmorin to the Prussian envoy, had the king and his 
 council felt more anxious to end so odious a matter by a 
 lettre de cachet, but at the present juncture the popular
 
 iv IN PROVENCE 79 
 
 excitement made this impossible. There could, of 
 course, be no longer any question of Mirabeau's can- 
 didature receiving the support of the Government. 
 But though five years had elapsed since his lawsuit with 
 his wife, his popularity and the fame of his eloquence 
 survived in Provence, where he was received with open 
 arms by the popular party. A speech he made on 
 January 30, after the meeting of the Estates of the 
 county, provoked the nobles to eject him from their 
 body, on the ground that he was only next in the entail 
 and not actual tenant of the fiefs of Mirabeau and 
 Beaumont. Inspired by the celebrated pamphlet of 
 Sieyes and full of appeals to first principles, this address, 
 although calm and temperate in form, might well alarm 
 the opponents of radical change. Perhaps one of the 
 most lasting and far-reaching effects of the French 
 Revolution was the substitution of the principle of the 
 representation of the individual as such, of the social 
 atom, for the principle of what may be called organic 
 representation, the representation of the order, the class, 
 the corporation, the group, in short of the social organ ; 
 and it is on the justice and necessity of this change that 
 Mirabeau insists. No assembly, he maintains, is truly 
 representative unless it represents every individual in 
 the state. Every citizen must be either elector or 
 elected. Therefore the provincial Estates, representing 
 classes and corporations, cannot elect the members of a 
 truly representative national assembly. Here again we 
 are struck by the consistency of Mirabeau's political 
 principles. No one was more alive than he to the 
 liability of a popular assembly to be carried away by 
 the influence of eloquence or by a burst of contagious
 
 80 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 emotion, no one had less faith in the instinctive wisdom 
 and natural justice of the masses. Yet he opposed the 
 creation of a second chamber, and wished to guard 
 against the fallibility of an omnipotent popular legis- 
 lature by the clumsier and less effectual device of a royal 
 veto. He no doubt saw that if a second chamber is to 
 be a sufficient obstacle to hasty and partial legislation it 
 must be strong, and must represent those social forces 
 which are not predominant in the other division of the 
 legislature, in other words it must represent classes and 
 interests, something more than the mere individual 
 irrespective of his organic relation to society as member 
 of an order, a profession, trade, or corporation. But to 
 allow this is to violate the principle of individual 
 representation. 
 
 Since his order would not listen to his advice, and 
 sought to cast him forth from among them, he turned 
 to the people, and as a candidate for their suffrages 
 neglected nothing which might increase his popularity. 
 He printed in his own name pamphlets and tracts, 
 popular and liberal, but not without merit and modera- 
 tion ; and circulated anonymous puffs of his services 
 and virtues. A "Citizen of Marseilles" instructs his 
 townsmen what manner of man the Count of Mirabeau 
 really is. "For fifteen years he has graven the prin- 
 ciples of liberty and equality the most sacred rights 
 of man in monumental works destined to outlive 
 bronze and copper." "Provence was enslaved, the 
 Count of Mirabeau appears and she is free. He is the 
 most eloquent man of the age. Public assemblies are 
 swayed by his voice, as the waves are hushed by the 
 crash of the thunder. . . . His courage is even more
 
 iv IN PROVENCE 81 
 
 astounding than his ability. No power on earth could 
 make him belie a single one of his principles. His 
 public life has been a series of struggles and triumphs in 
 the cause of truth." 
 
 We have already noticed that long before the 
 Revolution the peasantry of Provence had been very 
 impatient of their feudal obligations. The report now 
 spread that not only was it the king's will that these 
 should be abolished, but also that the whole weight 
 of taxation should be transferred to the shoulders of 
 those who had hitherto escaped their fair share of the 
 public burdens. The governor, the Count of Caraman, 
 reported that "war had been declared against property 
 and its owners . . . ," that "the populace insisted that 
 henceforth they would pay nothing, neither dues nor 
 taxes nor debts," but his sensibility shrank from vigorous 
 measures. Something, however, had to be done when 
 Marseilles fell into the hands of the mob. M. de 
 Caraman, a descendant of Biquet the engineer of the 
 canal of Languedoc, had in spite of some provocation 
 kept on good terms with Mirabeau, partly in gratitude 
 for being allowed to claim cousinship with the Riqueti, 
 and he now appealed to him to exert his influence in the 
 cause of law and order. The energetic candidate at 
 once hurried to Marseilles. He harangued the mob, 
 intimidated the disorderly with the aid of a volunteer 
 corps composed chiefly of young men of the middle 
 class, and in a masterly little tract demonstrated to the 
 townspeople, who had insisted that their magistrates 
 should fix a maximum price, that if as consumers they 
 obtained bread at one-third less than the cost of pro- 
 duction, it could only be at their own expense as tax- 
 
 G
 
 82 MIRABEAU CHAP, iv 
 
 payers, since merchants would not continue to import 
 nor bakers to bake at a loss, and that, as all their 
 neighbours would hasten to buy in so cheap a market, 
 they would be ruining themselves for the advantage of 
 others. 
 
 Order had scarcely been restored at Marseilles when 
 an urgent message from the governor summoned the 
 self -constituted dictator to Aix. Here too a rabble, 
 composed less of the work-people of the town than of 
 all the vagabonds of the district, had attacked the town- 
 hall, compelled the First Consul to fly for his life, stoned 
 the philanthropic M. de Caraman, and plundered the 
 private and public granaries. Mirabeau appeared, he 
 was received, he said, like an idolised father, he organised 
 and armed the decent citizens and quelled the rioters. 
 A week later (April 4, 1789) he was returned at the 
 head of the poll as one of the four deputies of the 
 Commons of Aix. At Marseilles he barely secured his 
 election. The rich and influential merchants looked 
 upon him with suspicion, and his moderation had 
 probably alienated the mob. He naturally chose to sit 
 for the constituency which had shown the liveliest sense 
 of his merits.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The meeting of the States-General Position of Mirabeau in the 
 Assembly The Stance lloyale Mirabeau at length is heard 
 Dismissal of Necker Fall of the Bastille. 
 
 A MONTH after Mirabeau's election, on May 5, 1789, 
 Lewis XVI. opened the Estates. It cannot be doubted 
 that, had the Government placed before the States- 
 General a comprehensive scheme of reforms satisfying 
 the legitimate demands of the nation, the hopes of the 
 crowd who had assembled to welcome the first day of a 
 happier era might have been realised. 
 
 If in the vast and tedious address which Necker 
 caused to be read there was no definite proposal of any 
 kind, not only, as Mirabeau said, no plan worthy of a 
 statesman, but not even the expedients of a politician, 
 this was not because the dangers of the course chosen by 
 the ministers had not been pointed out to them, and by 
 no one more clearly than by Mirabeau. In the previous 
 December he had written to Montmorin that he feared 
 for the authority of the Crown, which had never been 
 so necessary to the nation. And this was his honest 
 conviction. He urged his father to become a candidate. 
 "If elected," he said, "you will be a centre round which 
 those good citizens may rally who know this country 
 and people too well not to dread a republican constitu-
 
 84 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 tion." Everything, he told the minister, indicated that 
 this Assembly, in which the fate of the Monarchy was 
 at stake, was likely to be the most stormy that had 
 ever met. Had the Government a plan which the 
 representatives of the people need only sanction? If 
 not, he, the writer, was prepared to supply one which 
 would secure that the Estates should be a useful servant 
 instead of a dangerous master. 
 
 If the virtue of Necker shrank from accepting even 
 the best advice from such a quarter, why did he not 
 listen to his friend Malouet? "Do not wait to receive 
 the orders of the States-General. Beware of upholding 
 what is condemned by experience and public opinion, 
 but do not expose the fundamental bases of the Mon- 
 archy and the necessary organs of the royal power to 
 the chance of excited discussion. Assume a decided 
 attitude and have some fixed scheme of concessions and 
 reforms, which may strengthen instead of shattering the 
 foundations of lawful authority." 
 
 The king, under cover of the applause which followed 
 Necker's address, hastily left the hall, for, it is said, he 
 had been warned that Mirabeau intended to make 
 himself the mouthpiece of the nation's wishes. However 
 this may be, a speech exists apparently written either 
 to be spoken or to be handed to Lewis XVI. on this 
 occasion. In this Mirabeau asks the king to allow the 
 orders to decide, while still assembled in his presence, 
 whether they shall in future sit together or apart. To 
 allow them to separate is practically to prejudge this 
 important question. "Complete your work, magnani- 
 mous prince. You have been inspired by the virtuous 
 impulse to submit even your prerogative to the discus-
 
 v THE STATES-GENERAL 85 
 
 sion of the people, the source assuredly of all sovereignty, 
 but whose acclamations would bestow the sceptre on you, 
 did you not already possess it." The loyalty of the 
 form would scarcely have reconciled a ruler, who still 
 believed himself absolute, to the matter. For it was 
 assumed axiomatically that the Estates were to remodel 
 the constitution as they pleased, and that the king 
 was the delegate of the sovereign people, who might 
 limit his authority as they chose. 
 
 Mirabeau's bile was stirred by the cheers which 
 greeted the tedious repetitions, the pompous common- 
 places, the empty periods of Necker. He felt what he 
 could have done, had he been minister. "If the man 
 had a vestige of talent," so he wrote to a friend, "he 
 could in a week obtain from us new taxes to the amount 
 of 60,000,000 livres, a loan of 150,000,000, and dismiss 
 us the next day. If he had any strength of character 
 he could play the part of Eichelieu. If there was a 
 spark of capacity among his advisers the king would 
 declare himself on the side of the Commons, and we 
 should be prepared to act the second part of the Danish 
 Eevolution of 1660. Instead of this, we shall see a 
 striking instance of the truth of Machiavelli's saying 
 that all the misery in the world arises from men not 
 knowing how to be consistently good or consistently 
 bad." 
 
 The privileged orders followed the king, and the 
 representatives of the Commons were left in the vast 
 Salle des Menus, a large disorganised public meeting. 
 " More than five hundred individuals unknown to each 
 other, gathered from all parts of the kingdom, without 
 a leader, without organisation, all free, all equal, none
 
 86 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 with any authority, none feeling himself under any 
 obligation to obey, and all, like Frenchmen, wishing to 
 be heard before they would listen " such is the descrip- 
 tion given by Mirabeau of his colleagues ; nor must we 
 forget the large and miscellaneous audience, for which, 
 unfortunately, there was ample space in the galleries, 
 laughing, talking, expressing loudly their approval and 
 disapproval, all but taking part in the debates. 
 
 Patriotism, zeal for the public good, loyalty to the 
 king and nation, a spirit of moderation, were not wanting 
 among the majority of the Assembly, which contained 
 men whose character, parts, and eloquence would have 
 honoured any senate. Experience, on the other hand, 
 knowledge of affairs, perception of what was and was 
 not possible, deliberately formed principles and courage 
 to abide by those principles, the power of understanding 
 and influencing the minds and feelings of others, the 
 qualities, in a word, of a statesman were wanting, or were 
 not to be found in that combination which would have 
 made them useful. Here and there was a member who, 
 like Malouet, had learnt something of men and things in 
 the practical work of administration, or who, likeMounier, 
 had gained some experience in the provincial assemblies ; 
 but these men were so few that they could be counted 
 on the fingers of one hand, and they were wanting in 
 other qualifications of a parliamentary leader. 
 
 These qualifications Mirabeau possessed in the highest 
 degree. He was a man born to lead and not to follow, 
 he knew in what direction he meant to advance and 
 how far. Hardly any question could arise on which he 
 had not meditated and written, with which therefore he 
 was not ready to deal on the spur of the moment, while
 
 v THE STATES- GENERAL 87 
 
 the other members of the Assembly were either un- 
 prepared and irresolute, or, hastily referring to principles, 
 deduced a priori measures logical perhaps and consistent, 
 but often unpractical or mischievous. This readiness 
 was an advantage which any one can appreciate who has 
 had the slightest experience of the sheeplike docility 
 with which a mixed, unorganised public meeting will 
 follow the man who can bring forward a definite proposal 
 and support it by plausible arguments. Such arguments, 
 either drawn from his own resources or supplied by his 
 workshop of assistants, de Comps, Claviere, Duroveray, 
 Dumont, Pellenc, and the rest, were never wanting to 
 Mirabeau. His moral qualities good and bad, his im- 
 perturbable assurance, presence of mind, good-humoured 
 arrogance, even his want of delicacy and boastful self- 
 assertion, were such as might have been expected to 
 increase his influence. His rough-hewn features and 
 shaggy locks were suited, like the mask of an ancient 
 actor, for distant effect. His piercing eyes flashed with 
 indignation or softened with emotion, while his wonder- 
 ful voice, rolling in measured thunder or sinking into 
 musical but singularly penetrating accents, filled even 
 the spacious hall at Versailles, where only the clearest 
 tones or the most stentorian lungs could be heard, and 
 dominated the clamours of his colleagues and the 
 interruptions of the galleries. We should expect such 
 a man to have at once taken the lead of the Assembly, 
 especially as his opinions, favourable to change but averse 
 from revolution, were undoubtedly in harmony with 
 those of the majority. Yet till after the Stance Royale 
 of June 23 his influence could scarcely command a vote 
 in the Assembly ; and even after the Third Estate had
 
 88 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 on that memorable occasion acknowledged in him their 
 inspiration and their voice, he was listened to with far 
 more suspicion than conviction. More than once a 
 motion was lost for no other reason than because it was 
 supported by the Count of Mirabeau. The Court, says 
 a contemporary, saw in him only a demagogue, the 
 nobility a renegade, the majority of the Commons an 
 unprincipled adventurer, alliance with whom was both 
 discreditable and dangerous. 
 
 As soon as the privileged orders had withdrawn 
 to their separate chambers they proceeded to "verify 
 their powers." Had the Commons done the same, the 
 question whether the Estates were to sit as one Assembly 
 representing the whole French nation, or as three co- 
 ordinate chambers representing three distinct orders, 
 would have been solved in a way fatal to all hope of 
 reform. But the deputies of the Third Estate prudently 
 decided that until their powers were verified, which 
 could only be done by the united Assembly, they were 
 but a meeting of private individuals. They accordingly 
 avoided all action as a corporate body. True to his 
 system of self-advertisement, Mirabeau lost no oppor- 
 tunity of making his voice heard ; but his boast that it 
 was he who persuaded the Commons to persevere in 
 their masterly inactivity is quite inconsistent with his 
 bitter complaints of the disfavour and jealousy with 
 which everything he said was received. 
 
 By the end of the month the Third Estate were 
 growing weary of inaction, and when he moved 
 (May 27) that " the clergy should be invited to join 
 them in the name of the God of peace and the national 
 welfare," the motion was carried. Yet on the 29th,
 
 v THE STATES-GENERAL 89 
 
 when the ministers offered the mediation of the king, 
 the dexterous address to Lewis XVI., proposed by 
 Mirabeau, was not accepted. It was on the initiative of 
 Sieyes that on June 10 the representatives of the 
 Third Estate, of "nineteen -twentieths" of France, 
 determined to verify their own powers. 
 
 Sieyes again prevailed on June 17, when, after the 
 Assembly had " constituted " itself, the question arose, 
 what name should it assume ? Eepresentatives of the 
 French People, answered Mirabeau ; Representatives of 
 the French Nation, maintained Sieyes. Mirabeau, 
 though suffering from a severe attack of fever, spoke 
 three times with great fervour and eloquence on this 
 question, which was much more than verbal. "People " 
 might be understood either in the narrower sense of 
 commons (plebs) or in the wider sense of nation. 
 This happy ambiguity, he insisted, might enable them, 
 should it hereafter be necessary, to assert their authority 
 as the representatives of the sovereign people, while it 
 allowed them to conciliate the other orders by not 
 appearing to refuse to them some place in the con- 
 stitution. Perhaps Sieyes' proposal was more logical, 
 but they must consider expediency rather than logical 
 consistency. The theorist may disregard obstacles, just 
 as one who travels over a map may pursue an un- 
 deviating course across mountains and deserts, neither 
 ravines nor rivers need alarm him ; but when a journey 
 lias really to be undertaken, then we must remember 
 that we are on the earth and not in an ideal world. 
 Besides, would the king assent to so ambitious a style 1 
 Sieyes had maintained that when the people had 
 pronounced, that was enough, no further sanction was
 
 90 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 needed. " No," replied Mirabeau ; " I, gentlemen, 
 think the veto of the king so essential a part of the 
 constitution, that without it I had rather live in 
 Constantinople than in France. Yes, I protest that I 
 can conceive nothing more alarming than the despotic 
 oligarchy of 600 individuals." 
 
 " Outside the Assembly," says Arthur Young, " the 
 motion of the Count of Mirabeau was better relished 
 than that of the Abbe" Sieyes. But his character is a 
 dead weight upon him. There is a suspicion that he 
 has received 100,000 livres from the queen." 
 
 So early had the report of a dishonest and mercenary 
 compact with the enemies of the Eevolution been added 
 to the other grounds of the distrust with which Mirabeau 
 was regarded. Yet he probably had more weight in 
 the provinces than in the scandal-loving and suspicious 
 metropolis. A little later the same shrewd observer 
 notices that at Marseilles and among his constituents 
 at Aix the liberals held him to be " a politician of great 
 abilities, whose principles were favourable to theirs, 
 while as to his private character they had nothing to 
 do with it." No doubt the paper which, with the help 
 of his Swiss friends, he published under the title of 
 Courrier de Provence largely increased his reputation and 
 influence in the country, and must have convinced many 
 readers that he was neither a dangerous incendiary nor 
 an unprincipled political adventurer. Some of his 
 colleagues who had at first been most averse from him, 
 began to suspect that this might be so, after meeting 
 him in private and listening to the good sense and the 
 moderate views round which he threw the glamour of 
 his persuasive eloquence.
 
 v MIRABEAU AND NECKER 91 
 
 Malouet, who was, although wanting in adroitness, 
 one of the most distinguished among the moderate 
 reformers, was introduced to Mirabeau by Dumont and 
 Duroveray. Mirabeau assured him that he dreaded 
 extreme courses as much as any one. If the ministers 
 could determine on any policy which would at once 
 satisfy the just expectations of the people and secure 
 the Monarchy, instead of drifting helplessly to revolu- 
 tion and anarchy, they might count on his sincere and 
 energetic support. Neither Necker nor Montmorin 
 were his friends, but private feelings should not prevent 
 him from co-operating with them for the public good. 
 
 Malouet, although strongly prejudiced against Mira- 
 beau, was convinced of his sincerity and of the great 
 services he could render, and attempted to persuade 
 Montmorin to receive him. But the memory of the 
 Berlin letters was too recent. Necker, after long and 
 silent contemplation of the ceiling, agreed to a meeting. 
 He seemed to think it a good opportunity to make 
 the opponent who had so bitterly and freely criticised 
 his pretensions, feel the interval which separated a needy 
 and discredited political adventurer from the popular 
 Prime Minister, the arbiter between king and people. 
 After his interview with Necker, Mirabeau passed 
 Malouet as he entered the Assembly. "Your man," he 
 said, "is a fool, but he shall hear from me." 
 
 Mirabeau was conscious of possessing in his genius 
 the strength, could he only find a secure footing, either 
 to overthrow the tottering Monarchy, or, a more difficult 
 task, to hold it secure above the dangers by which it was 
 beset. He held, if we may be permitted to vary the 
 metaphor, a lever powerful enough to raise, to change
 
 92 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 the position of, or to overturn the Commonwealth, but 
 he needed some fulcrum on which that lever might rest. 
 He could not find this firm basis in the Assembly, where 
 he was regarded with justifiable distrust ; he therefore 
 turned in succession to Necker, to the Duke of Orleans, 
 to the Count of Provence, to Lafayette, to the Court, 
 in the hope that they would see the wisdom of the 
 policy which he honestly believed to be the best, and 
 enable him to carry it out, and while carrying it out to 
 occupy that place, the first, in the councils of the nation, 
 to which he aspired. Had his only object been to 
 satisfy an unprincipled ambition, he could, no doubt, 
 have found the support he needed in the favour of the 
 populace, which he well knew how to gain. But this 
 could only be by flattering their passions and follies, by 
 playing the part of a demagogue and adopting a policy 
 of which he disapproved. He would not sell himself 
 unconditionally to the mob for power any more than he 
 would sell himself unconditionally to the Court for 
 money. Such popularity as he could obtain by doing 
 that of which his political conscience approved or at 
 least did not strongly disapprove he welcomed and 
 enjoyed. 
 
 "Mirabeau perhaps alone had from the beginning a 
 clear conception of the course the Revolution would run," 
 says Malouet, who therefore wonders that he should 
 have advocated measures which led to a catastrophe 
 which he foresaw and deplored. But that catastrophe 
 appeared inevitable to Mirabeau only so long as the 
 State drifted, helplessly and unpiloted, with the tide. If 
 a statesman took the helm there would still be time to 
 steer clear of the breakers. If he himself by force or
 
 v THE STANCE ROYALE 93 
 
 persuasion could lay his hand on the tiller all might yet 
 be well. The greater his popularity the more likely he 
 was to be able to do so : and if, to secure that popularity, 
 he sometimes seemed to forget his fears, we must bear 
 in mind that not only while the fatal reefs were still at 
 a distance the increased violence of the waves might 
 appear no unmixed evil, if it convinced the crew that 
 they needed his skill, but also that the vessel was 
 driving in the direction he wished to follow; in any 
 case he would have steered near the breakers, because 
 between them lay the channel which led to the wished- 
 for haven. It was not his intention to put out to sea, 
 and, because the coast was dangerous, to lose sight of the 
 promised land of liberty and equal rights. If this be 
 granted we must wonder, not that Mirabeau now and 
 again used language which might inflame popular pas- 
 sions, that he sometimes suffered himself to be carried 
 away by the vehemence of debate and the violence of 
 his opponents ; rather we must marvel to find him for 
 the most part not only averse from extreme courses but 
 also careful to measure his words especially if we bear 
 in mind Gambetta's axiom, that a popular statesman 
 must in France be extreme in speech and moderate 
 in act. 
 
 Necker was at length convinced that the time had 
 come to assert the authority of the Crown. He proposed 
 that Lewis XVI. should invite the orders to sit together 
 during the present session for the discussion of questions 
 of common interest, determine what matters each order 
 should debate separately, and enumerate the reforms 
 and benefits he intended to secure for his people. It 
 has sometimes been said that Xecker's plan might have
 
 94 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 succeeded had it been carried out as proposed by him. 
 This is more than doubtful. It is true that the altera- 
 tions made by the royal Council in a few articles entirely 
 changed the character of the promised reforms. But 
 could Necker have persuaded the Assembly to recede 
 from the position they had taken up by permitting the 
 king to annul their proceedings'? Nor must it be 
 forgotten that he, not less than his opponents in the 
 Council, had intended to guarantee all the privileges of 
 the nobility and clergy, except their immunity from 
 taxation, and to maintain those feudal rights which the 
 nation was determined no longer to tolerate. The 
 " peremptory formulas of a lit de justice" which, when 
 addressed to the representatives of the nation, were 
 heard with disgust by many even among the nobles, 
 were put into the king's mouth by Necker. It was he 
 who drafted the well-known sentence spoken by Lewis 
 XVI. after the royal declaration had been read by the 
 Keeper of the Seals : "If you desert me in so fair an 
 enterprise, considering myself their true representative, 
 I will by myself secure my people's happiness." "If," 
 wrote Mirabeau to his constituents, "the king's power 
 is absolute, if sovereignty resides in him, why assemble 
 the representatives of the people to carry out the reforms 
 on which he has determined? If he only wished to 
 learn the wishes of his people, the statements of the 
 wants and grievances of the several parts of the country 
 might have been forwarded through the post." 
 
 So far there had been bitter truth in his brother the 
 Viscount's taunt : " Much as Mirabeau talks he is not 
 heard." In the great debate on June 17 he had been 
 listened to with impatience. When on the 20th the
 
 v THE STANCE ROYALE 95 
 
 Assembly found the Salle des Menus occupied by 
 work-people and were rudely repulsed from the doors, 
 it was Mounier who proposed the celebrated oath by 
 which they bound themselves not to separate till they 
 had completed the constitution. But on June 23, 
 when nobles and clergy had filed out after the king, 
 while the Commons sat confounded and hesitating and 
 the Marquis of Dreux Bre"ze was sent to remind them 
 of the concluding sentence of His Majesty's speech, " And 
 now, gentlemen, I order you to separate at once and to 
 meet to-morrow in the rooms assigned to your respective 
 orders, in order that you may resume your deliberations," 
 Mirabeau spoke words which were heard not in the 
 Assembly alone, least perhaps there, but throughout 
 France ; nay, ringing defiance to personal monarchy in 
 the name of the sovereign people, they re-echoed to the 
 ends of Europe. What those words exactly were is 
 very uncertain. The honest Bailly, the worthy president 
 of the Third Estate, who had left the study of the stars 
 to drift over the stormy waters of the Revolution with 
 no guiding light except the insufficient and unstable 
 gleams of amiable and well-meaning vanity, gives what 
 appears to be on the whole the most accurate account of 
 this memorable scene, although he is obviously anxious 
 to show that he was himself equal to the occasion and 
 not wholly eclipsed by the self-constituted speaker of 
 the Assembly. Breze, he says, addressed himself to 
 him : " Sir, you have heard the king's orders " ; to which 
 he replied that "the Assembly could only adjourn by 
 its own act." The Grand-master of the Ceremonies then 
 asked whether that was the answer he was to carry to 
 the king ; and Bailly answered that it was, and turning
 
 96 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 to the members nearest to him remarked: "I think 
 that the nation when assembled can receive no orders." 
 He knew, he assures us, what was proper too well to 
 make such a reply to Breze" whereupon Mirabeau 
 exclaimed, " Go, tell those who sent you that the might 
 of bayonets avails nothing against the will of the people" 
 which, Bailly adds, was highly unbecoming and not to 
 the point, for nothing had been said about bayonets. 
 
 " Tell those who sent you that we are here by the 
 will of the people and shall only yield to force." That 
 was the sense of what Mirabeau said when under 
 dramatic circumstances and in dramatic form he asserted 
 the principle, on which the Assembly had acted since 
 June 10, that they, the representatives of the 
 sovereign people, were the supreme power in the State. 
 Whether he had spoken or not, the Commons would 
 doubtless have remained sitting, but the bold way in 
 which the sovereignty by natural right of the people 
 was opposed by Mirabeau to the authority depending on 
 physical force of the Crown, though it would have been 
 no more impediment than a withe of osier to men 
 conscious of their strength and contemptuous of abstrac- 
 tions, like Cromwell or Napoleon, was well calculated to 
 intimidate those who had lost confidence in the 
 principles they maintained, and in the efficacy of the 
 material weapons at their disposal. 
 
 When the king was told that the Third Estate had 
 declined to leave the Salle des Menus, and was asked 
 for orders, he sulkily replied : " Very well, let them 
 remain" an answer not in the least determined by 
 Mirabeau's apostrophe to the Master of the Ceremonies, 
 of which Lewis XVI. had heard nothing. Necker, who
 
 v ADDRESS TO THE NATION 97 
 
 had resigned when outvoted in the Council, was easily 
 persuaded to retain office. The king assured him that 
 he personally attached not the least importance to the 
 declaration of his intentions so solemnly proclaimed, 
 and on June 27 the victory of the Commons was com- 
 pleted by the appearance in their midst, in obedience to 
 the royal commands, of those deputies of the nobility 
 and clergy who had hitherto refused to join them. 
 Once more the king's advisers had done their best to 
 convince his people that his intentions were mischievous, 
 his authority contemptible. 
 
 Unsuccessful and weak opposition was likely to 
 inflame still further the popular fervour, to assist the 
 schemes of those and it was clear that there were such 
 who hoped to profit by anarchy and revolution. 
 Mirabeau proposed that the Assembly should issue an 
 address to the nation recommending moderation and 
 calm ; pointing out the good intentions of the king, and 
 that what had been done amiss was due to bad advice ; 
 that the abolition of feudalism was indeed in the interests 
 of both monarch and people, yet that not all who opposed 
 reform were necessarily bad men. "Fellow -citizens, 
 whose aim like ours is the public good, but who seek it 
 in another direction ; men who under the sway of the 
 prejudices of education and of the habits of childhood 
 have not the strength to turn against the stream, who 
 tremble for their property, who fear that liberty may 
 be the pretext of licence all such men deserve that we 
 should treat them with consideration. . . . Our fate 
 depends on our wisdom; nothing but our violence 
 can imperil that liberty which reason secures to us." 
 Admirable and surely well-timed words, and it is a proof 
 
 H
 
 98 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 of the hostility with which Mirabeau was regarded 
 that they should have been heard without the slightest 
 sign of approbation. 
 
 When, in obedience to the royal commands, the 
 nobility and clergy joined the Commons, the shouts 
 of " Vive le Rolf " were so loud and continuous that they 
 could be heard as far as Marli. The popular enthusi- 
 asm extended even to the queen. It is clear that, in spite 
 of the fatal mistakes that had already been made, the 
 loyalty of Frenchmen was not yet extinct, and that all 
 moderate men, the vast majority both in and outside 
 the Assembly, would have rallied round the throne, had 
 any trouble been taken to inspire them with confidence 
 in the intentions of the king and his advisers. Instead 
 of this, with a strange mixture of militar}^ circumstance 
 and sinister mystery, some 20,000 or 30,000 troops, for 
 the most part foreigners, were collected round Versailles, 
 and more were known to be on the march, when Necker 
 was dismissed on July 11. 
 
 What was the plan of the new ministry? It is 
 probable that nothing had been decided. It is certain 
 that the intentions of the king were not the same as 
 those of Artois and the Polignacs. The Court no doubt 
 trusted that, when the military preparations were com- 
 pleted, the influence of the queen and the dread of 
 anarchy might induce the king to sanction a vigorously 
 repressive policy, although they may scarcely have 
 determined what shape that policy should take. It 
 was probably for this reason that they tolerated, even 
 if they did not actually encourage, the disorders in Paris, 
 and left Besenval, the military commander, without 
 orders or effective support.
 
 v THE ASSEMBLY 99 
 
 There appeared at first some reason for hoping that 
 the Assembly would begin its labours with as much 
 moderation and harmony as could be expected from a 
 body of 1 200 men representing interests so divergent, and 
 so little disposed by national character and inexperience 
 of public life to submit to compromise and to that 
 sacrifice of logical consistency which can scarcely be 
 avoided in conducting the affairs of a great nation. 
 The members of the privileged orders were treated 
 with consideration. The Archbishop of Vienne, a 
 moderate man of high character, was chosen president 
 with little opposition, and the prudent and patriotic 
 Mounier was supreme in the Committee to which the 
 task of drafting a scheme for the future constitution had 
 been entrusted. 
 
 Unfortunately many among the nobles and a few of 
 the clergy not only affected a scornful indifference 
 during the debates, talking among themselves and 
 disturbing the speakers by unmannerly interruptions, 
 but also adopted the fatal policy of voting in favour of 
 every extravagance which might bring the Assembly 
 into contempt or aggravate anarchy until it became 
 unendurable. It was another source of many future 
 evils that a body too large under the most favourable 
 conditions for orderly and business-like discussion should 
 have scorned the precautions which might have done 
 something not only to secure its dignity, but even to 
 preserve it from hastj r and ill- considered resolutions. 
 Mirabeau had procured from his friend Romilly a state- 
 ment of the rules observed by the English House of 
 Commons. But when he laid it upon the table of the 
 Assembly there were cries among the members that
 
 100 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 they were not Englishmen, and needed no lessons from 
 England. 
 
 Mirabeau had found no place in the Committee on 
 the Constitution ; he was listened to with impatience, 
 and his increased popularity out of doors only added 
 to the suspicion with which he was regarded. Again, 
 however, he seized the opportunity of speaking in the 
 name of the Assembly when others were wanting either 
 in the presence of mind or the courage to say that 
 which the occasion required. On July 6 he had heard 
 that Marshal Broglie, the hero of the Court, had been 
 appointed commander-iii-chief. For some days every 
 one had been convinced that the dismissal of Necker 
 was imminent, and would be the signal for an attempt 
 to induce the king to sanction a policy of repression. 
 On July 8 Mirabeau proposed a "humble address" 
 begging His Majesty to remove the troops from the 
 neighbourhood of Versailles and Paris. He said that 
 even from their own point of view the advisers of the 
 Crown were acting foolishly. How imprudent it was to 
 expose. the troops to the disturbing contact of the capital, 
 to teach them to interest themselves in political con- 
 troversy ! Once let the army be invaded by party- 
 spirit and there would be an end of discipline. Sedition 
 and mutiny would walk abroad unabashed, the vigour 
 to enforce martial law would be wanting, and society 
 would be threatened by the most hideous anarchy, in 
 which alone mutinous soldiers can hope for impunity. 
 " Have the rash and foolish men who have misled the 
 king studied the causes and the course of revolutions 
 in the past 1 Have they seen by what fatal concatena- 
 tion of circumstances the wisest are carried beyond the
 
 v ADDRESS TO THE KING 101 
 
 limits of moderation, by what dread impulse a frenzied 
 people is hurried towards excesses, from the first thought 
 of which it would have shrunk in horror 1 " He con- 
 cluded by urging that the king should be asked to 
 sanction the formation of a citizen militia to preserve 
 order and tranquillity. Although the anarchy spreading 
 through the country was a convincing proof of the 
 wisdom of this proposal, it was coldly received, while the 
 project of an address asking for the removal of the 
 troops was eagerly adopted ; and Mirabeau reaped the 
 fruit of his first oratorical triumph when he was chosen 
 to draft the petition to the king, and to be one of the 
 deputation by which it was presented. While the 
 Count of Clermont Tonnerre was reading the address, 
 the eyes of Lewis XVI. are said to have remained fixed 
 upon the man who for the second time had put himself 
 forward as the mouthpiece of those who opposed his 
 authority. 
 
 Protestations of loyalty and affection for his person 
 were not wanting : "Too much love," said Rivarol, "for 
 so many threats, and too many threats for so much love." 
 Nor was it the act of a disloyal subject plainly to warn 
 the monarch of the perils which beset the path into 
 which he had been misled. " Danger, Sire, threatens 
 the labours which are our first duty, and which can only 
 produce a satisfactory and enduring result if the nation 
 is satisfied that they have been performed free from all 
 suspicion of coercion. There is besides a contagion in 
 passionate emotions. We are only men. Want of 
 confidence in ourselves, the fear of appearing weak, may 
 carry us beyond our goal. We are beset on all sides by 
 violent and extreme counsels. The utterances of calm
 
 102 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 reason and wisdom are inaudible in the midst of disorder, 
 tumult, and factious violence. . . . Great revolutions 
 have sprung from less startling causes. Many an 
 enterprise, fatal to nations and princes, has been heralded 
 by signs less sinister and alarming." During the 
 eventful three days which followed Necker's dismissal, 
 the orator was not seen in the Assembly. The old 
 Marquis was lying dead at Argenteuil. Mirabeau had 
 undoubtedly some affection for his father. He was so 
 devoid of rancour, that he forgave not only the injuries 
 he received but even those which he inflicted. It may 
 therefore have been sincere grief, as well as decency and 
 the necessity of attending to family affairs, which caused 
 him to be absent while the Assembly sat day and night 
 (13th to 15th July), harassed by fears for their own 
 safety, distracted by reports of the disorders at Paris, 
 and seeking to prove that not even the shock of a 
 crumbling world could shake them in their firm and 
 righteous determination to create a constitution for their 
 country. 
 
 It was not till July 15, when it was known that 
 the Bastille had fallen, that Mirabeau reappeared in the 
 Assembly. In the nineteenth letter to his constituents, 
 he reports the violent answer he proposed to the hesitat- 
 ing reply made by the king to the reiterated demand 
 that the troops should be removed and Necker recalled. 
 "Tell him that the foreign hordes by whom we are 
 surrounded received yesterday the visit of the princes 
 and princesses, and of their favourites, both male and 
 female. Exhortations, caresses, presents, were lavished 
 on them. Tell him that these foreign satellites, gorged 
 with gold and drunken with wine, foretold the slavery
 
 v APOLOGY FOE, BLOODSHED 103 
 
 of France in their impious songs, and in brutal vows 
 called down destruction upon the National Assembly. 
 Tell him that even in his palace his courtiers joined in 
 the dance to the sound of this barbarous music, and 
 that such also was the prelude to St. Bartholomew's 
 Day. Tell him that that Henry whose memory is 
 blessed by the universe, that ancestor whom he chose 
 as his model, sent provisions into rebellious Paris, while 
 his ferocious ministers, turn back the bread with which 
 commerce would supply his loyal and starving capital ! " 
 This may seem rant and fustian, meant for the ears of 
 the galleries at Versailles and the Parisian mob, but it 
 is only fair to remember that the royalist Ferrieres 
 did not think the language stronger than the occasion 
 warranted, and believed that nothing but the fall of 
 the Bastille and the revolt of Paris prevented the 
 violent measures which had been determined on against 
 the Assembly, and which already inspired the courtiers 
 with insolent triumph. 
 
 Less excusable are the apologies made by Mirabeau, 
 in the same number of his paper, for the popular excesses. 
 " How great," he exclaims, " must be the virtue and 
 moderation of the people, since, even when the dungeons 
 of the Bastille disclosed the secret atrocities of despotism, 
 they were not provoked to greater bloodshed ! The 
 oppressors of the people calumniate it and affect to fear 
 it, in order that they may excuse their tyranny and 
 deaden their conscience ! If these events had taken 
 place at Constantinople, we should all say that this was 
 an act of popular justice, that the punishment of one 
 vizier would be a lesson to others ! " 
 
 An abominable and cold-blooded apology for murder,
 
 104 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 says Tocqueville ; how much worse, adds M. de Lomenie, 
 than that exclamation in the heat of debate" Was the 
 blood then that was shed so innocent?" bitterly repented 
 by the impetuous, but humane and generous, Barnave ! 
 Perhaps we must allow that the weighty and prophetic 
 words with which Mirabeau concludes prove him to 
 have been sinning against light. " Society would 
 soon be dissolved if the multitude, accustomed to riot 
 and bloodshed, domineered over the magistrates and 
 despised the law. The people, instead of hastening to 
 liberty, would soon fall headlong into slavery. For 
 danger too often reconciles men to absolutism, and in 
 the midst of anarchy even a despot may be hailed as a 
 saviour ! " Yet we must not forget how universal was 
 the joy felt after July 14 by all who sympathised with 
 liberty and progress. No other event was ever hailed 
 with a tithe of the enthusiasm which the fall of the 
 Bastille excited from the banks of the Neva to those 
 of the Mississippi. That legendary prison Avas the 
 symbol to the world of arbitrary oppression, of the old 
 order with all its abuses. To the Parisians and to the 
 liberals at Versailles the capture of the fortress, which 
 was supposed to threaten the capital with its artillery, 
 meant much more. It was the end of the nightmare 
 of terror all the more horrible because so vague by 
 which they had been oppressed during the last days. 
 Even the Venetian envoy, a conservative by instinct 
 and position, and soon a bitter critic of the Revolution, 
 shared in the joy and enthusiasm which he describes 
 to his government. Keen observers on the spot, such 
 as the English and Austrian ambassadors, Dorset and 
 Mercy -Argenteau, did not know, as we do now, that
 
 v APOLOGY FOR BLOODSHED 105 
 
 the governor of the Bastille was no ruthless soldier, 
 but an undecided and humane old gentleman ; that 
 the Provost of the Merchants was no traitor, but a weak 
 magistrate who sought to gain time by ill -devised 
 expedients; that the so-called victors of the Bastille 
 were a set of scoundrelly ruffians ; that the men who 
 really took the castle showed their courage less in 
 overcoming the scarcely serious resistance of a few 
 veterans and Swiss than in doing their best to defend 
 their prisoners against the cowardly cruelty of the mob. 
 Great revolutions, especially at a time of public misery, 
 and when many factious men are interested in prolonging 
 disorder, can scarcely be accomplished without the occur- 
 rence of events painful to law-abiding citizens. But how 
 much more numerous would be the victims of triumphant 
 reaction, how much more lasting the sufferings it would 
 cause ! Thus did many who were much more scrupulous 
 than Mirabeau reason even after the murders of Foulon 
 and Berthier.
 
 CHAPTEE VI 
 
 Mirabeau's popularity Generosity of La Marck The Declaration 
 of Rights The 4th of August. 
 
 DUMONT tells that when Mirabeau visited the ruins of 
 the Bastille his carriage was filled with flowers and relics 
 offered by an enthusiastic mob, and when a few days 
 previously he and his brother the Viscount attended 
 the funeral of their father, the crowd raised loud cheers 
 for the "pock-marked Mirabeau." He had for some 
 time back carefully cultivated his popularity in Paris. 
 He had made advances to men like Robespierre and 
 Buzot, who began to have influence among the more 
 fanatical revolutionists of the capital; he sought the 
 acquaintance of Camille Desmoulins. "The Attorney- 
 General of the lantern " yielded to the fascination of 
 his society. " I felt for Mirabeau," he wrote, " all the 
 affection of a lover," yet he feared that the generous 
 Burgundy and the delicate dishes he so much enjoyed 
 at the table of his aristocratic friend, were scarcely 
 compatible with republican austerity. 
 
 Mirabeau was assiduous in his attendance at the 
 meetings of his district, and constantly visited the 
 capital, hurrying thither, complains Bailly, twice in 
 the day from Versailles to pay his court to the
 
 CHAP, vi THE MAYORALTY 107 
 
 rabble. When Regnault de St.- Jean d'Angely brought 
 forward a motion prohibiting members of the Assembly 
 from attending the meetings of the districts, his 
 indignation betrayed how nearly he was touched by 
 the proposal. " I will wring tears of blood from you," 
 he exclaimed, as he started from his place to oppose the 
 motion in the tribune. 
 
 Mirabeau's attitude at this time is probably to be 
 explained by the hope he had conceived of replacing 
 Bailly, the nominee of the electors, as Mayor of Paris. 
 Nothing, he assured La Marck, but his absence owing 
 to his father's death prevented him from being preferred 
 to Bailly on July 15, since he was better known and 
 better liked, and the matter had been decided by popular 
 acclamation. It is obvious how valuable such a position 
 would have been to him. All that his ambition aimed 
 at would be comparatively easy and attainable if he 
 were the chief magistrate of Paris, the chosen ruler of 
 the democracy of the capital. Then he would be a 
 power whom the ministers would be eager to conciliate, 
 with whom the Court would be glad to conclude an 
 alliance on his own terms, from whom Lafayette could 
 no longer hold aloof in Grandisonian self-conceit. But 
 more, much more than all this, he would be brought 
 into direct relations with the king. If only he could 
 bring Lewis XVI. under the charm of his personal 
 influence, what a future lay before him ! He did not 
 wish to play the part of Strafford, for he cared even 
 more for liberty than for good administration. Differing 
 most from his father and the physiocrats in this dislike 
 of arbitrary government, he did not believe in the 
 regeneration of a country by benevolent despotism.
 
 108 MIRABEACT CHAP. 
 
 Although he was by conviction a royalist, his 
 royalism did not imply personal loyalty to Lewis XVI. 
 He held that a constitutional and progressive monarchy 
 was the only government suited to the needs of France, 
 and, provided that the Count of Mirabeau was minister, 
 would probably have cared very little under what king 
 he served. For a time he seems to have thought that 
 an alliance with the Duke of Orleans might secure for 
 him the position to which he aspired. But Mirabeau 
 soon found that there was nothing in common between 
 his views and those of the political adventurers who 
 surrounded the prince, and that it was impossible to 
 place any confidence in his indolently vicious character. 
 "They pretend," he said, "that I am of his party I 
 would not have him for my footman." 
 
 He had continued the acquaintance begun during 
 the previous year with the Count of La Marck. It is 
 no small testimony in Mirabeau's favour that he should 
 not only have convinced an honourable and clear-sighted 
 man of the world that his intentions were honest, but 
 that he should also have inspired him with a true and 
 lasting affection. "The Count of Mirabeau," wrote 
 La Marck, " had great faults in common with many 
 other men, but we rarely find such great and noble 
 qualities united in one individual. ... It is only after 
 continuous and intimate intercourse with such a man 
 that it is possible to realise of what elevated thoughts 
 and of what deep affections we are capable." 
 
 Prince Augustus of Arenberg, the second son of Duke 
 Charles of Arenberg, had inherited from his maternal 
 grandfather, the direct descendant of the Wild Boar of 
 the Ardennes, his title of La Marck and the proprietor-
 
 vi THE COUNT OF LA MARCK 109 
 
 ship of a German regiment in the French service, which 
 he himself commanded with distinction in India under 
 Bussy. On his return to France he was appointed 
 Inspector-General of Infantry. Marie Antoinette never 
 forgot that he had been particularly recommended to 
 her favour by Maria Theresa. The goodwill of the 
 queen, his high rank, his wealth, his merits, his friend- 
 ship with the Austrian ambassador, Mercy-Argenteau, 
 made the Count of La Marck an important person at 
 the French Court. Although an Austrian subject, he 
 was elected one of the representatives of the nobility 
 of Quesnoy, a district in Avhich he possessed an estate ; 
 and although he had not joined the liberal minority of 
 nobles in the Assembly, he was no bigoted opponent of 
 moderate reforms. " I can always agree," said Mirabeau, 
 "with an aristocrat such as you are." When, towards 
 the end of June, La Marck invited his acquaintance to 
 dinner, Mirabeau's first words were, "You are very 
 vexed with me, are you not?" "Yes," said his host, 
 "with you and with many others." "If so, you should 
 begin with the people in the palace. The vessel of the 
 State is driving before the storm and there is no one 
 at the helm," and he went on to inveigh violently against 
 Necker, insisting upon his incompetence even as a 
 financier. " But," said La Marck, " what is the aim of 
 your incendiary policy ? " " The fate of France is 
 decided, the words 'liberty, taxes voted by the people,' 
 have re-echoed throughout the kingdom, there is no escape 
 from a constitution more or less like that of England " ; 
 it was not, he continued, his fault if his overtures were 
 rejected by the Government, and if he was compelled 
 to place himself at the head of the popular party. When
 
 110 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 the king's ministers condescended to reason Avith him, 
 they would find him devoted to the king and to the 
 preservation of the Monarchy. The existing policy of 
 uot attempting to lead or influence the Assembly, of 
 trusting either to subdue it by force in the end or to 
 fascinate it by the empty magniloquence of M. Necker, 
 would be the ruin of the country. A few days later 
 Mirabeau again dined with La Marck, and whispered 
 on leaving, " Let them know in the palace that I am 
 more their friend than their enemy." 
 
 La Marck was convinced that the king could have 
 no more useful adviser than the man whom the Court 
 hated as an unscrupulous opponent. But it was not 
 till the end of September that he was able to make the 
 suggestion to the queen, and then only indirectly through 
 a lady-in-waiting. There was little to encourage him 
 in Marie Antoinette's answer : " We shall never, I hope, 
 be reduced to such extremities as to be obliged to have 
 recourse to Mirabeau." She certainly had no reason to 
 like or trust him. He had done his utmost to prevent 
 the release of her friend Besenval, and although he had 
 always spoken of Lewis XVI. with respect, he had 
 encouraged the belief in his wife's malign influence, and, 
 it is not too much to say, had held her up to public 
 execration. Yet La Marck did not abandon all hope 
 of seeing his friend serve the king. He was impressed 
 by Mirabeau's sinister forebodings, and believed him to 
 be the only man capable of overcoming the dangers he 
 so clearly foresaw. "What are these people thinking 
 of ? Can they not see the gulf yawning before their 
 feet 1 ? Yes," he repeated to the horrified La Marck, "all 
 is lost, the king and queen will perish and the mob will
 
 VI THE COUNT OF LA MARCK 111 
 
 spurn their corpses. Even you do not realise how 
 dangerous their position is, and yet they ought to be 
 made to understand it." The feeling with which 
 Mirabeau spoke convinced the Count that he was not 
 the king's enemy, and he believed in the sincerity of 
 his gratitude to himself for an act of true and generous 
 friendship. 
 
 He had lent him money soon after the death of his 
 father, and proposed henceforth to advance to him 
 50 louis monthly, which, with his allowance as deputy 
 (18 livres per diem), would enable him to live till he 
 was in a position to settle with his creditors, who would 
 be less pressing now that they had the security of the 
 property into the possession of which he would come 
 when his father's estate was wound up. Mirabeau, it 
 seems, did not think it necessary to explain the hopeless 
 confusion of his father's affairs to his friend, nor that 
 nothing had been left to him except the settled estates, 
 the income of which was insufficient to pay the interest 
 on mortgages and other encumbrances. " I told him," 
 says La Marck, "that if he accepted my proposal, I 
 hoped that he would be in a position of independence 
 and enabled to devote himself wholly to the public 
 good and to his own fame. I cannot reproduce all his 
 expressions of friendship. The heartfelt and convincing 
 eloquence with which he gave utterance to his emotions 
 confirmed me more and more in my conviction that 
 there was much in the heart of such a man on which 
 one might safely rely ; and here I would repeat that 
 up to the time of his death his actions never belied the 
 feelings he professed for me. More than once when, 
 irritated by his revolutionary language in the Assembly,
 
 112 M1RABEAU CHAP. 
 
 I abused him with much temper, I have seen him weep 
 like a child and express his repentance with unmistak- 
 able and dignified sorrow." 
 
 " Mirabeau scolded and weeping like a child ! What 
 a comedian ! " we are tempted to exclaim. Yet this 
 would be unjust. An actor he was, but not a conscious 
 one, like the other great man of the Revolution, Bona- 
 parte. When once he had given the rein to his feelings, 
 whether in speech or writing or action, they swept him 
 away with them. He did not play a part, he felt it ; for 
 the time he was what he seemed to be. The Mirabeau 
 of to-morrow might be very different from the Mirabeau 
 of to-day. The Mirabeau of the Assembly, carried away 
 by the applause of the galleries, or goaded by the insults 
 of the Right, was not the same as the Mirabeau who, 
 in solitude or in the company of some judicious friend, 
 penned those admirable notes for the Court, or even as 
 the Mirabeau who, when at length he had reached the 
 chair of President of the Constituent, set himself with 
 conviction to play the part of a moderating and guiding 
 power in that turbulent and disorganised body. Neither 
 was he a hypocrite when he deplored with sighs and 
 tears, as he frequently would, "the great injury the 
 irregularities of his youth had inflicted on the Common- 
 wealth," and hurried, perhaps on the same evening, to 
 debaucheries scarcely less disreputable. 
 
 In the beginning of July 1789 the Assembly set 
 about the task of creating the constitution, and although 
 an account of their labours would carry us far beyond 
 our limits, it is necessary to attempt to convey some 
 general impression of Mirabeau's policy during the 
 three months which preceded the forcible removal of
 
 vi THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS 113 
 
 king and Assembly from Versailles to Paris. No act 
 of the Constituent Assembly has been more generally 
 criticised and blamed than the promulgation of the 
 Declaration of Eights. That Robespierre and Marat 
 should have pronounced it the one good piece of work 
 accomplished by that body may seem to damn it beyond 
 all possibility of apology. But does not this almost 
 universal reprobation arise from the fact that it is 
 judged by the light of subsequent calamities with which 
 it had little if any connection ? Had the Constituent 
 been framing a constitution in quiet times, the Declara- 
 tion of Rights would have passed muster as a somewhat 
 high-flown but harmless preamble. 
 
 No doubt it would have been better to found the 
 new constitution on the rights of Frenchmen rather 
 than on those of abstract man. The Bill of Rights was 
 a better, a more practical piece of work than the Declara- 
 tion of Rights. But what if the materials out of which 
 the former was constructed by the English Parliament 
 were wholly wanting to the French Assembly 1 ? It is 
 unreasonable to deride a man for living under the flimsy 
 shelter of a tent if he has neither stones nor bricks nor 
 timber wherewith to build a house. Could Burke, who 
 blamed the French for not building on the foundation 
 and with the materials of their old constitution, have 
 pointed out where those materials were scattered or 
 what A\ r as the plan of that foundation? One thing 
 perhaps was known about it that it was based on that 
 division of the nation into orders which the country 
 was determined no longer to tolerate. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that the Assembly proclaimed 
 nothing new. Philosophers and pamphleteers had for 
 
 I
 
 114 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 a generation past been dinning these principles into 
 men's ears. They had been appealed to as the charter 
 of freedom on the other side of the Atlantic. They 
 had been received as the truths of a new gospel not at 
 philosophic slippers only, but at the crosswa3 r s and 
 under the trees of the Palais Royal. The recognition 
 of them by the Assembly did not create the public faith 
 in their validity : it was an effect and not a cause. Nor 
 should it be overlooked that, so far from the excesses of 
 the Eevolution being deducible from these abstract 
 axioms, they were, for the most part, in direct contra- 
 vention to them. 
 
 Mirabeau is often praised for the practical wisdom 
 he showed in proposing that the Declaration of Rights 
 should not be published until the constitution was 
 completed, yet he had voted with the majority that a 
 declaration of the rights of man should precede the 
 constitution. He was named one of a committee of 
 five to formulate them, and he was chosen by the com- 
 mittee to draw up their report. It was only after the 
 draft of a declaration of rights, which he had composed 
 with the assistance of Dumont and Duroveray, and 
 which was certainly more objectionable than that 
 ultimately adopted, had been rejected, that he began to 
 maintain that the most pressing duty of the Assembly 
 was to put an end to the existing anarchy ; that abstract 
 principles were dangerous weapons, which the people 
 might misuse to their own hurt, and then cast away in 
 disgust ; and that the constitution should at any rate be 
 completed before the Declaration of Rights was pro- 
 mulgated. He proclaimed these views in the tribune 
 to the indignant surprise of the Left. Though he
 
 vi THE FOURTH OF AUGUST 115 
 
 spoke with good sense and moderation, it was difficult 
 for him to obtain a hearing. He had indeed laid his 
 finger on the most dangerous mistake of the Assembly, 
 which erred far less in publishing these axioms than in 
 wasting precious time and irrecoverable opportunities in 
 the most futile of academic discussions, less practical, 
 more windy, infinitely more tedious than the proceed- 
 ings of any discussion-forum or undergraduates' debating 
 society. Member after member would climb the tribune 
 to read his pretentious essay, quite regardless whether 
 the same arguments had been advanced before or not, 
 and answering, as Mirabeau complained, every objection 
 except those that had really been made. Such an ex- 
 hibition on the part of a body entrusted with the 
 destinies of a great people would at any time have been 
 contemptible ; it was criminal when, as the Venetian 
 envoy wrote, only those who actually saw it could 
 realise the condition of the country. The ministers did 
 not attempt to govern, the executive was inactive, the 
 law-courts were in abeyance, district was arrayed against 
 district, province against province, the towns were 
 thronged with unemployed labourers and vagabonds, 
 the treasury was empty, and the taxes unpaid. 
 
 The Constituent Assembly, when it proclaimed, on 
 the memorable night of August 4, the abolition of all 
 feodality as tyrannical and barbarous, and then told the 
 people that until they could purchase their freedom they 
 must continue to endure no small part of this tyranny, 
 committed an error more immediately mischievous than 
 the promulgation of the Declaration of Eights. How like 
 our French, said Mirabeau, to spend a month in argu- 
 ment about syllables and then to destroy in one night
 
 116 MIRABEAU OHAP. 
 
 the whole fabric of the ancient Monarchy ! He himself 
 had left the Assembly before the delirious scene in 
 which, as Rivarol observes, the representatives of 
 nobility and clergy sought, like Japanese, their honour 
 in public suicide. 
 
 In his correspondence with his uncle, Mirabeau 
 acknowledges the risk which the rising edifice ran of 
 being overwhelmed under the ruins of what had been 
 too hastily and inconsiderately destroyed, but he does 
 not pretend to regret any part of that which had 
 perished. "I have good hope for the future, because 
 the Revolution, whether we approve of it or not, is now 
 an accomplished fact. Intelligent men must see that 
 further resistance is equally useless and disastrous. 
 Whether ardent patriots or not, whether partisans of 
 this or that system, the object of all must now be the 
 same, to enable the State to come to an equilibrium in 
 its present position. After the machine has been set 
 going we shall be able to judge of what is right and 
 what is amiss. If there are imperfections or worse 
 errors, another legislature may remedy them. If it is 
 necessary to turn backwards, even this may be done, 
 when our road is no longer beset by precipices ; it will 
 at any rate be easier to make the attempt on level 
 ground than Avhen on a steep incline. Much may be 
 possible in peace that cannot be done in the midst of 
 strife and anarchy." Unfortunately the Court and the 
 greater part of the nobility were too blind to see that 
 the Revolution was an accomplished fact ; they had too 
 little intelligence to recognise that further resistance 
 must be disastrous. There were also among their 
 opponents many who thought that their interest lay
 
 vi THE FOURTH OF AUGUST 117 
 
 in the continuation of disorder, and who found it an 
 easy matter, their adversaries playing into their hands, 
 to inflame the hopes and fears of the people : hopes of 
 an impossible millennium, fears lest all that they had 
 obtained and justly valued might be snatched from 
 them.
 
 CHAPTEE VII 
 
 The veto Mirabeau supports Necker His greater influence in 
 the Assembly The 5th of October The King brought to 
 Paris. 
 
 MIRABEAU is usually commended for having thrown off 
 the demagogue and assumed the statesman in the 
 debates on the constitution. Yet he was one of the 
 warmest opponents of the moderate scheme propounded 
 to the Assembly on August 31 by Lally-Tollendal and 
 Mounier in the name of the Committee on the Constitu- 
 tion, according to which the legislature was to be com- 
 posed of two chambers. There seems to be good reason 
 to believe that had the members followed their honest 
 convictions, the Assembly would have accepted the 
 proposals of the Committee. The majority would not 
 indeed have been large. The Right were determined 
 to oppose measures the very moderation of which 
 made them fear that they might be the basis of a 
 permanent settlement and therefore prevent the restora- 
 tion of the old order. The theorists, the followers of 
 Rousseau, rejected what appeared to be a copy of the 
 English constitution contemned by their master. Lastly, 
 there was a small but active, unscrupulous, and dangerous 
 faction, generally -identified with the partisans of the 
 Duke of Orleans, but containing other demagogues
 
 CHAP, vii THE VETO 119 
 
 and political adventurers, who saw their advantage in 
 the continuation of disorder. All these would in any 
 case have opposed a constitution after the English 
 model. 
 
 The aristocratic element in the scheme of the moder- 
 ates, the second chamber, was most unpopular and most 
 criticised within the Assembly ; the monarchical element, 
 the king's right to refuse his sanction, or his right of 
 veto, as it was unfortunately called, was most denounced 
 by those who appealed to popular passion. It became 
 to the multitude an unknown terror, a mysterious 
 curse destined to blast their cherished hopes. It even 
 assumed a personal shape in their imagination. Cries 
 of "To the lantern with the veto ! " were repeatedly 
 heard : it was asked in what district this veto lived 1 
 The more intelligent believed it to be a new tax. Their 
 leaders sought to enlighten this ignorance. " You are 
 eating your porridge, the king comes in and says 
 'Throw down your bowl,' that is the veto." 
 
 In objecting to a house of peers or senate Mirabeau 
 was not inconsistent. He had never been an admirer 
 of the British constitution. In his Adresse aux Bataves 
 he prophesied that the vaunted system of balanced 
 powers would soon, unless reformed, reduce England 
 to the fatal lethargy of bondage. He believed that the 
 Americans had allowed themselves to be too much 
 influenced by English precedents and by the authority 
 of Montesquieu, whom he called an overrated man. It 
 was, he said, an insult to Machiavelli to mention the 
 two in the same breath. No doubt the genius of the 
 Florentine was the more practical and masculine, but 
 there is something ominous in the exaltation on the
 
 120 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 threshold of the Revolution of the most cynical and 
 logical asserter of the principle that the end justifies 
 the means, of the interest of the State as the supreme 
 law of political conduct, especially when we remember 
 those sinister maxims, so soon to receive their most 
 ferocious application, that liberty must be cemented by 
 the blood of the sons of Brutus, that he who would set 
 up a republic in a land where there are many nobles will 
 not succeed unless he slay them all, that where the 
 freedom and safety of our country are at stake, we must 
 abandon every consideration of justice and injustice, of 
 mercy and cruelty, of honour and dishonour. 
 
 It is remarkable that, while Mirabeau's opposition 
 to a senate, a matter about which the populace was 
 comparatively indifferent, increased his popularity, it 
 was not diminished by his defence of the king's right of 
 veto. His name was not mentioned or was mentioned 
 only in praise by the fervid speakers who, at the street 
 corners, held Mounier and the other moderate reformers 
 up to execration and future vengeance. When Mirabeau 
 visited Paris the crowd clung to him and begged him 
 with tears to save them from this monstrous thing. 
 Although disgusted by his tergiversation on the question 
 of the Declaration of Rights, the Extreme Left probably 
 expected that the furious enmity of the nobles would 
 drive Mirabeau to join their ranks, and did not wish 
 to make the accession of so powerful an ally more 
 difficult. The Orleanists may still have hoped to 
 secure his co-operation, for he continued to see a 
 good deal, if not of the Duke himself, yet of the 
 wire-pullers of the faction, such as Lauzun and Laclos. 
 At all events the stump-orators and pamphleteers in the
 
 vii FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES 121 
 
 pay of the Palais Royal seem to have been instructed not 
 to mention him in their diatribes. The part he played 
 in the debate on the royal sanction made it compara- 
 tively easy to throw dust into the eyes of an ignorant 
 public. He spoke with less than his usual vigour and 
 lucidity ; he was absent from the final division. 
 
 Mirabeau took frequent part in the other debates on 
 the constitution during the summer months of 1789, and 
 raised his reputation by the good sense and moderation 
 with which he generally spoke. But it was when the 
 representatives were obliged to turn their attention from 
 the lofty task of discussing the foundations and first 
 principles of political society to the necessities of a 
 bankrupt exchequer, that they began to recognise the 
 presence among them of one who towered head and 
 shoulders above his fellows. 
 
 It was the impossibility of avoiding bankruptcy 
 without the assistance of the Estates which had forced 
 the Government to convene the representatives of the 
 nation. Yet since they had met nothing had been done 
 to mitigate and everything had happened which could 
 aggravate the financial distress. The whole fiscal system 
 was paralysed, hardly any taxes, direct or indirect, had 
 been paid during the last few months. In many places 
 the offices of the tax-collectors were forced, whatever 
 money was in them plundered, the registers and accounts 
 burnt, the officials ill-treated. It was absolutely 
 necessary to find money. Even if soldiers and sailors 
 might be left unpaid, Paris must be fed. 
 
 On August 4 Necker appeared before the Assembly 
 and convinced them that the urgent needs of the State 
 required a loan of 30,000,000 livres. At current quota-
 
 122 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 tions money invested in the funds paid 6 or 7 per cent. 
 Necker therefore, who had made arrangements to float his 
 loan at 5 per cent, had done very well. But it seemed 
 to the representatives of the nation that the security of 
 a loan sanctioned by them was greater than that of the 
 ordinary public debt, and they therefore decided that the 
 interest was only to be 4| per cent. The result was that 
 barely 2,000,000 livres were subscribed. Necker then 
 suggested a loan of 80,000,000 at 5 per cent. Talleyrand, 
 who by much gambling on the Stock Exchange had gained 
 authority and experience in financial matters, proposed 
 that the Assembly should sanction the loan and leave the 
 management of it entirely to the minister, and at the 
 same time sustain the national credit by a resolution 
 declaring that never, under any circumstances, would 
 the creditors of the State be defrauded of a farthing 
 justly their due. 
 
 Less than half the new loan was subscribed, and 
 again (September 24) the Swiss saviour of France had 
 to appear before the Assembly and "with agonised 
 hands unveil the picture of the nation's ruin." He 
 ended by proposing an income-tax of 25 per cent as 
 the only means of averting bankruptcy. 
 
 Mirabeau urged that the proposals of the minister 
 should be adopted at once and without discussion. 
 Even could a better scheme be devised it would need to 
 be examined, criticised, debated, and all this would 
 cause delay when delay was fatal. Besides the best 
 scheme might fail, and in that case it was well that the 
 responsibility should rest on the minister. The Mon- 
 archy would not be endangered should it prove that 
 M. Necker had made a mistake, but it would be a public
 
 vii FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES 123 
 
 calamity, the nation would have one resource the less, 
 if the Assembly was discredited by failure in so im- 
 portant a matter. He spoke three times in the debate, 
 and the third time he ascended the tribune it was to 
 achieve one of the greatest of his oratorical triumphs. 
 
 The carefully constructed periods, the elaborate 
 rhetoric, the studied effects of an artist in words, like 
 Burke, may be as effective when read in the closet as 
 they were when heard by the audience to which they 
 were first addressed, but no written report can convey 
 to us any adequate idea of such a speech as this of 
 Mirabeau's, conceived and spoken by a great orator in 
 the heat of debate. The Journal de Paris, in describing 
 the overpowering effect produced on the audience, 
 aptly quotes Aeschines' compliment to his great rival : 
 "What would you have felt had you seen and heard 
 the beast ! " " When," says Dumont, " proceeding to 
 remark upon the dangerous state of public credit and 
 the failure of the revenue, he represented a national 
 bankruptcy as the probable consequence of the rejection 
 of this plan, the force with which he presented so 
 commonplace an idea was miraculous ; he elevated it to 
 sublimity. They who heard this speech will never 
 forget it; it excited every gradation of terror, and a 
 devouring gulf, with the groans of the victims it swal- 
 lowed, seemed pictured to the senses of the audience." 
 
 The triumph was complete : not an attempt was 
 made to reply, and the project was adopted without a 
 dissentient voice. From that day the superiority of 
 Mirabeau was acknowledged. He had no rival. There 
 were indeed other orators, but he alone was eloquent. 
 " Mole, the celebrated actor, was present. The form
 
 124 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 and dramatic effect of Mirabeau's eloquence, and the 
 sublimity of his voice, had made a deep impression upon 
 this distinguished comedian, who with visible emotion 
 approached the orator to offer his compliments. ' Ah ! 
 M. 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.' Mole" smiled on 
 perceiving the singularity of the compliment which his 
 dramatic enthusiasm had led him to utter, but Mirabeau 
 was much flattered at it." 
 
 Mirabeau's position in the beginning of October 1789 
 was very different from what it had ever been before. 
 His popularity made him a power in Paris, he had 
 proved that his eloquence could influence the votes of 
 the Assembly. We may trace in the Journal of Adrian 
 Duquesnoy the change in the feelings towards him of 
 many among his colleagues. For Duquesnoy, although 
 La Marck says he was not without talents, had not 
 sufficient ability or insight to prevent his opinions 
 from representing fairly enough those of the average 
 well-meaning, intelligent middle -class member of the 
 Assembly. Writing of Mirabeau on May 7, he says : 
 "The man is a wild beast, a madman. He has the 
 expression of a tiger. When he speaks it is in paroxysms : 
 his face is distorted, his voice hisses with passion. 
 Moreover he speaks ill. His French is detestable, his 
 arguments sophistical, full of inconsistencies and fallacies. 
 All men of intelligence believe that he wishes to bring 
 about the dissolution of the Estates and the fall of the 
 ministry because Necker would not pay him his price." 
 A little later he writes that Mirabeau is as little listened 
 to as ever, and calls his paper " an atrocious publication."
 
 vii GROWING INFLUENCE 125 
 
 Then by degrees he begins to allow that he can be 
 eloquent, even that the opinions he professes are sound 
 and moderate, but his character justifies the general 
 distrust. By the middle of August he is convinced 
 that the fear of Mirabeau is exaggerated. It is his 
 interest to establish his reputation as a statesman, 
 and it is not likely that he would commit crimes 
 certain to defeat his object. He excels all his colleagues 
 in talents, genius, and knowledge. His constitutional 
 views are sound and moderate, and in any case he is 
 too much distrusted to be dangerous. Before the end 
 of October Duquesnoy thinks that " Mirabeau alone has 
 the genius, the talents, and the strength of character to 
 extricate us from the fearful chaos into which we are 
 plunged. The circumstances are such that he must be 
 minister. Yet perhaps a short delay is necessary in 
 order that the public may recognise that private im- 
 morality is no obstacle to public virtue." 
 
 This was written after the events of the 5th and 6th 
 of October, and in spite of the suspected complicity of 
 Mirabeau in the guilt of those days of " shame, oppres- 
 sion, perjury." It was recognised from the first that the 
 march on Versailles of the scum of the female population 
 of Paris, accompanied by not a few male ruffians, some 
 of them disguised as women, supplied with money, with 
 arms, and even with food, was no spontaneous popular 
 movement, no "genuine outburst of nature," but the 
 product of elaborate art ; and an attempt to discover the 
 artificers was subsequently made before the Chatelet. 
 Next to the Duke of Orleans, and as his confederate, 
 Mirabeau was most strongly suspected. His reputation, 
 the belief that he was as bold and unscrupulous as he
 
 126 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 was needy and ambitious, made this inevitable. But 
 not only did the Chatelet discover no proof whatever of 
 his guilt, not only were friends like La Marck convinced 
 of his innocence, he was also acquitted by men who, to 
 say the least, had no bias in his favour, such as Mallet 
 du Pan, Bertrand de Molleville, Rivarol, Rabaut de St. 
 Etienne, and even Lafayette himself. It is certain that 
 he at this time had no relations of any kind and still 
 less any understanding with the Palais Royal, and the 
 little evidence which was adduced to prove the contrary 
 referred to a much earlier period. 
 
 On the morning of October 5 two subjects were 
 discussed by the Assembly a letter from the king 
 deferring his sanction of the Declaration of Rights till 
 after the completion of the constitution, and the "orgy," 
 as it was called, of the Body-guard and their guests, 
 the officers of the regiment of Flanders. 
 
 It appeared likely that the Assembly would pass 
 some violent motion denying to the king all right of 
 interference or even of expressing an opinion on 
 constitutional questions. Mirabeau, after conciliating 
 his audience by a violent preamble, dexterously averted 
 such a blow to the prerogative by proposing that Lewis 
 XVI. should be invited to explain his remarks, and thus 
 remove any apprehension that he did not intend to 
 sanction the Declaration of Rights. As to the denuncia- 
 tion by Petion of plots against the Assembly and of 
 seditious cries and gestures at the military banquet, he 
 said that it would be well to ask that such festivities 
 might in future be prohibited, since they were likely to 
 lead to excesses on both sides. A member of the Right 
 proposing that Petion should be ordered to specify in
 
 vii THE WOMEN AT VERSAILLES 127 
 
 writing and sign his charges, Mirabeau exclaimed, "I 
 must begin by protesting that I consider such a 
 denunciation highly impolitic. But, if the demand is 
 persisted in, I am prepared to furnish full details 
 provided that the king alone be declared beyond the 
 reach of the law " ; and as he left the tribune he added in 
 a stage-whisper, "I shall denounce the queen and the 
 Duke of Guiche." He subsequently alleged that his 
 object was to deter the Right by this threat from raising 
 a debate, the issue of which might have been most 
 deplorable. 
 
 Soon after half-past eleven it began to be reported in 
 Versailles that an armed crowd was coming from Paris. 
 There is no proof that Mirabeau had any special 
 intelligence, although from his intimacy at the time 
 with Camille Desmoulins this is not impossible. How- 
 ever this may be, he went up to Mounier, then presiding, 
 and said, " Paris is marching on us. Say you are ill. 
 Go to the Palace and warn them, say, if you like, that 
 I told you. There is not a moment to lose." But 
 Mounier, still hot with indignation at his informant's 
 attack on the queen, retorted, " Very Avell, it will be a 
 good thing for the country, provided they kill all of us, 
 kill all, do you hear 1 " "A pretty speech," Mirabeau 
 replied, and left the Assembly. He went to the 
 lodgings of his friend La Marck, dined with him, and 
 returned in his company to the Salle des Menus about 
 six o'clock. 
 
 At four o'clock the vanguard of the rioters had 
 reached Versailles. At first a few only of the women 
 were admitted to the bar of the Assembly to state their 
 demands bread and the punishment of those who had
 
 128 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 insulted the nation. Soon a squalid crowd, rain-drenched 
 and muddy, forced its way not only into the galleries 
 but even into the body of the hall, where they occupied 
 the benches of the members. As they said they were 
 starving, Mounier was weak enough to order bread to 
 be given to them. Drink of every kind was also freely 
 distributed. A scene of drunken disorder followed, 
 disgusting to all but those who were delighted with 
 anything which might bring the Assembly into contempt. 
 Some of the noble members of the Eight even encouraged 
 the indecent behaviour of the women. Barrel Mirabeau 
 was seen toying and laughing with those among them 
 who were least repulsive in appearance. 
 
 In the evening, after the arrival of Lafayette and 
 his National Guards, Mirabeau proposed that the 
 Assembly should adjourn. This has been looked upon 
 as a proof that he was an accomplice in a plot against 
 the safety, or at all events the liberty, of the royal 
 family; but, if Lafayette and his armed thousands 
 could not or would not protect them, what could be 
 done by the weary and distracted deputies howled at by 
 the mob in the galleries and crowded from their benches 
 by drunken prostitutes'? Mirabeau, their dear little 
 mother Mirabeau, had been cheered by this rabble, 
 even when he had called them to order and protested 
 against their presence, but he may well have thought 
 that the Assembly had submitted long enough to such 
 humiliation. 
 
 Early on the morning of the 6th Mirabeau was in 
 the Assembly, when a message came from the king 
 inviting the representatives of his people to the palace. 
 He had already promised Lafayette and the crowd that
 
 vii THE WOMEN AT VERSAILLES 129 
 
 he would go to Paris. Mounier saw nothing but dis- 
 loyalty in the motion carried by Mirabeau, that a 
 deputation of thirty members, and not the whole body, 
 should obey the king's summons to assist him with their 
 advice. Yet it is clear that, after Lewis XVI. had 
 capitulated, the presence of the whole Assembly in the 
 palace would have been of no real service, and might 
 have exposed him and them to further humiliation. 
 Lafayette and his National Guard were firmly 
 determined that the king should return with them. 
 The next resolution moved by Mirabeau and carried 
 without discussion, that the Assembly was inseparable 
 from the king, may be explained in the light of the 
 earnest appeal he made next day to La Marck to do 
 his utmost to persuade the king and queen to escape 
 from Paris. If the king could- reach Blois or Rouen in 
 safety, it would clearly be well that the Assembly 
 should be bound to follow him by their own solemn 
 vote. 
 
 It is perhaps less easy to reconcile the account of the 
 events of October 5 and 6 given in the Courrier de 
 Provence with perfect loyalty on the part of Mirabeau. 
 The excesses of the mob are palliated, passed over in 
 silence, or excused by the provocation received and by 
 the fear the people felt of plots formed to deprive them 
 of the benefits of the Revolution. But Mirabeau may 
 have been aware that Mounier and his friends, who at 
 this time seceded from the Assembly, intended by dwell- 
 ing on the violence done to the king to endeavour to 
 raise the provinces against Paris ; and he may have 
 judged that a time when the king and the royal family 
 were in the hands of the revolutionists was ill chosen 
 
 K
 
 130 MIRABEAU CHAP, vn 
 
 for beginning civil war. If so, he acted in perfect accord- 
 ance with the hope expressed by Marie Antoinette on 
 October 10 to the Austrian ambassador, that the 
 members who had left the Assembly would endeavour 
 to calm the provinces, instead of using recent events 
 to excite their indignation, since everything was prefer- 
 able to the horrors of civil war.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Aiirabeau's first advice to the Court Negotiations with Lafayette 
 He fails to prevent the exclusion of Ministers from the 
 Assembly. 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING the open purse of La Marck, 
 Mirabeau's pecuniary embarrassments continued. He 
 had inherited from his father nothing but litigation, 
 yet it would be unjust to suppose that sordid motives 
 were the sole or even the chief cause of his anxiety for 
 place. Had money been his only object he might easily 
 have found those who would have bought him at his 
 own price. He did not in his correspondence with La 
 Marck affect disinterestedness, he did not pretend 
 that a good salary was a matter of indifference ; but his 
 ambition, it would be charitable to add his patriotism, 
 had other aims to restore the necessary authority of the 
 Crown, to establish firmly the liberty which had been 
 won, but which as yet was ill secured, threatened as it 
 was by anarchy and by the reaction which anarchy 
 might provoke. More and more he must have realised 
 that, though powerful to destrfty, he was, unless he could 
 control the Government and influence the policy of the 
 Court, powerless to preserve or to create, powerless in 
 short to affect the result. 
 
 He devoted all his energies to preparing the way
 
 132 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 for the formation of a ministry in which he and other 
 members of the Assembly might find place. Bearing in 
 mind that this was the object at which he aimed, it is 
 worth while to examine with some care his policy during 
 the month which followed the day when, according to 
 the virtuous Bailly, "the humane, respectful, and loyal 
 people of Paris reconquered their king," a phrase which 
 in its foolish or cowardly adulation of a venal rabble 
 was in the mouth of the chief magistrate of the capital 
 more ominous than the horrors of the previous night, or 
 than the atrocious procession which accompanied the 
 royal captives from Versailles. 
 
 To attain his end, the formation of a government 
 strong enough to direct and control the Revolution 
 with the support of the moderate majority in the 
 Assembly, it was necessary that Mirabeau should con- 
 vince the Court that he was both able and willing to 
 be of service, that he should secure the co-operation of 
 Lafayette, at that time undoubtedly the most powerful 
 man in France, and above all that he should obtain the 
 admission of ministers to the legislature. 
 
 According to La Marck, on the day after Lewis XVI. 
 had been conducted to the Tuileries, Mirabeau urged 
 him, if he had any influence with the king and queen, 
 to persuade them that both France and they were un- 
 done if they remained in Paris. "I am busy," he con- 
 tinued, " devising a plan to enable them to escape : could 
 you convey to them the assurance that they can count 
 upon me ? " "I told him," says La Marck, "to prepare 
 his plan. When it was completed I would find some 
 means of placing it in their hands." A few days after- 
 wards Mirabeau brought to him the first of those admir-
 
 vni ADVICE TO THE COURT 133 
 
 able state papers written for the Court, which have been 
 preserved for posterity by the care of his friend. After 
 his rebuff at the end of September, La Marck did not 
 dare to approach the queen directly, but he obtained a 
 secret interview with the Count of Provence, in the hope 
 that he would appreciate the wisdom of Mirabeau's 
 advice and be able to remove the prejudices which 
 prevented Marie Antoinette and his brother from 
 accepting the hand stretched out to save them. 
 
 Mirabeau's note was thoroughly consistent with the 
 principles he had professed both in public and private 
 as the irreconcilable enemy of the old order, yet at the 
 same time a convinced royalist. He began by pointing 
 out that the position of the king and of the Assembly in 
 Paris was not sufficiently independent. The enemies of 
 the Revolution might plausibly refuse to obey their 
 decrees on the ground that they were not free agents. 
 The situation of the royal family was extremely pre- 
 carious. Bankruptcy was imminent, famine might come 
 with the winter. In three months Paris, in the power 
 of a frenzied and irresistible mob, might be the scene of 
 horrors. "To-day we are only weary and discouraged, 
 it is the moment of our despair which is to be feared." 
 The strength of a government depends upon the hold it 
 has on public opinion and on the control of the revenues 
 of the country. The ministry was despised, the revenues 
 practically non-existent, the Assembly was sinking lower 
 and lower in public estimation. 
 
 The king must leave Paris, but he must not go to 
 Metz or to any place on the frontiers, he must not 
 appear to be flying from his people in the hope of re- 
 establishing his authority by the assistance of foreigners.
 
 134 MiRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 Still less must he ally himself with the nobles, and by 
 preferring the interests of a few individuals to those of 
 the nation unite the whole country against himself, and 
 provoke a civil war on the most unequal terms. Neither 
 should he place himself in open opposition to the 
 Assembly and appeal against it to the country : this 
 policy also could only end in civil war. 
 
 The Revolution in itself was not only salutary but 
 necessary. By it the people had recovered rights which 
 should be firmly secured to them. Many of the laws 
 passed by the Assembly must be accepted. There was 
 no safety either for the monarch or the State except in 
 the closest union between the prince and his people. 
 Means must be found he indicated what they might be 
 to enable the king to leave Paris and betake himself to 
 Rouen. He should then issue a proclamation pointing 
 out that he had been a captive in Paris, that the ill-dis- 
 posed might disregard the decrees of the Assembly, on 
 the pretext that they had not been freely sanctioned by 
 him ; that he had now come to Rouen to throw himself 
 into the arms of his people ; that it was his intention 
 to invite the Assembly to join him, and afterwards to 
 summon a new convention to complete, ratify, and, where 
 it seemed desirable, amend the result of their labours ; 
 that, above all, he was anxious to maintain the national 
 credit ; that he was determined no longer to be satisfied 
 with economies which existed only on paper, and would 
 himself set an example of thrift by living like a private 
 gentleman, without the trappings of royalty, on an 
 income of 1,000,000 livres. 
 
 La Marck spent two midnight hours at the Luxem- 
 bourg endeavouring to persuade Monsieur that Mirabeau
 
 via MONSIEUR 135 
 
 had not belonged to the Orleanist faction, that he had 
 had no part in the events which had left Lewis XVI. 
 the prisoner of Lafayette and of the municipality of 
 Paris. The Count of Provence took Mirabeau's note, 
 read it with judicious criticisms, and on the whole with 
 approval. But, he said, there was no hope of inducing 
 the king to adopt that, or any other decided policy. 
 His weakness and indecision were beyond all words, his 
 resolutions had as little coherence as a pile of oiled 
 billiard-balls. Nor had the queen as much influence 
 over .him as was supposed. "I came away," says La 
 Marck, "with a sad heart, convinced that decision and 
 firmness were not to be found in a quarter where they 
 were indispensable." Monsieur might sneer at the king, 
 to whom he was far superior in ability, but he was him- 
 self scarcely more capable of decision and energetic 
 action. The weakness of the elder brother was in the main 
 intellectual. He had many estimable moral qualities. 
 His diffidence led him to distrust his own judgment, 
 experience had taught him to distrust the advice of 
 others, and his character was of that sluggish and 
 passive type to which endurance is easier than action. 
 Yet he was well-meaning, humane, and honest. When 
 convinced of his duty he was not afraid to stake his life 
 upon what he held to be the truth. The resolution of 
 a martyr underlay his dull inertness. The younger 
 brother on the other hand was weak because, although 
 his parts were respectable, he was wanting both in 
 honesty and courage. His epicurean cynicism was in- 
 capable of a manly resolution. 
 
 While La Marck was attempting to gain the ear of 
 the Court, Mirabeau endeavoured to come to an under-
 
 136 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 standing with Lafayette, and in this also he was loyally 
 supported by his friend. Early in October, while the 
 Assembly was still at Versailles, an interview took place 
 between the Triumvirate, as A. Lameth, Barnave, and 
 Duport, at that time the leaders of the radical party, 
 began to be called, Lafayette, and Mirabeau at the 
 house of Madame d'Aragon, a niece of the latter. It was 
 agreed that the ministry was incapable, that the 
 executive ought to be strengthened and composed of 
 men who by their conduct in the Assembly had proved 
 that they were friends to the Revolution. It was pro- 
 posed that Lafayette should be commander-in-chief of 
 the army with a seat in the Council, but nothing seems 
 to have been said of the place of Mirabeau in the 
 Government. He does not appear to have been at any 
 pains to make a favourable impression on Lafayette. 
 He may have been provoked by the punctilious propriety 
 of the general to exaggerate his usual recklessness of 
 statement. He boasted that when electioneering in 
 Provence he had sent a bravo to dog the steps of an 
 agent he distrusted. He said that in politics the rules 
 of everyday morality must yield to higher considerations. 
 When Lafayette begged him to be more measured in 
 his attacks on Marie Antoinette he replied : " Very well, 
 let her live, since you wish it. A queen who has been 
 taught her place may be useful. A murdered queen 
 would be useless, except as a subject for one of poor 
 Guibert's bad tragedies." When Cromwell- Grandison, 
 as Mirabeau called the general, who was more Grandison 
 than Cromwell, left the house, his flesh must have crept 
 at the mere thought of such a confederate ; moreover, al- 
 though he did not altogether reject the proferred alliance,
 
 viii LAFAYETTE 137 
 
 he still deemed Necker indispensable, and thought that 
 the time was not yet come to turn out the ministry. He 
 offered his good services to effect a reconciliation between 
 Necker, Montmorin, and Mirabeau. The latter was so 
 anxious to act with Lafayette that he did not refuse 
 these overtures : and a few days later he had an inter- 
 view with the two ministers. Necker, although no 
 longer supercilious, openly said that his unsullied reputa- 
 tion, the true source of his influence, would not allow 
 him to be a member of a ministry in which Mirabeau 
 held office. However indignant with "the despicable 
 charlatan, who had brought France and the Monarchy 
 within an inch of ruin, which he would rather see con- 
 summated than confess his incapacity even to himself," 
 Mirabeau restrained his anger. The offer of an embassy, 
 which, he tells us, he refused, proved that the ministry 
 regarded him as an enemy whom it would be well to 
 remove, rather than as a possible ally. He accordingly 
 tried to persuade the commander of the National Guards 
 to throw his influence into the scale against them, and 
 to promote the formation of a strong ministry composed 
 of men who would not cease to be the representatives 
 of the people when they became the servants of the 
 Crown. 
 
 If smooth words could avail, these should not be 
 wanting. On October 19, at the first meeting of 
 the Assembly in Paris, Mirabeau proposed a vote of 
 thanks to Bailly and Lafayette. On the same day he 
 wrote to the latter : " Whatever the issue may be I shall 
 be yours to the end ; because I have been so attracted 
 by your great qualities, and because I feel the im- 
 possibility of ceasing to be interested in a career so
 
 138 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 splendid and so closely connected with a movement 
 which has given liberty to France." Lafayette replied : 
 " Mutual confidence and friendship, that is what I give 
 and expect." Before many days had passed Mirabeau 
 was complaining to La Marck of Lafayette's fatal in- 
 decision, and that, although the ministry treated the 
 commander of the National Guards, the virtual master 
 of Paris, with little consideration, even the " animalcule " 
 Montmorin behaving to him as to a subordinate, he 
 could not be induced to take any decided part against 
 them. Lafayette, in his memoirs, says that, while 
 admiring his sublime talents and enjoying his conversa- 
 tion, he was shocked by Mirabeau's want of principle. 
 This, no doubt, is how he put the matter to himself, 
 and all the more so because some of his friends, as, for 
 instance, the American Morris, begged him not to let 
 his immaculate purity be sullied by contact with so 
 much vice. Yet it is clear that he shrank instinctively 
 from a partnership in which the genius and, still more, 
 the superior energy of his associate's character would 
 have compelled him to play a subordinate part. On 
 the day of the decisive struggle he left his ally without 
 any effective support. 
 
 In the middle of September Mirabeau had begun 
 to point out in the Courrier de Provence the obvious 
 advantages attending the presence of the ministers in 
 the Assembly. He did not now disdain to appeal to 
 the example of a country " which our former servitude 
 envied, our present folly despises." The lessons of experi 
 ence in England, he said, are better worth the attention 
 of thoughtful men than the sublime theories of philo- 
 sophers. From them it can be learnt that the close
 
 vin ELIGIBILITY OF MINISTERS 139 
 
 interchange of ideas between the ministers and the 
 legislature, as it exists in the British Parliament, is not 
 only just and useful, but even necessary and unobjection- 
 able. The eagerness to introduce reforms, the impatience 
 of half -measures and anomalies prevalent in France, 
 should be tempered by more regard to ulterior con- 
 sequences and practical difficulties, and these can only 
 be properly discerned and explained by men experienced 
 in public affairs and taking part in the actual work of 
 administration. 
 
 On October 27 Petion proposed that ministers should 
 be declared ineligible as representatives. Although the 
 proposal was obviously regarded with favour by the 
 Assembly, Mirabeau succeeded in obtaining an adjourn- 
 ment of the question until the larger principle involved 
 was decided. 
 
 It is by no means clear what the motives were 
 which determined him to put all his fortunes to the 
 touch on November 6, by proposing that ministers 
 should henceforth be invited to attend the meetings of 
 the Assembly. Not one of the conditions which might 
 have made success reasonably certain or even probable 
 had been secured. The Count of Mercy- Argenteau, on 
 the whole the most trusted adviser of Marie Antoinette, 
 was disposed to think that the Court could not do better 
 than make use of Mirabeau. The queen, in a letter 
 written on October 28, allows the possibility "that 
 the king may be obliged to admit to his council people 
 
 whom ." The unfinished sentence is suggestive of 
 
 much, but there is no proof that Mirabeau had obtained 
 the adhesion of any of the persons concerned to such a 
 ministerial arrangement as was found in his writing
 
 140 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 among the papers in the possession of the Count of La 
 Marck. Necker, nominally Prime Minister, because the 
 king ought not to be deprived of the advantage of his 
 popularity, the Archbishop of Bordeaux (Champion de 
 Cice) to have the Seals, Talleyrand the Treasury, the 
 Duke of Liancourt the War Office, since he was an 
 honourable man of decided character and personally 
 attached to the king, La Marck the Navy, Target to 
 be Mayor of Paris, Lafayette Marshal of France and 
 generalissimo, Mirabeau in the Council without a depart- 
 ment. 
 
 Necker was still determined that he would not be 
 Mirabeau's colleague. Cice, a shifty intriguer who had 
 been at first disposed to join in the campaign against 
 the virtuous banker, realising perhaps how unimportant 
 he would be in a ministry which included Mirabeau, 
 had now turned against him. Lafayette had indeed 
 promised his support, but he regarded, or affected to 
 regard, the question of the admission of ministers to the 
 Assembly with indifference. In any case it appeared 
 hopeless to attempt to overcome his indecision. He 
 might not Mirabeau wrote to La Marck break his 
 word, but he would never be ready to do what he had 
 promised at the decisive moment. It is probable that 
 Mirabeau determined to venture his great stroke because, 
 however unfavourable the chances might be, there was 
 little hope that they would improve. On November 5 
 he carried what was virtually a vote of censure on the 
 ministry, for neglecting to promulgate and enforce the 
 decrees of the Assembly in the provinces, but on the 
 same day he learnt that a formidable coalition was 
 being formed against him.
 
 vni ELIGIBILITY OF MINISTERS 141 
 
 On the next day he opened the decisive battle by a 
 tactical manoeuvre, as he called it. He had felt the 
 ground by remarking in a speech on the day before 
 that, so long as the legislature and the executive were 
 opposed to each other instead of being closely united, it 
 would be impossible to restore vigour to the Government 
 He now began by dealing with subjects apparently little 
 connected with what he had most at heart the food 
 supply of the capital, the inconvenience and danger 
 caused by the hoarding or exportation of the currency. 
 It was only at the end of his speech that he took 
 occasion to deplore the want of a good understanding 
 between the ministry and the Assembly as an obstacle 
 to all energetic action on the part of the authorities. 
 He begged his audience to allow him for a moment to 
 direct their attention to England. Perhaps they might 
 hope to frame a more perfect constitution than that of 
 Great Britain, but they could not hope to devise one 
 more generally popular. Never since the English 
 Parliament existed had it been proposed to exclude 
 from it the ministers of the Crown. He then, with 
 admirable lucidity, pointed out the advantages arising 
 from the presence of the heads of the administration in 
 the legislature. It is difficult to understand how any 
 men, however besotted by theory and prejudice, could 
 have been blind to what was so obvious ; and on this 
 day it seemed not impossible that Mirabeau might carry 
 the motion with which he concluded : " that the ministers 
 of the Crown should henceforth be invited to attend the 
 meetings of the Assembly." He was supported by the 
 Count of Clermont-Tounerre, the Dukes of Aiguillon 
 .ind La Rochefoucauld, by Garat and other constitutional
 
 142 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 monarchists. The Left were apparently unprepared to 
 discuss the question, and only obtained an adjournment 
 of the debate by a narrow majority. On the next day 
 the temper of the House had completely changed. The 
 attack on Mirabeau was begun by Montlosier, a member 
 of the Right, who maintained that ministers might often 
 be bad citizens chosen by the Government to mislead the 
 representatives of the people. Lanjuinais, who spoke 
 next, a radical, but on this occasion the tool of the 
 Archbishop of Bordeaux, exclaimed, " You are dominated 
 and carried away by the eloquence of a man of genius ! 
 What would he not be able to effect were he minister ! " 
 and he concluded by proposing " that the representatives 
 of the nation should be declared incapable of receiving 
 place, pension, or favour of any kind from the executive 
 power during the session of the legislature to which 
 they had been elected, and for three years following." 
 Scarcely had Lanjuinais sat down when a deputy named 
 Blin proposed as an amendment " that henceforth no 
 member of the Assembly might accept office." Upon 
 this there was applause from all sides, and loud cries of 
 "Divide." Whatever chance of success Mirabeau may 
 have had on the previous day, it was clear that the 
 general feeling of the Assembly was now hostile to him. 
 It must not be forgotten that he never led a "party, "he 
 had no followers on whom he could reckon ; the only 
 votes he commanded were those of the members whom 
 he persuaded by his arguments or fascinated by his 
 eloquence. Common sense, the logic and the earnest- 
 ness of the orator had told on November 6 : during 
 the night intrigue, prejudice, fanaticism, suspicion, and 
 envy had been able to reassert their authority.
 
 vni DEFEAT OF MIRABEAU 143 
 
 The Right dreaded the formation of a strong and 
 liberal ministry which might consolidate and perpetuate 
 the conquests of the Revolution. The factious and all 
 who saw their advantage in the weakness of the 
 Government and the continuation of anarchy were not 
 less opposed to whatever might give vigour to the 
 executive. Some honest radicals were doubtless in- 
 fluenced by the rumours spread in Paris that the 
 Court was seeking to bribe the representatives of the 
 people, others could not contemplate with equanimity 
 the proposed violation of the sacred principle of the 
 separation of the three powers. Whatever votes the 
 ministry could influence were employed to prevent 
 anything that might facilitate Mirabeau's accession to 
 power; and Necker still had friends among the con- 
 stitutional monarchists, the admirers of English institu- 
 tions, the very men who would otherwise have been 
 most disposed to welcome the idea of a parliamentary 
 Cabinet. And lastly, not a few men agreed with Mira- 
 beau's conclusions, but voted against him from profound 
 distrust of his motives, and because they believed him 
 to be pleading the cause of his own ambition. Deserted 
 by Lafayette, Mirabeau stood practically alone against 
 all these opponents. Before Blin sat down he must 
 have known that all was lost. He had ventured to 
 hope that the day at length had dawned when he 
 would be able to make a worthy use of his great gifts. 
 And now that this hope was crushed, what rage, what 
 despair must have filled his heart ! Rage at the per- 
 verse folly of the slaves of phrases which they mis- 
 called principles, at the suicidal infatuation of the 
 Right, at the thought of his own past which prevented
 
 144 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 him from winning the perfect confidence of any section 
 of his colleagues : despair that an opportunity which 
 might never recur had slipped from his grasp. Event 
 so pressed on event, the dissolution of the State 
 advanced with such giant strides, that what could be 
 done to-day might be impossible to-morrow. Even if 
 at the eleventh hour the king should place himself in 
 his hands, could he hope to save the Monarchy by the 
 mere force of his genius, after the executive had been 
 disarmed and paralysed, after the last vestiges of sub- 
 ordination had vanished from the army, the last loyal 
 prejudice from the hearts of the people 1 
 
 Never, perhaps, was Mirabeau greater than at this 
 moment. The blow which shattered his ambition 
 neither shook his firmness nor deprived him of the 
 entire possession of his faculties. He once more 
 ascended the tribune, and with admirable readiness and 
 self-control again pleaded a cause which, as the sarcastic 
 irony of his conclusion shows, he well knew to be 
 hopeless. It could not be, he said, that the member 
 who brought forward such a motion wished to imply 
 that a good minister was not to be found among the 
 chosen men of the nation. Nor could he mean that 
 because a citizen had been able to win the confidence 
 of the people he therefore must necessarily be unworthy 
 of the confidence of the monarch. After the Assembly 
 had solemnly declared all citizens equally eligible to all 
 employments and offices, were they to except from this 
 equality those twelve hundred deputies who had been 
 honoured by the suffrages of a great people 1 or was the 
 mover convinced that the ministry and the Assembly 
 ought to be so divided and opposed to each other that
 
 viii DEFEAT OF MIRABEAU 145 
 
 every measure likely to establish a closer connection, 
 greater harmony and unity between them ought to be 
 avoided 1 ... or was it thought that the king in the 
 selection of his ministers ought to prefer his courtiers 
 or those perhaps who had vainly sought the suffrages of 
 the electors to the chosen representatives of his people ? 
 If the minister in whom the nation had placed all its 
 hopes, who had been recalled to power by an almost 
 unanimous outburst of popular feeling, had sat among 
 them, was it maintained that this should have in- 
 capacitated him from accepting office 1 ? He could not 
 believe it, for he could not bring himself to believe that 
 which was palpably absurd. Clearly then the intention 
 of the mover must be something different. It might 
 perhaps be expedient to prevent some individual 
 member from becoming minister. But great principles 
 ought not to be sacrificed to obtain a particular end. 
 He would therefore propose as an amendment that the 
 members of the Assembly whom the mover must have 
 in view should be excluded from the ministry. These 
 could only be two. The other representatives had given 
 too many proofs of independence, courage, and public 
 spirit for it to be possible to suppose that they could 
 be the object of his apprehensions. "But there are," 
 so he ended, "two representatives about whom he and 
 I may speak our minds more freely and certainly it 
 would seem that his motion must be aimed at one or 
 the other of these two. You must already, gentlemen, 
 have guessed who these are the mover himself and I. 
 I mention him, because it is possible that his diffident 
 modesty or irresolute courage fears that some great 
 mark of confidence may be thrust upon him, and that 
 
 L
 
 146 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 he trusts to secure a pretext for refusing it by this 
 general disability. And next I say myself, because 
 certain rumours which have been spread about me may 
 have excited the hopes of some and the fears of others, 
 and it is possible that the mover may have believed 
 these reports and that his estimate of me may be the 
 same as my own ; in which case I am not surprised that 
 he should think me little fitted to discharge the duties 
 of an office which is indeed far above, not my zeal or 
 my courage, but my talents and my attainments : 
 especially if I am to be deprived of the instruction and 
 the counsels which I have ever received in this 
 Assembly. 
 
 " This then, gentlemen, is the amendment I beg leave 
 to move that the proposed incapacity to hold office 
 should apply only to M. de Mirabeau, member for the 
 Commons of Aix." 
 
 Mirabeau was listened to with impatience and sat 
 down amid groans. The motion that henceforth none 
 of the members of the Assembly might accept office 
 under the Crown was carried by a large majority. 
 
 There was no more fatal day than this in the annals 
 of the French Monarchy, if it prevented the formation 
 of a ministry composed of the leading members of the 
 Assembly and including Mirabeau. The plan proposed 
 by him to the Count of Provence was open to obvious 
 objections. If the first part of it was successfully carried 
 out, would the king and queen, surrounded at Rouen by 
 the Swiss and other loyal troops, have been able to 
 resist the temptation of struggling against innovations 
 which they detested 1 ? Would they have followed the 
 advice of the man whom they regarded as a dangerous
 
 vni STATE OF THE COUNTRY 147 
 
 enemy, and not rather have listened to the advice of 
 their courtiers and friends ? Had Mirabeau, on the other 
 hand, become the virtual prime minister in a parlia- 
 mentary cabinet, there is no doubt that he would at 
 once have attempted to form a strong party composed 
 of all the moderate men in the Assembly. He would 
 have used the legislature to coerce the Court, and the 
 influence which the king still possessed to guide the 
 legislature. The delight which the people of Paris 
 showed at the presence among them of the royal family, 
 the recognition by the most violent and fanatical 
 demagogues of the fact that the populace was not yet 
 ripe for republican institutions, the undoubted loyalty 
 of the provincial visitors at the festival of July 14 
 nearly a year later, a hundred other indications prove 
 that the traditional devotion of the French people to 
 the Crown, as the centre and symbol of national life, 
 was not extinct, and might have proved a powerful 
 instrument in the hands of a skilful politician, if the 
 king could have been induced to adopt a line of con- 
 duct so decided as to convince his subjects that he was 
 no enemy to the Revolution. 
 
 The treasury was empty, the army mutinous, the 
 fears and the hopes of the populace were alike ex- 
 travagant. Yet the miseries and crimes which were 
 impending might have been averted had the legislature 
 and the executive agreed to co-operate vigorously in the 
 repression of anarchy. The execution of the murderers 
 of the baker Francois, the increased vigour of the 
 municipality and the National Guard in checking dis- 
 order, the passing of a riot act, had greatly improved 
 the state of things in Paris, notwithstanding the
 
 148 MIRABEAU CHAP, vm 
 
 presence of innumerable vagrants and criminals, the 
 want of employment, the scarcity of food, and the 
 efforts of the factious on both sides -to stir up trouble 
 and to excite alarms. 
 
 In the provinces the urban authorities and militia 
 had in most districts checked further outrages, and for 
 the complete restoration of order it was only necessary 
 that the country people should be convinced that, while 
 feudalism had for ever fallen, the rights of property, 
 the obligations of contract, and the just demands of the 
 Government would be rigidly enforced. But there was 
 no room for hope so long as the executive authority was 
 in the hands of a ministry which remained totally 
 inactive, shamming dead, said their enemies, in order 
 that bankruptcy, riot, and anarchy might discredit the 
 Revolution ; paralysed, retorted their friends, by the 
 usurpations and mischievous meddling of the Assembly.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Policy of the Constituent Mirabeau's treaty with the Court His 
 advice to the King and Queen. 
 
 HOWEVER bitter his disappointment, Mirabeau's san- 
 guine disposition, his confidence in the resources of 
 his genius, did not long permit him to despair. Disgust 
 with the Assembly, which was, he said, as ill-conditioned 
 and as hard to guide as an obstinate ass, did not prevent 
 him from continuing to be regular in attendance and 
 assiduous in debate. The attention of the Constituent 
 was occupied by important matters during the later 
 months of 1789 and the beginning of 1790. Among 
 these were the administrative reorganisation and divi- 
 sion of the kingdom, the suppression of the old and the 
 establishment of an entirely new judicial system, and the 
 attempt to close the yawning gulf of bankruptcy by 
 casting into it the property of the Church. In the 
 discussion of all these questions Mirabeau played a 
 prominent part. Yet it does not appear that the policy 
 of the legislature was much influenced either by his 
 eloquence or his wisdom. He was listened to and 
 applauded when he flattered the prejudices of the day 
 and advocated foregone conclusions ; he was heard with 
 impatience and his warnings were disregarded when he 
 suggested amendments likely to palliate the evils which
 
 150 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 his practical insight would not permit him to ignore. 
 Always, he complained to La Marck, confined to the 
 part of adviser, never in a position to act, his destiny 
 was that of Cassandra to be ever prophesying the 
 truth and never to be believed. 
 
 Sieyes originated the new and uniform division of the 
 kingdom into departments, districts, and municipalities. 
 Talleyrand first suggested that the Assembly might find 
 in the property of the Church the means of avoiding 
 bankruptcy and of tiding over the financial difficulties. 
 Nor had Mirabeau the initiative in financial questions, 
 with which rightly or wrongly he was believed to be 
 specially conversant. When, on November 14, Necker 
 announced to the Assembly the absolute necessity of 
 raising 170,000,000 livres to meet the deficit, and pro- 
 posed the conversion of the Caisse d'Escompte into a 
 national bank and the issue of a paper currency of 
 240,000,000 livres, the really admirable speech, drafted 
 by Claviere, in which he criticised and condemned this 
 scheme, did not, although applauded, prevent the partial 
 acceptance of the minister's proposals. 
 
 On December 19 the Assembly adopted the recom- 
 mendations of their finance committee : that certain 
 concessions should be made to the Caisse d'Escompte, which 
 was in return to advance 80,000,000 livres to the State, 
 that Church property and domain lands to the value of 
 400,000,000 livres should be sold in the course of four 
 years and assignats to that amount issued, which should 
 be preferentially received by the State as the purchase 
 money, and thus gradually withdrawn from circulation. 
 
 Although the issue of assignats was suggested by his 
 friend Claviere, Mirabeau wholly condemned the policy
 
 ix HIS ACTIVITY 151 
 
 of the Assembly. He believed that the committee was 
 but the mouthpiece of the minister " who was climbing 
 the pinnacle of fame supported by the double crutch of 
 famine and paper money." What had been done could, 
 he maintained, only delay the catastrophe for a few 
 weeks, and he profoundly disapproved of an inconvertible 
 paper currency under the disguise of assignats. 
 
 Everything at this time inclined him to despondency. 
 His health was undermined by attacks of the numerous 
 and distressing ailments to which his iron constitution 
 eventually succumbed. A year of the life he led would 
 have been mortal to most men. He was not content 
 with burning the candle at both ends, he threw it into 
 the flames. " You must be a salamander," said Dumont, 
 " to be able to live in such a devouring furnace." Nights 
 of dissipation did not prevent him from beginning before 
 seven o'clock the unintermitted activity of his day. 
 
 When every allowance has been made for the assist- 
 ance he obtained from his atelier and to be able so 
 completely to direct and absorb the energies of others 
 implies no small expenditure of vital force we must still 
 marvel at the amount of work he accomplished. He 
 was unequalled, said an acute observer, in the art of 
 talking about what he did not understand. He boasted 
 that by an hour's conversation with an expert he could 
 obtain more information on any subject than others 
 would acquire by days of study. Yet he could not have 
 spoken so often and at such length on the most various 
 topics without laborious preparation. His public cor- 
 respondence was most extensive, and he found time 
 to write elaborate letters discussing, explaining, defending 
 his policy to his uncle, to Mauvillon and other private
 
 152 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 friends ; to La Marck he often sent several notes on the 
 same day. At a later period he composed day by day 
 the elaborate memoranda for the Court of which a part 
 are published in the two volumes of M. de Bacourt, and 
 during the last months of his life he was practically 
 foreign minister. He kept open house for politicians 
 whom he wished to influence and for his admirers from 
 the provinces, and he sent his visitors away marvelling 
 at the exuberant vigour of his conversation, and this 
 while he was suffering from diseases sufficient to have 
 reduced most men to the listless inactivity of a sick-room. 
 Even if the haemorrhages, the nephritic colics, ophthalmias, 
 and other maladies of Vincennes were exaggerated, if not 
 invented, to excite the sympathy of the authorities and 
 the pity of his father, his later ailments were certainly 
 authentic. Besides symptoms of organic disease, he had 
 repeated attacks of serious illness : an enteric fever in 
 February 1789, a jaundice in the following summer, 
 which was neglected and from which he never whqlly 
 recovered, constantly recurring and most painful inflam- 
 mation of the eyes. More than once he appeared in the 
 Assembly with his face bandaged and still bleeding from 
 the bites of leeches. 
 
 It is not strange that he should have been despondent. 
 On December 23 he wrote to La Marck that every- 
 thing was being defiled, corrupted, and dissolved by the 
 miasma of indecision and weakness, of ill-will and 
 dishonesty. " How weary and tired I am ! " he exclaimed, 
 yet he clung to the hope that sooner or later he might 
 find himself in power : and if so all might still be well. 
 "The Monarchy," he wrote to Mauvillon, "is imperilled 
 rather by lack of government than by conspiracies. If
 
 ix TREATY WITH THE COURT 153 
 
 no pilot is found, it is likely enough that the vessel may 
 drive on to the rocks : but if, in spite of prejudice and 
 jealousy, a man of capacity were called to the helm, you 
 can have little idea how easy it would be to steer into 
 deep water." 
 
 But by what means could those in command be 
 induced to signal to the one competent pilot? He 
 despaired of Lafayette. He would otherwise have 
 been less outspoken in the letter which he wrote to him 
 on December 1. "We live in a time of great events 
 but little men. I am less than ever able to discover 
 any one with whom I should care closely to associate 
 myself. ... I have always told you that the giddiness 
 of your elevation and your fatal indecision in what 
 concerns yourself blind you to the impossibility of per- 
 petuating a state of things only to be justified by success. 
 . . . Your liking for mediocrities, and your weakness 
 when your inclinations are concerned, will cause a 
 career, which might have been brilliant, to end in failure, 
 and endanger the Commonwealth by your ruin." 
 
 There was more hope of reaching the Court through 
 the Count of Provence, especially since Mirabeau had 
 had an opportunity of doing him a vital service. On 
 the night of December 24 the Marquis of Favras, 
 formerly an officer in the guards of Monsieur, was 
 arrested. A wild report spread of a conspiracy, approved 
 by the king's brother, to raise 30,000 men, to assassinate 
 Bailly and Lafayette, and to starve out Paris. Favras, 
 although a man of broken fortunes, who might, not 
 altogether unjustly, be described as an adventurer, was 
 courageous and loyal. He had doubtless been scheming 
 to release the king and queen, and it is certain that his
 
 154 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 intentions were known to his former master. The alarm 
 therefore of that pusillanimous prince was extreme, and 
 Mirabeau among others was consulted as to the best 
 way of meeting the danger. 
 
 He suggested, or approved of the suggestion, that 
 Monsieur should present himself before the municipal 
 authorities and disclaim all complicity with Favras, and 
 he composed for him a grandiloquent phrase exalting 
 the advantages conferred by the Revolution on prince 
 and people alike, since the royal power was the bulwark 
 of liberty, and the liberty of the people the surest 
 foundation of the Monarchy. The municipality was 
 flattered that the king's brother should pay such a 
 tribute to their authority, and Bailly hailed the prince 
 as the founder of political equality. 
 
 Mirabeau would have had the Count of Provence use 
 the popularity thus gained to force his way into power. 
 Ho wrote a paper for him, in which, after showing that 
 the interests of the king and of the nation were identical, 
 and that moderate men of all parties would rally round 
 the throne as soon as they were convinced that the 
 Government honestly meant to check both anarchy and 
 reaction, the Count was to ask his brother to place him 
 at the head of a ministry pledged to carry out such a 
 policy. Monsieur's courage failed when the time came 
 to place the paper in the king's hands. He was aware 
 that he was neither liked nor trusted at Court. " He 
 has," wrote Mirabeau, " the timidity as well as the 
 innocence of a child." "Innocence" was surely super- 
 fluous in a confidential letter. 
 
 By the end of January he was convinced that 
 nothing was to be hoped from the Count of Provence.
 
 ix TREATY WITH THE COURT 155 
 
 His forecast of the future became more and more gloomy. 
 Financial ruin would soon be completed by an issue of 
 paper money which would drive the last crown out of 
 circulation. On the other hand he feared a counter- 
 revolution to be attempted either by open violence or 
 by intrigue. If the Assembly was dissolved, it would 
 be found that it had not done its work well enough to 
 secure the Revolution. It was a game of blindman's- 
 buff. Never had such contemptible actors attempted 
 to play so mighty a drama on so vast a stage, " what 
 blind groping, what pusillanimous acquiescence on the 
 part of the Court, what a grotesque mixture of old ideas 
 and new projects, of petty repugnances and childish 
 longings, of willing and nilling (de wlonUs et de ndontts), 
 of abortive likes and dislikes ! . . . But the lowest depth 
 of all is Monsieur." 
 
 Partly, perhaps, because he felt himself slighted, 
 partly because, since he could find no sure ally in any 
 other quarter, he wished to secure the favour of the 
 populace, partly because those of his friends and assist- 
 ants who most counselled moderation were absent, La 
 Marck in Belgium, Dumont in England, Duroveray in 
 Switzerland, Mirabeau's speeches during the first months 
 of 1790 were more than usually violent. Yet it would 
 be difficult to point out anything which he said or did 
 not to be reconciled with his avowed principles. It 
 may seem little in harmony with his reiterated advice 
 to strengthen the executive and secure the authority of 
 the Crown, that he should have opposed a proposal to 
 confer extraordinary powers on the king for the suppres- 
 sion of disorder, and should have controverted Maury, 
 who maintained that by depriving the king of all part in
 
 156 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 judicial appointments the Assembly was organising the 
 law-courts on a republican model. But it was scarcely 
 to be expected that Mirabeau would support a measure 
 intended to strengthen the hands of a minister whom 
 he believed to be not less fatal to France than hostile to 
 himself; while as regards the appointment of the judges 
 he contents himself in his speech with a verbal triumph 
 over Maury, and is careful to express no opinion what- 
 ever on the merits of the question. He ended, indeed, 
 with the remarkable and enigmatic words : " I have not 
 taken part in the previous debate, partly because I 
 mistrust my judgment, partly because I have formed 
 other views on this subject, suitable to other seasons 
 and circumstances." 
 
 In the spring of 1790 anarchy and violence, which 
 for a time had abated, were more than ever rampant in 
 the provinces. The extreme party was more violent 
 and more influential in the Assembly. The Count of 
 Mercy urged the king and queen to have recourse to 
 Mirabeau. La Marck was summoned from Belgium to 
 conduct the negotiations with his friend. Everything 
 was to be secret. The ministers were to know nothing 
 of the treaty between the Court and their enemy. A 
 private interview convinced Mercy that the orator had 
 both the power and the will to serve the king. La 
 Marck's reiterated assurances that his friend had taken 
 no part in the events of October 5 and 6, if they did 
 not remove, at least mitigated the repugnance of Marie 
 Antoinette. 
 
 At the request of Lewis XVI. Mirabeau wrote a 
 political confession of faith. He protested that he was 
 a royalist from confidence in the character and sympathy
 
 ix TREATY WITH THE COURT 157 
 
 with the situation of the king, and yet more because he 
 knew that France could only be saved by restoring the 
 legitimate authority of the Crown. On the other hand 
 he was convinced that any attempt to bring about a 
 counter-revolution would be not less dangerous than 
 criminal. He promised to do his utmost to secure to 
 the king the control of the executive power, and with 
 this object he would constantly communicate his views 
 and advice to the Court and endeavour to influence 
 public opinion by means of agents in the provinces. 
 " I promise the king," he concluded, " loyalty, zeal, 
 activity, energy, and a courage surpassing all that is 
 probably expected of me. I promise everything except 
 success, which one man cannot command, and which it 
 would be rash and criminal presumption for me to 
 warrant, when so terrible a fever undermines the State 
 and endangers the monarch." 
 
 This was written on May 10, and a few days later 
 the bargain was completed. The terms were liberal 
 Mirabeau's debts, to the amount of 200,000 livres were to 
 be paid. He was to receive 6000 livres monthly, and four 
 bills, each to the amount of 250,000 livres, were entrusted 
 to La Marck, to be handed to him at the end of the 
 session, if the king should then be satisfied with his 
 services. Not only Calonnes and Polignacs, political 
 and social adventurers, even men of honour, such as 
 Marshal Segur, permitted the king to pay their debts 
 and accepted his pensions, whether secret or not, without 
 any sense of degradation, but Mirabeau's delight was so 
 open and effusive that the indulgent La Marck was 
 slightly shocked. No doubt the certainty of what 
 appeared unlimited wealth to one who had practised the
 
 158 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 art of living largely on a slender and precarious income, 
 the prospect of satisfying to the full a taste for ostenta- 
 tious profusion, as well as of escaping from the daily 
 humiliations of insolvency, may account for much of 
 Mirabeau's satisfaction. But it had other and worthier 
 grounds. He could not believe that the Court did not 
 mean to use the instrument for which they paid so high 
 a price. 
 
 So far his career had been a failure. Fame indeed 
 was his. His reputation as an orator was established 
 beyond all rivalry. Once and again his eloquence had 
 swayed the Assembly. Whatever might come here- 
 after, the old order had fallen shattered into fragments 
 which no ingenuity could again build into a lasting 
 fabric ; and so long as the memory of this ruin endured 
 the name of Mirabeau must survive. But this was not 
 the immortality to which he aspired. He did not, he 
 said, wish his name to go down to posterity associated 
 only with a great destruction a destruction, moreover, 
 which was not his work. His influence over the course 
 of events had so far not been great. It was not he who 
 proposed the momentous oath in the Tennis Court, nor 
 was it his reply to Breze" which determined the Commons 
 to continue to sit and deprived the king of the resolution 
 to use force against them. It was not his eloquence but 
 the attitude of Paris which led to the withdrawal of 
 the troops from the neighbourhood of the capital and 
 the abandonment of a policy of repression. Even in 
 matters of finance the Assembly had listened to the 
 supporters of Necker rather than to him, and his 
 greatest oratorical triumph had been won when urging 
 the adoption of the minister's measure. He had not
 
 ix TREATY WITH THE COURT 159 
 
 originated the sale of the property of the Church, and 
 he had disapproved of the issue of assignats. Too 
 often his audience had applauded the violence of his 
 rhetoric and rejected the moderation of his conclusions. 
 But since he had become the adviser of -the Crown he 
 trusted to be able to shape the policy of the Government. 
 His boundless confidence in his personal influence forbade 
 him to doubt that, when once the king was convinced 
 how superior he was to his other advisers, he would 
 become a trusted minister, and this without forfeiting 
 his popularity, for, if Lewis XVI. would be guided by 
 him and frankly accept the Revolution, the servant of 
 the most popular of kings would share with his master 
 the love and gratitude of the nation. And if so, what 
 might he not hope to effect ! "When he saw the 
 enthusiasm with which Lafayette was greeted on the 
 day of the Federation, the readiness of the people to 
 prostrate themselves before their idol, he said to the 
 friends about him: " If ever I became minister you would 
 do well to stab me on the spot, for in a year you would 
 all be my slaves." 
 
 But such hopes were destined to bitter disappoint- 
 ment. His connection with the Court was barren of all 
 result, except the production of those admirable papers 
 which he entrusted on his death-bed to La Marck, as the 
 best materials for the future vindication of his memory. 
 These elaborate notes, of which he wrote on an average 
 two every week, discussing events, suggesting how the 
 difficulties of the day might best be met, or sketching 
 schemes of policy, were, as a French writer observes, 
 little else than one more newspaper, to which the king 
 and queen were the only subscribers. Except in unim-
 
 160 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 portant details, his advice was not followed, for he was 
 never trusted. When in the last few" months of his 
 life he to some extent influenced the policy of the 
 Government, it was after he had formed relations with 
 Montmorin, quite independently of the treaty with the 
 Court. 
 
 It cannot be maintained that Mirabeau'was always 
 consistent in his advice. He vacillates between two 
 alternative policies. The earlier, the more moderate, 
 the wiser of these was to profit by the distaste with 
 which a large part of the Assembly regarded the 
 excesses which they had been led to countenance, so as 
 to form a constitutional majority in the legislature and 
 to govern through it. This would be easy if the support 
 of Lafayette could be secured, and if the repeal of the 
 mischievous decree excluding members from office were 
 to allow the king to place some of the leaders of the 
 Left in power. They would be sobered by the sense 
 of responsibility. They would feel the necessity of 
 strengthening the authority of the Crown if it were 
 placed in their hands. When Lafayette proved irre- 
 concilable, when Mirabeau recognised the impossibility 
 of persuading the Assembly to forget their jealousy and 
 to permit the formation of a parliamentary government, 
 when he saw the rapid disintegration of the whole 
 social structure, he began to suggest measures by which 
 it might be possible to save the Monarchy without or 
 in opposition to the Assembly. He was not over nice 
 in the choice of these means. If the representatives of 
 the nation cannot be made the instruments of a sound 
 policy, they will, he argued, be the most dangerous 
 adversaries of such a policy, and in that case nothing
 
 ix ADVICE TO THE COURT 161 
 
 must be left undone which may tend to undermine their 
 popularity and authority. Yet he generally advises 
 caution and patience. The Assembly has undertaken a 
 task under which it must succumb. It has devised a 
 constitution with unworkable machinery, of which the 
 faults will be patent as soon as an attempt is made to 
 set it in motion. It has usurped one by one all the 
 functions of the executive, and will therefore incur the 
 odium of all that is left undone or done amiss. It has 
 become the slave of the Parisian rabble and of the 
 demagogues who direct that rabble, and must therefore 
 become an abomination to all orderly citizens and to all 
 the inhabitants of the provinces, who are jealous of the 
 preponderance of the capital. It must in the end be 
 crushed by the discredit of the mistakes it has committed, 
 of the hopes it has failed to realise, of the evils it has 
 caused or has been unable to prevent. In the meantime 
 the friends of the Monarchy should insidiously lure it 
 forward, multiply occasions of offence, and neglect no 
 means of stimulating popular hostility and contempt. It 
 did not apparently occur to him that this was little else 
 than that policy of the Extreme Right the reckless 
 folly of which he had severely and justly condemned, 
 Sometimes he suggests bolder counsels : that the king 
 should leave Paris and summon the Assembly to join 
 him in some town, where the representatives of the 
 nation would no longer be terrorised by the clubs and 
 by the organised mob in the galleries and in the streets. 
 He allowed that it was possible, even probable, that the 
 Assembly might be unwilling or unable to obey the 
 royal summons, and that the result might then be civil 
 war. But, as he wrote to Mauvillon, there were times 
 
 M
 
 162 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 when it appeared to him that civil war was an unavoid- 
 able evil : and perhaps not wholly an evil. It would rouse 
 the majority from their lethargy, bring the true leaders 
 of opinion, of parties, of the people to the front. In one 
 of his notes for the Court he says : " Civil war is 
 generally the last and most terrible alternative, yet even 
 it might offer opportunities for securing liberty, the 
 constitution, and the royal authority. What is essential 
 is that the provinces should not give themselves to the 
 king, but that he should place himself in the hands of 
 the provinces"; i.e. that he should not lead a mere 
 reactionary movement. Nay, he insisted, even were 
 Lewis XVI. replaced on his throne by the enemies of his 
 people, the old order could not be re-established. Come 
 what might, the great principles of the Revolution must 
 be maintained : and the king should not trust to the 
 help of French reactionists or foreign armies. 
 
 Marie Antoinette unfortunately could not see that the 
 Revolution was more than a passing frenzy. The deep 
 irresistible current appeared to her as tumultuous and 
 fickle as the wild waves raised upon the surface by 
 battling winds. She turned a deaf ear to Mirabeau's 
 politic and insistent warnings, as to the mere verbiage 
 of a man whose tongue had acquired the trick of 
 popular talk, and attached importance to that part only 
 of his advice of which the wisdom was most questionable. 
 No doubt also the want of consistency in the policy 
 recommended by Mirabeau, as well as in his public 
 conduct and language, increased the disinclination of 
 the king and queen to trust themselves to his guidance. 
 But La Marck justly pointed out that, so long as no part 
 of his advice was followed, he would not feel that it was
 
 ix ADVICE TO THE COURT 163 
 
 incumbent on him to be consistent. It is rarely the 
 case that one line of action is so demonstrably the best 
 that a reasonable man may not in deliberation hesitate 
 between it and another ; and he who finds that he 
 cannot persuade those whom he advises to take what 
 he considers the best course is surely justified in also 
 suggesting the next best alternative. Nor should it be 
 forgotten that Mirabeau was, as his friend says, very 
 impressionable, at one moment despondent, at another 
 so elated that he was apt to ignore or make light of the 
 most formidable obstacles.
 
 CHAPTEE X 
 
 The right of declaring war The Feast of the Federation Inter- 
 view with the King and Queen Despondency of Mirabeau 
 He inclines to the Left. 
 
 THE treaty between Mirabeau and the Court had 
 scarcely been concluded before he had an opportunity 
 of showing how far he was both able and willing to 
 assist his new allies. English settlers had been ejected 
 by Spanish men-of-war from Nootka Sound, a harbour 
 of Vancouver's Island. It was the familiar question 
 between occupation on the one side, and ownership 
 based on indefeasible but somewhat shadowy rights on 
 the other. The British Government had taken the 
 matter up with spirit, and the Spaniards might reasonably 
 expect that France, closely united as the two countries 
 were by the Family Compact, would at least so far throw 
 her weight into the scale as to enable her ally to 
 negotiate on less unequal terms. Montmorin, the minister, 
 of foreign affairs, announced to the Assembly that his 
 master had ordered fourteen ships of the line to be got 
 ready for commission, and asked for the necessary grant 
 of money. In the debate to which this request gave 
 rise, and in spite of the protests of Mirabeau, Alexander 
 Lameth raised the question whether the right of 
 declaring war and concluding peace should henceforth
 
 CHAP, x THE RIGHT OF DECLARING WAR 165 
 
 be entrusted to the king. That the Government might 
 hope to distract the attention of the people from domestic 
 reforms by foreign war, and to restore the discipline of 
 the army by active service, was indeed a fear less 
 extravagant than many which agitated the Assembly. 
 For fonr days the debate raged; on the fifth day, 
 May 20, Mirabeau intervened. He was conciliatory, 
 moderate, almost modest. He pointed out that the 
 Assembly possessed in ministerial responsibility and in 
 the absolute control of the purse full security against 
 any misuse by the king of the right of declaring war, 
 yet he attempted to conciliate the prejudices of his 
 audience by allowing that such a prerogative might be 
 dangerous to liberty. He was much more in earnest 
 when he insisted on the danger of leaving the question 
 of peace or war entirely to the legislature. Would an 
 irresponsible Assembly decide more carefully than the 
 monarch and his responsible ministers'? Were kings 
 alone the enemies of peace ? Is a body of seven hundred 
 men secure from sudden gusts of passion, from contagious 
 emotions ? " While one among you is urging delibera- 
 tion, his voice will be drowned by the shouts of those 
 who are clamouring for war : you will see round you an 
 army of citizens. You may not be deceived by the 
 ministers, but will you never deceive yourselves ? " He 
 ended by reading a series of resolutions which divided 
 the right and the responsibility of deciding on war 
 between the king and the legislature, but without 
 explicitly stating whether the formal declaration of war 
 was to be made by the king or the Assembly. He 
 acknowledged that these resolutions were defective, and 
 he took the opportunity to deplore that the great master
 
 166 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 of political science, the founder of the constitution, had 
 not been persuaded to solve the difficult problem his 
 silence was a public calamity. A politic compliment 
 to conciliate the numerous admirers of Sieyes, whom 
 at other times Mirabeau nicknamed Mahomet, in derision 
 of his self-complacent airs of infallible wisdom. 
 
 The intentional ambiguity of Mirabeau's resolutions 
 " leading to constitutional anarchy " was the point chiefly 
 dwelt on by Barnave in an eloquent reply. The legis- 
 lature, he said, was the natural, the sole exponent of 
 the national will, and, when the nation willed war, 
 a vote of the legislature must be the outward and 
 visible sign of that act of volition. War therefore 
 must be declared by the Assembly after receiving the 
 king's message. Mirabeau listened so far, hastily made 
 a few notes, and exclaiming, "I have heard enough," 
 left the Assembly to enjoy the fresh air and the con- 
 versation of Madame de Stael in the Tuileries gardens. 
 
 The revolutionists did their utmost to excite popular 
 feeling against the man whom they called, and perhaps 
 believed to be, a venal renegade. That he had been 
 bought by the Court was an old story, so often repeated 
 that now when he had actually become the pensioner of 
 Lewis XVI. it does not seem to have produced much 
 effect. He certainly took no pains to divert suspicion. 
 As Providence had mercifully added a rattle to the tail 
 of the most deadly of snakes, so, said the enemies of 
 Mirabeau, indiscretion had been mercifully joined to 
 those brilliant and vicious parts which might otherwise 
 have been so fatal to his fellow-citizens. Precautions 
 had indeed been taken by the Court to ensure the 
 secrecy of the bargain the queen's almoner, M. de
 
 x HIS EXTRAVAGANCE 167 
 
 Fontanges, Archbishop of Narbonne, a worthy and 
 discreet man, a member of the Assembly much trusted 
 by the king, had been chosen as the medium of 
 communication. He could find opportunities of seeing 
 Mirabeau and La Marck without attracting attention. 
 But it was soon generally known that money had passed. 
 Desmoulins asked his former associate whether it was 
 true that he had sold himself to the king. Come and 
 dine with me, said Mirabeau, and you shall have your 
 answer. But answer there was none, unless a dinner 
 more choice than those which had all but corrupted 
 Camille's patriotism at Versailles was the answer. La 
 Marck vainly remonstrated with his friend upon the 
 folly of inviting attention to the change in his circum- 
 stances by a largely increased expenditure. He moved 
 from his lodgings to a house in the Chaussee d'Antin, 
 moderate in size but furnished within like a lady's 
 boudoir. Here he dispensed lavish hospitality in a dining- 
 room characteristic of his ostentatious want of taste. 
 
 On one side was a sideboard laden with costly plate, 
 on another shelves of well-bound books ; another was 
 hung with pictures " representing the pleasures of the 
 table " ; the fourth was covered with rare engravings. 
 By the side of each guest stood a dumb waiter laden 
 with bottles of wine, plates, glasses, and other require- 
 ments. In order that the presence of the servants might 
 not restrain conversation, they only appeared at the end 
 of each course to change the dishes. He bought gems 
 as well as plate. He collected a large library his best 
 investment, he said which at his death sold for 140,000 
 livres. In short, he squandered the ready money he 
 was so little accustomed to possess, for every purpose
 
 168 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 except for that of paying his debts. What is remarkable 
 and characteristic of the time is that this ill-judged 
 extravagance appears to have done Mirabeau little harm. 
 The charge of venality was constantly repeated by his 
 opponents, but they did not brandish it over his head 
 with the spirit and confidence we should have expected, 
 had they felt it to be a really effective weapon. The 
 populace, without stopping to ask whence the money 
 came which paid for it, soon learnt to cheer his blue 
 carriage with as much fervour as the white charger of 
 General Lafayette. 
 
 But on May 22, as Mirabeau made his way to the 
 Assembly, hawkers were shouting in the streets a 
 scurrilous pamphlet, " The disclosure of the great Treason 
 of the Count of Mirabeau," and agents of the revolu- 
 tionary wire-pullers had been active in denouncing him 
 to the mob within and without the House. He was 
 greeted with cries of "To the lantern!" "What, 
 Mirabeau?" said a colleague as he entered ; "yesterday 
 the Capitol, to-day the Tarpeian rock ! " 
 
 Never perhaps were Mirabeau's splendid gifts as a 
 debater more conspicuous than now, when he stood up 
 in the tribune and, facing the jeers of the Eight, the 
 howls and execrations of the galleries, and the murmurs 
 of the Left, compelled the attention of his audience by 
 the dignified and measured energy of his language and 
 the cogency of his reasoning. Many of his most admired 
 speeches were written for him by others : he only 
 contributed though that was much the tones and 
 gestures, the arts by which a consummate actor can 
 invest a trivial part with importance and pathos, or 
 added here and there some brilliant passage suggested
 
 x THE RIGHT OF DECLARING WAR 169 
 
 by the hint of a friend or by the argument of an 
 adversary, some telling retort provoked by the angry 
 interruptions of his opponents ; but on this occasion his 
 speech was not the laboured production of his workshop : 
 the lofty rhetoric, the serried argument were the im- 
 mediate inspiration of his genius. 
 
 Chapelier, a moderate member of the Left, had proposed 
 amendments to the resolutions moved by Mirabeau 
 which emphasised the concurrence of the Assembly in 
 the declaration of war. These he accepted. He began 
 his speech by deploring that charges of treachery and 
 venality should be brought against all who ventured to 
 express moderate opinions, and that the threat of 
 popular vengeance should be the weapon of intolerance. 
 Was it believed to be so impossible that two opinions 
 might be honestly held on a most delicate and difficult 
 constitutional question ? " A few days ago," he continued, 
 " the people sought to carry me in triumph, now the 
 ' Great Treason of the Count of Mirabeau ' is shouted in 
 the streets. It needed not this lesson to teach me how 
 short the distance is from the Capitol to the Tarpeian 
 rock. But he who fights for reason and for his country 
 is not so easily intimidated. Such blows, aimed at me 
 from below, cannot stop me. To such assailants I 
 reply : first answer me if you can, then calumniate 
 me as much as you please." Barnave, he pointed out, 
 had argued as if the constitutional king of the future, 
 acting through responsible ministers, was to be an 
 autocratic despot. Power under any form of govern- 
 ment might be abused : if they thought the possible 
 abuse of the royal power outweighed the advantages 
 of a monarchical constitution, let them say "We will
 
 170 MIRABEAU CUAT. 
 
 have no king," but not " We will have an impotent and 
 useless king." 
 
 The resolutions proposed by Mirabeau were carried 
 with Chapelier's amendments. Barriave and his friends 
 claimed the victory, for Mirabeau in his first speech had 
 maintained the inadvisability of entrusting the right of 
 declaring peace and war to the legislature, and it had 
 now been enacted that war should be declared by a vote 
 of the Assembly. Yet when we consider all the circum- 
 stances, it is plain that Mirabeau was justified in 
 boasting that he had struck a telling blow in defence of 
 the Monarchy. Although he had fallen back from the 
 ground he had first occupied, he had successfully held 
 the key of the position. The resolutions he first 
 proposed would have left the right of declaring peace 
 and war unimpaired in the hands of the executive ; 
 they only affirmed the right, which the Assembly already 
 possessed, of refusing supplies and calling the ministers 
 to account. Barnave, on the other hand, would have 
 left it to the Assembly, and to the Assembly alone, to 
 declare peace and war. The decree finally carried 
 conferred the right of declaring war on the Assembly, 
 but only on the initiative of the king and subject to his 
 sanction. The contagion of no sudden frenzy, no 
 passionate and precipitate vote of their representatives, 
 could plunge the nation into war without the co-opera- 
 tion of the executive. The future, it is true, was to show 
 that these checks were practically worthless. But what 
 constitutional clauses would have availed a king bereft 
 of all freedom of action, the prisoner of a terrorised 
 legislature 1 
 
 Mirabeau boasted that he had formed a constitutional
 
 171 
 
 party, that he had led reformers and royalists to victory 
 under the standard of limited monarchy. He did not 
 care to acknowledge that he owed his majority to the 
 support of Lafayette, who, on this occasion at least, 
 had spoken out. So long as Mirabeau could control 
 neither the policy of the Court nor the votes of the 
 Assembly, the little finger of the commander of the 
 National Guards was more powerful than the loins of 
 the great orator. Out of doors, in the streets, there 
 were two powers : the National Guard, the disciplined 
 strength of the middle classes, and the army of the 
 Revolution, composed of the very lowest class of the 
 population, reinforced by tramps, criminals, and loafers 
 of every description, attracted to Paris by doles of food 
 and money, and by the prospect of riot, plunder, and 
 impunity. "My head also," the orator boasted, "is a 
 power." Yes, but potential rather than actual. 
 
 There is no doubt that Mirabeau was popular. He 
 had his admirers both among the armed citizens of 
 Lafayette and among the rabble who shouted at the heels 
 of St. Huruge or Santerre, as well as among the respect- 
 able majority of the middle class who took no part in 
 either exciting or repressing riot. Unfortunately the 
 political fervour of these quiet people rarely sufficed to 
 carry them to the polling-booth, while the private 
 sympathies of the national guardsman and of the pro- 
 letariat yielded to the orders of their leaders and to 
 the contagious passions of their companions. Mirabeau 
 therefore could as little rely on effective popular support 
 as upon the votes of any party in the Assembly. It 
 was probably because he felt this that on June 1 he 
 again wrote to press his alliance on Lafayette. He
 
 172 MIRABEATJ CHAP. 
 
 blames the general for his inaction, for allowing events 
 to take their course at a time when each independent 
 atom of the new system, municipality, district, or depart- 
 ment is hurried on in the vortex with a momentum 
 constantly increased by each new event, by the contagion 
 of example, by the mischievous and untiring activity of 
 the most perverse men of the nation. Lafayette's 
 friends were fewer than he supposed ; and among those 
 few, although some were men of merit and courage, 
 there was not one who could supply the practical insight, 
 the deeply meditated policy, the inspired genius, the 
 commanding character which the juncture required. 
 Since he, and he alone, possessed these rare and in- 
 dispensable qualifications, it was not too much for him 
 to ask to play the part of Father Joseph to Lafayette's 
 Kichelieu, to be the dictator of the dictator. "Your 
 great qualities," he added with more modesty and less 
 sincerity, " need to be animated by my energy, and my 
 energy requires the support of your great qualities." 
 Lafayette still turned a deaf ear. Three weeks later 
 (June 20) Mirabeau proposed that the queen, in the 
 presence of the king, who must be tutored and trained 
 beforehand to play his part, should summon the general 
 to accept the co-operation of " the only statesman in the 
 country," of the one man pre-eminent in ability, courage, 
 and strength of character, a man to be won only by 
 the prospect of great dangers to be encountered for the 
 attainment of a great object and a great glory. " We," 
 she must say, " are resolved to trust Mirabeau with the 
 confidence of despair, and we feel that we can only secure 
 his help by placing ourselves unreservedly in his hands." 
 Mirabeau's unabashed self -laudation and the insulting
 
 x THE FEDERATION 173 
 
 assumption that Lewis XVI. was not only incapable of 
 speaking for himself, but needed careful preparation 
 even to enable him to play the part of chorus to his 
 wife's remarks, are equally astounding. 
 
 A letter written a few days later by Lewis XVI. to 
 Lafayette in the sense suggested by Mirabeau was 
 found in the celebrated iron cupboard of the Tuileries. 
 This letter was never sent ; but Marie Antoinette, in an 
 interview with the general, urged him to act with 
 Mirabeau, of whom she spoke sufficiently well to excite 
 Lafayette's suspicions. He too had shortly before 
 given advice to the Court, and had asked for and 
 obtained from the king a promise of full and undivided 
 confidence. Was he now to share this with Mirabeau 1 
 "I have," he said, "overcome the king of England in 
 his might, the king of France in his authority, the 
 people in their fury. I shall not yield to M. de 
 Mirabeau." "Good clap-trap," said Mirabeau, irritated 
 by such sententious vanity, "but he shall pay for it 
 sooner or later." His dislike of Lafayette was still 
 more embittered when the opposition of the commander 
 of the National Guard disappointed his hope of being 
 elected president of the Assembly at the time of the 
 Festival of the Federation (July 14). Lafayette 
 said that, when deputations from every part of the 
 country were assembled to celebrate the birth of liberty, 
 a citizen of untarnished virtue ought to preside over the 
 legislature, and through his influence M. de Bonnai, a 
 popular and respectable member of the Right, was 
 chosen. It is not uncharitable to suppose that it was 
 not the tarnished past of the great orator alone which 
 disqualified him in the eyes of " Cromwell-Grandison. "
 
 174 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 The Feast of the Federation was to be Lafayette's great 
 day. But Mirabeau as president of the Assembly, skilled 
 in every art and endowed with every quality to catch the 
 eye and ear of the populace, might invest his own part 
 with so much importance as to eclipse the leading actor. 
 Mirabeau bitterly lamented that the queen had been 
 unable to prevail on her husband to shake off his 
 sluggish diffidence at the Feast of the Federation. Had 
 Lewis XVI. appeared before the assembled people on 
 horseback at the head of the National Guards, and 
 addressed to them the short and stirring speech com- 
 posed by his adviser, the triumph of Lafayette would 
 have been turned into a defeat. The undoubted loyalty 
 of the crowd, which cheered even the queen, would have 
 risen to enthusiasm, and the deputations from every 
 part of the country would have returned to their homes 
 to confirm and spread the legend of a liberal and 
 patriotic king. Unquestionably a great opportunity of 
 saving the Monarchy had been missed. It can scarcely 
 be doubted that had the Court resolutely avoided all 
 appearance of reluctance and regret for the past, had 
 the Government shown a little capacity and nerve, the 
 vast majority of Frenchmen would gladly have supported 
 the authorities in an attempt to re-establish order and 
 to close the era of revolution in the summer of 1790. 
 Bouille in the eastern provinces was able to obtain the 
 assistance of the people and of the National Guards in 
 the suppression of anarchy and military insubordination, 
 because they were convinced that he had honestly 
 accepted changes which he did not pretend to like. 
 The revolutionary fever was abating in the pro- 
 vinces. The Venetian envoy, travelling from Spain
 
 x INTERVIEW WITH THE KING AND QUEEN 175 
 
 to Paris, after witnessing as an admiring spectator the 
 Feast of the Federation at Bordeaux, was struck with 
 the cheerful and law-abiding demeanour of the people 
 in Guienne, the Angoumois, Poitou, Touraine, and the 
 Orleannois, everywhere in fact, till he reached the Isle 
 de France and the capital; there discontent and sus- 
 picion prevailed, the nobility, he said, were sullen, 
 the middle classes divided by faction, the populace 
 ferocious. 
 
 Little more than a week before the ceremony in the 
 Champs de Mars, Mirabeau had a first and last interview 
 with the king and queen at St. Cloud. Marie Antoinette 
 with difficulty overcame the repulsion she felt for the 
 man whose name she could not dissociate from the 
 horrors of the 5th and 6th of October. But the situa- 
 tion fired Mirabeau's imagination. He, who had wept 
 tears of humiliation when the wounds inflicted by the 
 insulting distrust of his colleagues pierced his triple 
 armour of self-complacent pride, brazen assurance, and 
 moral obtuseness, saw himself accepted as the chosen 
 champion of the queen of France, the daughter of Maria 
 Theresa. " Madame," he exclaimed, " the Monarchy is 
 saved." He would sooner die than not perform what 
 he had undertaken. There is no doubt that he was 
 honestly touched by the grace, the dignity, and courage 
 of the queen. The apathetic good-nature of Lewis XVI. 
 did not discourage him, it seemed to promise that the 
 king would be a passive instrument in capable hands. 
 Marie Antoinette also expressed her satisfaction after 
 the interview. Mirabeau was not the monster she had 
 expected, and she believed that he perhaps meant 
 honestly. But she had not the slightest intention of
 
 176 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 placing herself unreservedly in his hands. The frank 
 acceptance of the Revolution, the abandonment for 
 good and all of every scheme for restoring the old order, 
 whether with or without foreign assistance, was insisted 
 upon by him from first to last as the necessary basis of 
 all sound policy. But to this Marie Antoinette would 
 not resign herself, nor could she believe him to be truly 
 her friend who would force her to do so. 
 
 We have already remarked that Mirabeau was apt, 
 partly from a certain imaginative optimism, partly from 
 an overweening confidence in his own powers, to 
 overlook or make light of obstacles. But for this 
 disposition he' could scarcely have thought of founding 
 the edifice of his hopes and his ambition on a basis so 
 shifting and treacherous as the confidence and co- 
 operation of the Court. He never indeed hoped much 
 from Lewis XVI. In the notes for the Court he laments 
 his blunders, his want of energy and decision. Indeed 
 he is outspoken to a degree which would have offended 
 ears even more accustomed to plain-speaking than those 
 of royalty. It was insulting to the queen, whom he 
 wished to conciliate, to assume as a matter of course 
 that her husband was so poor a thing. But he believed 
 that he could obtain the confidence of Marie Antoinette, 
 and that she possessed the resolution and ability, 
 together with the influence over her husband, which 
 would enable her trusted adviser to save the reformed 
 Monarchy. 
 
 There are some characters in history which it is all 
 but impossible to consider impartially ; names which 
 excite feelings opposed to dispassionate judgment not 
 less surely than the rallying cries of contemporary
 
 x THE QUEEN 177 
 
 party. It is not so much that the evidence is conflicting, 
 as that the facts appeal too strongly to our emotions for 
 us to be able to hold the balance with a perfectly even 
 hand. After every allowance has been made for the 
 natural desire of the opponents of the Revolution to 
 heighten the pathos of an effective legend, the authentic 
 story of the indignities, hardships, and sorrows borne 
 with patient courage and simple dignity by a high- 
 spirited and delicately nurtured princess is sufficient 
 to kindle in us a passionate pity for Marie Antoinette, 
 even were we not already biassed in her favour by the 
 monstrous calumnies of her enemies. Yet neither 
 pity nor indignation should blind us to the fact that if 
 Marie Antoinette was not a combination of Messalina 
 and Catherine de' Medici, she was as little the incarna- 
 tion of royal dignity, of feminine charm and ethereal 
 virtue which dazzled the fevered vision of Burke, 
 as, to descend from the transcendental heights of 
 panegyric and detraction, she was neither the tool of 
 Austrian intrigue, as so many of her subjects honestly 
 believed, nor yet, as her apologists insist, the patriotic 
 queen, who had no thought but for the safety of her 
 husband and the good of her adopted country. 
 
 Adversity was to prove that Marie Antoinette 
 possessed some solid virtues; in her prosperity she 
 could only be said to be not without amiable qualities. 
 She had the sensibility, the feeling heart by which 
 that generation set such store. She was a constant and 
 affectionate friend, and her graceful courtesy and good- 
 nature would have been pleasing even in a private 
 person. But she was thoughtless and self-indulgent, 
 too ready to show her likes and dislikes, too careless in 
 
 N
 
 178 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 the choice of her associates and in her conduct not to 
 lay herself open to misrepresentation. Her tastes were 
 neither refined nor intellectual ; not gross perhaps, but 
 frivolous and extravagant. She was far from being a 
 stupid woman, but she came to France a half -educated 
 girl, eager to enjoy herself and impatient of schooling. 
 Her mother had supplied her with a prudent mentor, 
 the Count of Mercy-Argenteau, and she attempted to 
 direct her inexperience by an indefatigable correspond- 
 ence. But Maria Theresa was, above all, anxious to 
 fashion her daughter into a useful instrument of her 
 policy, and Marie Antoinette was far more disposed to 
 satisfy her mother by supporting Choiseul and the 
 faction at the French Court supposed to be friendly to 
 Austria, than to follow her advice, when obedience 
 implied the sacrifice of her personal pleasures and 
 inclinations. Her influence over her husband, at all 
 events before the Revolution, has been generally ex- 
 aggerated. She was never able to persuade him to 
 restore office to Choiseul ; nor was it her solicitations 
 which led to the fall of Turgot, but rather the con- 
 viction of the king that the reforms proposed by that 
 minister amounted to a revolution, of which he dis- 
 approved, in the form of government. Lewis XVI. 
 may have resigned himself to the Revolution, as he 
 resigned himself to imprisonment and execution. His 
 honesty, his determination not to appeal to the sword 
 against his subjects, his apathy, might have led him 
 to accept the position of a constitutional ruler, but 
 even uninfluenced by his wife he would constantly have 
 regretted the golden age of autocratic kings surrounded 
 by a privileged yet subservient nobility.
 
 x THE QUEEN 179 
 
 Yet, in personal matters, the queen's influence was 
 great and almost invariably mischievous. The Count 
 of Mercy, had he chosen, could have given Mirabeau 
 instances of her feminine perversity and capacity for 
 shutting her eyes to what it was convenient to ignore, 
 sufficient to prove the folly of expecting her to become 
 the instrument of a policy she disliked, simply because 
 it was proved to be the only one possible. 
 
 Every precaution had been taken to keep the inter- 
 view between Mirabeau and the royal couple secret. 
 After sleeping at the house of his niece Madame 
 d'Aragon, he was driven to St. Cloud by his nephew 
 Du Saillant, disguised as a postilion. But it was soon 
 generally known that a meeting had taken place, and 
 the great treason of the Count of Mirabeau was again 
 loudly and confidently proclaimed. 
 
 The bright hopes which the grace of the queen and 
 the good-natured simplicity of the king had kindled in 
 the orator, were soon dimmed. He wrote on July 
 17 to La Marck that, unless the Court showed more 
 energy and supplied' him with the means of acting, 
 he should sacrifice himself without profiting them. 
 Nothing could be more outspoken than his note of the 
 same date for the king and queen. There was, he com- 
 plained, no room for hope, so long as all their feelings, 
 their plans and policy, were ruled by private considera- 
 tions and apprehensions ; so long as there was not 
 enough courage to employ or consult a sensible man, or 
 even to struggle out of the toils of traitors ; so long as 
 they dared not speak with some little authority and 
 dignity, or dismiss an incompetent ministry, dared not 
 seize the last chance left to the Monarchy and the
 
 180 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 last alternative to civil war. He insisted in the same 
 paper, and in one written a few days later, that it was 
 absolutely necessary that the king should leave Paris 
 for Fontainebleau. But there must be nothing 
 approaching to a secret flight. The sanction and 
 assistance of Lafayette must be openly demanded ; he 
 could not refuse it without proclaiming to the provinces 
 that the king was a prisoner in his capital, and the 
 commander of the National Guards of Paris his gaoler. 
 
 As the summer of 1790 wore away, Mirabeau became 
 more and more impatient. The king and queen must, 
 he said, make up their minds in one way or another. 
 Let them at least decide consistently to do nothing. 
 Inaction was dangerous enough, but infinitely wiser 
 than to oscillate between feeble resistance and sullen 
 acquiescence. 
 
 His hostility to Necker was not disarmed by the 
 diminished influence and waning renown of the once 
 idolised statesman. The opposition of the finance 
 minister to the issue of assignats was one at least of 
 the causes which converted Mirabeau, the previously 
 convinced opponent of inconvertible paper, into an 
 ardent admirer and advocate of this expedient. 
 
 It would be a waste of space to reproduce the 
 arguments by which Mirabeau recommended it to the 
 Assembly. To only one of these does he himself appear 
 to have attached any weight. In his note for the Court 
 of September 1 Mirabeau allows that the success of 
 the assignats is uncertain ; but, he asks, in what other 
 way was it possible to avoid the most terrible catas- 
 trophe? Some expedient must be found to satisfy, at 
 all events for a time, the creditors of the State, and also
 
 x HOSTILITY TO NECKER 181 
 
 of the Church, for when appropriating the property of 
 the clergy the Assembly had undertaken to discharge 
 their not inconsiderable debt. Moreover, the placemen 
 and others whose offices had been abolished were to 
 receive compensation, and, since the ordinary sources 
 of revenue had entirely failed, money must be obtained 
 to defray the most necessary expenses of administration. 
 Something had to be done, and a drowning man must 
 clutch at what is nearest. 
 
 There was also another, a less ostensible reason, which 
 weighed with Mirabeau. He welcomed the opportunity 
 of inflicting a final humiliation on the minister of 
 finance in his own department. Necker, indeed, clung 
 so desperately to office that even this blow might not 
 have sufficed to dislodge him, had not the mob been 
 slipped upon him by the Jacobin wire-pullers, who were 
 disturbed by the success of Bouille in repressing anarchy 
 at Nanci, and fearful lest his vigour and the good 
 conduct of the National Guards and troops under his 
 command should prove contagious. 
 
 Mirabeau probably was glad, by coming forward as 
 the leader of the revolutionary party in a question 
 which excited general interest, yet was less vital than 
 the maintenance of the last vestiges of discipline and 
 authority, to restore a popularity somewhat impaired 
 by the rumours of his understanding with the Court, by 
 his defence of the royal prerogative, and by a proposal 
 he made on August 20, that, to restore discipline, the 
 army should be disbanded and entirely reorganised, as 
 well as by his defence of Bouille. " More honesty and 
 less cleverness, Mirabeau, or 'ware the lantern," said 
 Freron in his Ami du Peuple. "Erect 800 gallows,"
 
 182 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 wrote Marat, "and let the infamous Kiqueti dangle from 
 the first." But all this was forgotten in the rapturous 
 applause with which the Left and the galleries greeted 
 the peroration of his speech in defence of assignats 
 on September 27 : " Let us venture to be great, let us 
 understand how to be just. To be legislators we must 
 be both." It was idle after this for Maury to brandish 
 in the tribune, amidst howls and laughter, two of Law's 
 notes "stained with the tears and blood of an earlier 
 generation." 
 
 The flight of Necker and the discredit of the Govern- 
 ment seemed to necessitate the formation of a new 
 ministry. Lafayette, though still the most influential 
 man in Paris, was not so popular as he had been, nor was 
 the devotion of the National Guards to their commander 
 so enthusiastic. Since the success of Bouille he was no 
 longer the only man in France who could dispose of an 
 armed and more or less disciplined force. All this was 
 hopeful. If only the king could be persuaded to throw 
 off his lethargy ! but of this Mirabeau began to despair. 
 "I confess," he wrote on September 28, "that I am 
 of very little use . . . for I a,m refused the means of 
 being useful. I am listened to with more patience than 
 confidence, there is more desire to know what I advise 
 than to follow my advice." Mercy- Argenteau was un- 
 fortunately recalled in September. La Marck was ill 
 able to supply his place as Mirabeau's interpreter and 
 advocate at court. Marie Antoinette could not altogether 
 trust so familiar a friend of the revolutionary leader. 
 
 In the beginning of October Mirabeau supposed the 
 fall of the ministry to be imminent, and, although 
 prostrated by sickness, he was indefatigable in urging a
 
 x CONCILIATES THE JACOBINS 183 
 
 change of policy upon the Court. He pointed out the 
 dangers which threatened the new constitution, dangers 
 which arose partly from external causes, partly from its 
 own inherent defects. 
 
 Everything must be done to convince the nation that 
 the king had honestly accepted the Revolution ; he must 
 ally himself with the popular party and entrust the 
 administration to the leaders of the Assembly, even to 
 the Jacobins.' "A Jacobin minister would no longer 
 be a Jacobin. " The wildest demagogue, when placed at 
 the helm and responsible for the safety of the State, 
 would recognise the insufficiency of the power of the 
 executive. But, if the perverse jealousy of the Assembly 
 insisted that ministers should be chosen from outside, 
 then the essential point was that they should not be 
 the creatures of Lafayette. No means of influencing 
 public opinion through the press and otherwise should 
 be neglected. Men must be gradually and insensibly 
 brought to desire that the constitution should be amended. 
 But at first it would be well to flatter their prejudices 
 and to soothe their feverish susceptibility. Remedies 
 must not be forced upon them until the intolerable 
 misery of the malady disposed them to submit to the 
 cure. The disease must be allowed to run its course, 
 nay, it might even be well to increase the suffering by 
 irritants. This last may have been honestly meant, but 
 Mirabeau was probably well pleased to be provided with 
 an apology for popular and even incendiary language in 
 the Assembly. He is more likely to have been wanting 
 in honesty than in political insight. 
 
 In February 1790 Mirabeau, who corresponded with 
 Clarkson and Wilberforce, had delivered an eloquent
 
 184 MIRABEAU CHAI-. 
 
 address on the slave-trade to the Jacobin Club ; but he 
 had subsequently ceased to attend the meetings of the 
 Society. He became a member, and in July was 
 president of the Club of 1789, founded by Sieyes, 
 Bailly, La Eochefoucauld, Lafayette, and other more 
 moderate members of the Left to maintain and popularise 
 the principles of the new constitution. But this body, 
 the patriotism of which manifested itself in choice 
 dinners, and which attempted to educate public opinion 
 by expounding the principles of social and political 
 science in a journal edited by the philosophic Condorcet, 
 was too much controlled by Lafayette. Nor could a 
 body so respectably superior rival in popular influence 
 the Society of the Friends of the People (the Jacobins), 
 to whose fervid debates the most tattered and penniless 
 patriot was welcomed, and to which philosophic 
 principles were but sounding commonplaces, flattering 
 popular prejudices and justifying popular passion. 
 
 Early in October 1790 Mirabeau again begun to 
 attend the meetings of the Jacobins. He was not ill 
 received, and he assured them that they were all dear 
 to him, while only a few of the Club of 1789 were 
 his friends. Many reasons probably combined to make 
 Mirabeau draw nearer to the extreme party during the 
 autumn of 1790. He was disappointed by the apathy 
 which the " royal cattle," as he did not scruple to call 
 the king and queen in a letter to La Marck, listened to 
 his "bucolics." He was above all disgusted that, while 
 deaf to him, they should open their ears to the mis- 
 chievous suggestions of such an unscrupulous though 
 clever knave as the pamphleteer Rivarol, and to the 
 foolish mutterings of such an addle-brained visionary as
 
 x CONCILIATES THE JACOBINS 185 
 
 the mesmerist Bergasse. " I confess," he said to La 
 Marck, "I do not know why I go on sending these 
 papers." Perhaps because he could not dispense with 
 the king's money. Another reason for propitiating the 
 Jacobins was common enmity to Lafayette, who was 
 becoming more and more distasteful to the Triumvirate 
 (Barnave, Lameth, and Duport), and who was suspected 
 by the leaders of the mob of an inclination to maintain 
 order. Mirabeau went so far as to insinuate to the 
 queen that Lafayette had joined with Orleans in 
 bringing the woman Lamotte to Paris, in order that 
 the odious scandal of the diamond necklace might be 
 revived, a charge so improbable to any one with the 
 least knowledge of the man, that it must have recoiled 
 upon the inventor. 
 
 Mirabeau also needed the help of the leaders of the 
 Left to drive the ministers from office. Necker was 
 gone, but his colleagues remained. The general anarchy 
 had spread to the fleet at Brest. The municipality 
 summoned the officers to appear, gave them such 
 orders as it pleased, and treated the authority of the 
 admiralty and of the king with contempt. The four 
 most important committees laid a joint report before 
 the Assembly, recommending measures by which this 
 state of things might be remedied and the usurpations 
 of the local authorities checked. Mirabeau induced 
 them also to advise that the president should demand 
 an audience of the king and inform him that the 
 distrust with which his ministers- inspired the people 
 was the main obstacle to the re-establishment of order. 
 This proposal was debated first. But, although the 
 galleries and two-thirds of the Assembly frantically
 
 186 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 applauded the invectives hurled from all sides at the 
 unfortunate ministers, the result of the division (Octo- 
 ber 19) disappointed their assailants, who found them- 
 selves in a minority of 340 to 403. Many moderate 
 members of the Left had not voted, or had deserted 
 their party. The manifest injustice of holding the 
 ministers responsible, when all means of action were 
 denied them, the contempt poured on them by the 
 Eight, which was at least a proof that they were not 
 the accomplices of the reactionists, the doubt whether 
 their successors would be more capable, and the fear 
 that they might be more dangerous, unwillingness to 
 inflict a last humiliation upon the already too powerless 
 monarch, such were among the motives which deter- 
 mined many. 
 
 Mirabeau's disappointment was extreme. He had 
 urged upon the king the dismissal of the ministry, 
 and that every attempt should be made to obtain the 
 admission of members of the Assembly to office. The 
 Court had done nothing. He had attempted to force the 
 king's hand by the action of the committees. He had 
 failed, and for once his political foresight appeared at 
 fault. He had not spoken during the debate in the 
 Assembly, but he gave vent to his feelings in a fiery 
 harangue at a meeting of the Jacobins; and if he 
 did not suggest, he at least did nothing to prevent 
 the abandonment by the committees of every effective 
 attempt to curb the licence of the municipality of Brest, 
 " whose errors after all only arose from an excess of that 
 patriotism which it would be ill-advised to discourage, 
 when their recent victory had very probably changed 
 the ministers from timid enemies into audacious tyrants."
 
 x THE TWO FLAGS 187 
 
 On October 21 the Assembly were asked to sanction 
 the futile measures for the restoration of order now 
 proposed by their committee. Among these was the 
 substitution of the tricolour for the white ensign in the 
 navy. A member of the Eight lamented that a flag 
 hallowed by so many glorious associations should be 
 cast aside "Leave," he said, " this three-coloured toy to 
 children." Upon this Mirabeau rushed to the tribune. 
 Such words " made his patriotism boil with a violence so 
 great that he could not contain himself." The Eight 
 burst into laughter. "Listen to me, gentlemen, for a 
 moment," he continued, turning to them ; "before I have 
 finished speaking you shall, I promise you, be little 
 disposed to laugh." He reminded them that a few 
 weeks earlier a man rash enough to show his contempt 
 for the national colours would have atoned for his crime 
 with his life. Practically what had been said amounted 
 to this : " We think ourselves strong enough to raise 
 the white flag, that is to say the standard of the counter- 
 revolution, in place of the odious colours of liberty." 
 This he denounced as profoundly criminal. The 
 beginning of his speech rose little above the common- 
 places and verbiage of revolutionary oratory, but the 
 invective which followed was terse and vigorous, and 
 after a passage of genuine eloquence he concluded by 
 proposing that henceforth the crews of French men-of- 
 war, instead of shouting "God save the king," should 
 cheer the nation, the law, and the king. 
 
 Such appeals to popular prejudice and passion, the 
 attempt to brand his opponents as criminals and to 
 raise the spectre of reactionary conspiracy, are hardly 
 to be defended. Perhaps, since persuasion and argument
 
 188 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 had availed so little, he may have thought it would be 
 well to try whether he could not force his services and 
 his policy on the king and queen by exciting their 
 alarm. 
 
 The speech on the flags, said La Marck, was bad 
 enough, but that spoken in the Assembly after the sack 
 of the house of the Marshal de Castries was worse. 
 Malouet had occupied the tribune with the intention 
 of denouncing the violence of the mob and the pusillani- 
 mous or criminal acquiescence of Bailly and Lafayette. 
 He gave way to Mirabeau, who assured him that he was 
 going to speak in the same sense and that he would be 
 listened to with more patience. He either deliberately 
 deceived Malouet, or, as he asserted, was stung by the 
 jeers and insults of the Eight into blessing what he had 
 intended to curse. Not only did he find excuses for the 
 rioters : he praised their loyalty and magnanimous 
 chivalry for preserving a portrait of their king with 
 reverent care, and for showing, while in the act of 
 wrecking her house, the most tender solicitude and 
 affectionate consideration for the aged Madame de 
 Castries. A striking instance of reckless improvisation. 
 The Duchess of Castries, as many among his audience 
 must have known, was in Switzerland ; and Mirabeau 
 was probably as ignorant as we are whether there was 
 or was not a portrait of Lewis XVI. in her drawing-room. 
 
 The speech on the issue of assignats had been regarded 
 as the first pledge of Mirabeau's reconciliation with the 
 Jacobins. He had now given further proof of his 
 sincerity, and his popularity among the revolutionists 
 was greater than it had ever been before. When he 
 appeared in public, the " dauntless asserter of liberty "
 
 x HIS POPULARITY 189 
 
 was the object of enthusiastic ovations. In the shop- 
 fronts his portraits and busts occupied the space which 
 had been filled by those of Necker and Lafayette. La 
 Marck, on the other hand, dared not present himself 
 before the justly indignant queen, while Lewis XVI. was 
 even more estranged by the part played by Mirabeau in 
 the debates on the civil constitution of the clergy than 
 by his apologies for mutiny and riot.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Mirabeau and the Church His understanding with Montmorin 
 Policy proposed by him. 
 
 THE Constituent Assembly had touched the possessions 
 of the Church, and it had not cursed them to their face ; 
 and yet the reformers had been taught that priests clung 
 as tightly to their wealth as they held loosely by their 
 creed. They failed to see that this was only true of 
 just those churchmen whose resistance and enmity 
 might safely be despised, that it was not true of the 
 majority of the parish clergy and of the honest and 
 most popular minority of the episcopacy. They were 
 misled by the assurance of the Jansenists who formed 
 part of the Ecclesiastical Committee, that the regulations 
 formed by it were not inconsistent with the practice of 
 the primitive church. They forgot that this argument 
 was not one on which the Roman Church was accustomed 
 to look with favour, and that the Jansenist was scarcely 
 less hated by the orthodox than the Calvinist. 
 
 It was scarcely perhaps to have been expected that 
 they should have disregarded the words of their prophet 
 Rousseau : " In whatever country the clergy form a 
 distinct body, that body is master and legislator." The 
 great majority did not wish to sever the connection 
 between Church and State, on the contrary they hoped
 
 CHAP, xi ECCLESIASTICAL POLICY 191 
 
 to draw it closer by converting the clergy into the paid 
 officials of the State, elected like other officials by the 
 people. Just as the king, when the royal domains had 
 been seized, and he had become the " salaried delegate 
 of the people," was expected to conform to the will 
 of those from whom he received his wages, so also 
 the clergy were expected to be submissive to their pay- 
 masters. Like Pombal and Joseph II. and other reform- 
 ing rulers, the Constituent wished, by asserting the 
 authority of the State over the Church, to cast down 
 the last barriers which limited the omnipotence of the 
 sovereign. They did not wish, by proclaiming the in- 
 dependence and equality of all sects, the impartiality 
 of the State in matters of religion, to leave the one 
 strong corporate body of the old Monarchy standing to 
 mar the uniformity of the surface on which they meant 
 to erect their ideal edifice. 
 
 Mirabeau, although he had brought forward in the 
 Assembly a resolution "that the estates of the Church 
 were at the disposal of the nation," had taken no part in 
 framing the new constitution of the Church (May 1790). 
 He complained confidentially to a friend, " We busy 
 ourselves too much about the clergy, we ought to pay 
 them and let them be"; and on another occasion, 
 " What are you afraid of ? There are no rich benefices 
 left. There is a general feeling of indifference. Allow 
 things to take their own course, and in thirty years there 
 will be no more priests." It is clear therefore that he 
 would have acted more wisely than his colleagues ; but 
 it is also clear that he at first shared their delusion as to 
 the indifference of the people to religion. Nor did he 
 realise the sincerity of the king's orthodoxy. Had
 
 192 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 he done so, he would not have lightly mentioned the 
 abolition of celibacy as a desirable measure in his notes 
 to the Court, nor-would he have spoken of papal bulls as 
 criminal and absurd productions. 
 
 But he awoke more quickly than others from this 
 dream of security. In the beginning of 1791 he wrote 
 to a friend : " We have now inflicted on ourselves a new 
 wound and the most certain of all to mortify and to 
 become a fresh source of gangrene, in addition to those 
 others by which the body politic is corroded and devoured. 
 We first set up an impotent puppet as our king, and 
 created a legislature which administers, prosecutes, 
 judges, rewards, punishes, in a word does everything 
 except that which it ought to do ; and now, as if our 
 political schism were not enough, we are wantonly 
 provoking a religious schism." 
 
 When on November 26 the Assembly was called 
 upon to decide what measures should be taken to compel 
 the submission of the clergy to the new organisation of 
 the Church, he moved a decree in some respects more 
 stringent than that proposed by the Ecclesiastical Com- 
 mittee, but in which no precise date was mentioned 
 before which the clergy were to take the oath, and which 
 therefore gave time for excitement to subside and for 
 negotiations with Rome. But partly, as he alleged, to 
 conceal his true object, partly to reconcile it with his 
 care for his popularity, he introduced his measure 
 by a most violent speech, which was vehemently 
 applauded, and, by further inflaming the passions of his 
 audience, contributed to defeat the motion it professed 
 to recommend. Mirabeau himself appears to have felt 
 that he had placed himself in a false position; and,
 
 xi CONSULTED BY MONTMORIN 193 
 
 remembering old triumphs, seriously thought of leaving 
 Paris for Provence, where, especially among the tur- 
 bulent population of Marseilles, every one's hand was 
 raised against his neighbour. But his election to the 
 presidency of the Jacobins during the first three weeks 
 of December was a reason for postponing his departure. 
 Another and a more weighty one was an opportunity 
 now offered of exercising a more direct influence than 
 heretofore on the policy of the Government. 
 
 Montmorin had been led by the moderation and 
 prudence shown by Mirabeau as a member of the Diplo- 
 matic Committee, if not to forgive the publication of the 
 Berlin letters, at least to believe that at such a crisis it 
 would be a mistake to deprive the State of services 
 which might amply atone for that old offence. Accord- 
 ingly, towards the end of November, he let La Marck 
 know that he was anxious to form a coalition with 
 Mirabeau, and also informed him that Lafayette knew 
 absolutely nothing of this wish. Mirabeau, who showed 
 no eagerness to accept the minister's overtures, at length 
 consented to visit him on the night of December 6. In 
 a note sent to the Court on the next day he gave a full 
 account of the interview, but it is obvious that he puts 
 into the minister's mouth just that which he thinks likely 
 to make the desired impression on his readers : abuse of 
 Lafayette, who is false to every one because he is not 
 even true to himself ; bitter criticism of the Assembly, 
 which would in the end destroy everything, itself 
 included ; apologies for having so long held aloof from 
 Mirabeau, the ablest man in the Assembly, a man who 
 had both the courage to cast aside his popularity and 
 the prudence to regain it, who had consistently upheld 
 
 o
 
 194 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 monarchical principles, and whom he now implored to 
 assist him in saving the Monarchy and the State. 
 Mirabeau said that after shaking hands warmly with 
 Montmorin, of whose honesty and resolution he felt 
 convinced, he ended the conference with a promise to 
 assist him to the utmost of his power. 
 
 The first result of the coalition was a voluminous 
 paper, a pamphlet, almost a book, sent by Mirabeau to 
 Montmorin on December 23, and entitled " A sketch of 
 the situation of France, and of the means whereby the 
 Liberty of the People and the Authority of the Crown 
 may be reconciled." The writer was, as might be ex- 
 pected, more successful in his diagnosis of the disease 
 which threatened the existence of the Monarchy, than 
 in prescribing a treatment, by which it might be 
 cured. 
 
 He began by pointing out the difficulties to be over- 
 come. Among them, the indecision of the king and the 
 great unpopularity of the queen ; the growing tendency 
 of public opinion to reject moderate views, and either to 
 approve or to disapprove indiscriminately of all that had 
 been done ; the licence and revolutionary madness of 
 the capital ; the untrustworthiness of the National 
 Guards ; the temper and composition of the Assembly, 
 which was liable to be carried away by waves of con- 
 tagious emotion, too large to be managed, too little under 
 the control of its leaders to be directed through them ; 
 the reactionary minority both within and without the 
 legislature unpopular, discredited, and pursuing objects 
 so extravagant that it could not be a useful ally ; an 
 ill-planned and half-completed constitution, any improve- 
 ment in which would be decried as a reactionary attempt
 
 xi CONSULTED BY MONTMGRIN 195 
 
 to deprive the people of the liberal institutions they had 
 secured. 
 
 He pointed out not less clearly what ought to be the 
 general aim of the policy of the king and of his advisers. 
 Here also he did little more than repeat more emphatic- 
 ally advice previously given. He insisted that every 
 dream of a counter-revolution must be abandoned. 
 Even if 25 million Frenchmen could be deprived of 
 memory, even if a whole generation could be obliterated, 
 the state of things which existed before 1789 could not 
 be restored. Nor need this be regretted. The levelling 
 of old barriers and distinctions ought to be as advan- 
 tageous to the Crown as it was to the nation. 
 
 He only indicates negatively the necessary changes 
 in the constitution by pointing out some of the obvious 
 defects. He does indeed lay down as a principle not to 
 be lost sight of that the Assembly should legislate under 
 the control of the king, and the king govern under the 
 control of the Assembly. But he avoids all detail. 
 Should the revision be carried out by the present or 
 by a future legislature 1 The existing Assembly is, he 
 thinks, besotted by parental partiality for its offspring. 
 It might no doubt be brought to assent to partial 
 improvements, but not to the radical corrections needed. 
 Besides, even if by gaining the leaders of the Left the 
 Court could secure a sufficient majority, that majority 
 would be discredited if it included, as it necessarily 
 must, men so justly distrusted and unpopular as the 
 Extreme Right. But perhaps the chief objection to 
 acting through the existing legislature was that public 
 opinion was not yet ripe, and that unsupported by 
 public opinion nothing could be effected. It was one of
 
 196 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 the most dangerous consequences of the Revolution that 
 the people were bent on the direct exercise of sovereignty, 
 that they looked upon their representatives as servants, 
 whom they would follow so long as they gave satis- 
 faction, but whom, if they attempted to turn back, they 
 would contemptuously abandon. Yet the Assembly, 
 although a useless ally, might prove a dangerous enemy. 
 It must therefore be attacked in every way; nothing 
 tending to ruin it in the eyes of the nation must be left 
 undone. It must be tempted to persevere in every 
 mistake. It must be lured by insidious suggestions to 
 pass every measure likely to increase anarchy and 
 suffering, and thus to alienate the provinces. It must 
 even be encouraged gradually to usurp the direction of 
 every department of State, so that undertaking to do all 
 it might be held responsible for all. It would then be 
 easy for the ministers to throw the blame of whatever 
 was amiss upon the legislature, and to prepare the way 
 for a violent reaction at the next elections. 
 
 The popularity of the king must be cultivated as 
 assiduously as that of the Assembly is to be attacked. 
 Lewis XVI. must exert himself in various ways, indicated 
 by the writer, to obtain the affection and confidence of 
 the people. The queen must convince the populace 
 that she is neither their enemy nor the friend of the 
 reactionists. 
 
 Mirabeau then pointed out that the private opinions 
 of the members of those bodies into whose hands the 
 management of public affairs had fallen, were far less 
 extreme than their actions. Few even among the Parisian 
 municipality were democrats at heart : it was through 
 fear of the mob that they voted against their convictions.
 
 xi CONSULTED BY MONTMORIN 197 
 
 They would act very differently if the tide of popular 
 feeling set in another direction. He had previously 
 again and again insisted that all depended on public 
 opinion. This had destroyed everything, and this alone 
 could create a new order out of the ruins of the old. 
 The paper accordingly terminates with an elaborate 
 scheme for so forming and directing public opinion 
 that it may not only not oppose but even demand the 
 necessary measures. 
 
 He would cover the country with secret agents and 
 spies, who are to prepare and disseminate a vast litera- 
 ture of broad -sheets, tracts, pamphlets, and books. 
 Journalists and others who have the ear of the mob 
 must be bribed. A careful and constant finger must 
 be kept on the pulse of popular feeling by means of 
 an elaborate police. 
 
 This is a very imperfect account of a paper remark- 
 able indeed, and for nothing more than for the proof 
 it affords that the judgment of the most clear-sighted 
 politician may be warped by a false position and a 
 predilection for crooked courses. There were, Mirabeau 
 said, two dangers to be guarded against. The one was 
 that the Assembly might venture to throw down the 
 last weak bulwarks of the throne, openly usurp the 
 executive power, and that it might obtain sufficient 
 support to maintain this usurpation. The other danger 
 was that the discontent, lawlessness, and frenzied terror 
 of the populace might overwhelm all in a resistless 
 flood of anarchy and violence. Would Mirabeau have 
 believed it possible to aggravate the propension to 
 extreme courses, the precipitate folly of the Assembly, 
 the sufferings and disorders of the nation, and yet to
 
 198 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 avoid these dangers, had he not been influenced con- 
 sciously or unconsciously by the wish to justify the 
 double part he continued to play of demagogue and 
 royalist statesman 1 ? 
 
 The plan he proposed for creating a healthy public 
 opinion was too complicated, too costly ; it depended 
 too much on the co-operation of a number of not very 
 trustworthy or estimable agents, on bribery and 
 Mirabeau himself uses the word corruption. It is 
 true that many Jacobins and regicides were in the 
 future to deprive themselves of the only excuse for 
 their crimes, by becoming the servile instruments of 
 despotism. But the times were other, Mirabeau was 
 not the master of victorious legions, the timid and 
 well-meaning Montmorin was far from being a Fouche". 
 
 La Marck truly observed that such a policy as his 
 friend sketched might have succeeded in the time of 
 the Fronde, but in the first fever of the Revolution 
 men's passions ran too high, the course of events swept 
 on with too great impetuosity to be diverted by such 
 artful and finely-balanced expedients. Nor does Mira- 
 beau himself appear to have felt any confidence that 
 his travelling agents, his secret police, his office for 
 bribing journalists and publishing edifying literature, 
 would easily or quickly turn public feeling in the desired 
 direction. Had he believed in an imminent reaction, in 
 the rebellion of the provinces against the dictatorship of 
 Paris, he would not have insisted that the members of the 
 present legislature must not be re-eligible for the next, 
 because the most mischievous and extreme men were 
 most certain to retain their seats ; nor that candidates 
 must in future be residents in the district they sought
 
 xi CONSULTED BY MONTMORIX 199 
 
 to represent, since otherwise the Desmoulins and 
 Marats, the Dantons and Linguets, would carry all 
 before them in the provinces. 
 
 He concluded his paper with the assurance that the 
 adoption and successful execution of his plan offered 
 the last and only chance of escape from general ruin. 
 " Does not the ferocity of the mob constantly increase ? 
 Are not all means employed to inflame the popular 
 hatred of the royal family 1 Is not a universal massacre 
 of nobles and clergy openly preached? Has riot mere 
 difference in opinion come to be looked upon as a 
 sufficient ground for proscription? Are not the towns 
 in a state of anarchy, the peasantry expecting a promised 
 redistribution of land 1 ? Are not the magistrates too 
 alarmed themselves to think of protecting others, while 
 the National Guards everywhere preside over the acts 
 of popular vengeance 1 Could the frenzy and fanaticism 
 of the National Assembly rise to a higher pitch ? Un- 
 happy nation ! this is the pass to which you have been 
 brought by a few men, who believed that intrigue 
 could supply the place of talents, and restlessness of 
 ideas. Excellent but weak king, unfortunate queen ! 
 This is the terrible abyss to which you have been led 
 by vacillation between blind confidence and exaggerated 
 distrust. One effort is still possible, but it is the last. 
 If it be not made or if it fail, the pall of death must 
 cover this kingdom ! What is to be its fate ? Whither 
 will the vessel, riven by lightning and lashed by the 
 whirlwind, be driven? I know not; but if I myself 
 escape the common shipwreck, I shall say with pride 
 I* braved destruction to save them, but they would 
 not!"
 
 200 MIRABEAU CHAP, xi 
 
 Mirabeau's paper was shown to the king, whose 
 only criticism appears to have been that he thought 
 matters were not quite so bad as the writer made out. 
 Montmorin, on the other hand, fell in so readily with 
 everything, that La Marck felt increased misgivings 
 as to his capacity. Mercy -Argenteau said that what 
 Mirabeau proposed was not amiss on paper, but would 
 prove very difficult of execution. As indeed was the 
 case. A month later La Marck told Mercy that the 
 only part of the great plan which had so far been 
 carried out was the organisation of the secret police 
 which was to report on the condition of the capital. 
 Montmorin had also, though La Marck does not mention 
 this, tried to influence the Assembly by bribing some 
 of the popular members. One certain result might be 
 anticipated from what had already been done a vast 
 expense, for all the men employed expected to be 
 glutted with gold. Mirabeau himself set the example 
 by further demands on the king's liberality ; he wished 
 to buy Le Marais, a sumptuous country-house in the 
 neighbourhood of Paris. La Marck in vain protested 
 against the folly of advertising his venality. " It would 
 be wiser," he said, " for you to buy Versailles a year 
 hence than a cottage now."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Mirabeau President of the Assembly Conference with Malonet 
 Not trusted by the Court Defies the Jacobins Policy as 
 member of the Diplomatic Committee Illness and death. 
 
 DURING the few remaining months of his life Mirabeau 
 secured a position less inadequate to his genius and 
 to his pretensions. Montmorin, whom he saw almost 
 daily, did nothing without his advice ; and in his own 
 department of foreign affairs was little more than the 
 secretary of his adviser. In the Assembly, more parti- 
 cularly after he had presided over it with a tact, a 
 dignity, and an authority to which none of his pre- 
 decessors had even approached, he obtained an influence 
 which justified the remark of a liberal journalist that 
 the Assembly without Mirabeau was like a monarchy 
 without a king. Even the Right began to listen to him 
 with attention. Out of doors his popularity had never 
 been greater. He was followed by crowds of admirers. 
 No provincial visitor to the capital was satisfied till he 
 had seen, and if possible heard, Mirabeau. Dumont 
 tells how, when he was returning from England, his 
 postilion replied to a complaint about the horses, " Yes, 
 those in the traces are not good for much, but my 
 Mirabeau (the horse in the shafts which did most of 
 the work) is excellent." His fame was nearly as great
 
 202 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 abroad. When the Cambridge whigs showed their 
 sympathy with French liberalism by a public dinner, 
 one of the first toasts was "Mirabeau and the triumph 
 of eloquence in the cause of liberty." 
 
 Yet brilliant as his position appeared to be, it was 
 false and insecure. He relied on his influence in the 
 Assembly, his popularity out of doors, and his control 
 of the policy of the Government through the king and 
 queen and the one minister faithful to them, Montmorin. 
 But Montmorin was timid and weak, Marie Antoinette 
 trusted Mirabeau and liked his policy as little as ever. 
 His popularity was attacked by Duport and the Lameths 
 as well as by the radical press, and could only be main- 
 tained by concessions hardly to be reconciled with his 
 principles. The growing weakness of the majority, the 
 diminished influence of Lafayette, the disposition of 
 many of the moderate Right, such as Cazales, to draw 
 nearer to him, made Mirabeau more nearly than he had 
 ever been before the leader of the Assembly. But he 
 had pronounced that body to be incapable of any good 
 work : to tempt it to suicidal acts of folly, to ruin it in 
 the eyes of the nation, was the avowed object of his 
 policy. 
 
 The disorders in Provence culminated in a riot at 
 Aix, during which the town was in the hands of the 
 lowest rabble, the prisons were broken into, and victims 
 obnoxious to the mob murdered. The last vestiges of 
 authority and order had disappeared from Marseilles. 
 Mirabeau, as spokesman of a committee of the As- 
 sembly, proposed that the king should be asked 
 to send three commissioners, who should dispose of a 
 sufficient number of troops to restore order. He hinted
 
 xii PRESIDENT OF THE ASSEMBLY 203 
 
 in his speech at excuses, or at least at extenuating 
 circumstances, for crimes which he privately assured 
 La Marck were far more atrocious than was generally 
 known. At the same time he asked the Assembly for a 
 month's leave of absence. To play the part of dictator 
 at the head of the royal commission in his native pro- 
 vince, and to turn his back for a time on the colleagues 
 who had so repeatedly ignored his claim to the presi- 
 dential chair, was tempting both to his pique and to his 
 ambition. The Court, however, thought him more likely 
 to be of service in Paris than in Provence, where even 
 La Marck felt that it was uncertain what part he would 
 play. Montmorin accordingly promised to do his utmost 
 to procure his election as president of the Assembly on 
 January 3. The liberal press, the Parisian sections, 
 and the Jacobins, these last on the motion of Barnave, 
 besought the champion of liberty not to desert the 
 temple of the laws. Thus appeased, and with this hope, 
 he remained. 
 
 Yet, although the minister did his best, neither on 
 January 3 nor on January 17 was Mirabeau elected 
 to preside over the Assembly. On the former occasion 
 he was only defeated by three votes, on the latter date 
 the majority against him was larger, for he had offended 
 his conservative supporters by the violence of his lan- 
 guage in the debates on the Church. On December 26 
 the king sanctioned the imposition on the clergy of an 
 oath of conformity to the new ecclesiastical constitution. 
 " I had rather," he said, " be king of Metz than sign. 
 But this cannot last long." He considered his signature 
 only another proof that he was no free agent, another 
 justification for the future repudiation of all that had
 
 204 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 been done since he had been dragged a prisoner to 
 Paris. 
 
 In a debate on January 1 Mirabeau spoke with 
 moderation, insisting that although nonjuring priests 
 might justly be deprived of their public functions, to 
 molest them further was to violate the sacred principle 
 of toleration. Three days later he discussed dispassion- 
 ately some questions of detail connected with the new 
 ecclesiastical establishment. La Marck, astonished at 
 this moderation, asked him whether it was consist- 
 ent with his policy of luring the Assembly to violent 
 and extreme measures. Mirabeau replied that "the 
 Assembly had already run their head into the noose. 
 They must see the world through queer glasses if they 
 imagine that 20,000 priests can be quietly turned out of 
 their parishes." 
 
 The surprise of his friend perhaps encouraged 
 Mirabeau to believe that any violence of language 
 would be attributed by his royalist allies to subtle 
 policy. At all events on January 14 he cast all 
 moderation to the winds. The Ecclesiastical Committee 
 had been asked to prepare an address to the nation 
 explaining and justifying the policy of the Assembly. 
 Mirabeau assured them that he had prepared the draft 
 of such an address, and the committee accepted this 
 production, as it seems, on trust. It was a strange 
 medley of scraps of theology and church history siipplied 
 by Abbe" Lamourette, unctuous and insincere cant and 
 venomous insinuation. In it Mirabeau denounced " the 
 hypocritical clamours of the enemies of the Revolution, 
 men who hide their dark designs under specious pre- 
 tences, the culpable resistance of many priests to the
 
 xii PRESIDENT OF THE ASSEMBLY 205 
 
 laws of their country," as well as "their efforts to 
 restore the twofold tyranny of throne and altar " ; and 
 he concluded by saying : " A few months ago we were a 
 people without a country, a nation without a govern- 
 ment, a church without morality or discipline." This 
 was too much for many even of the Left. Camus, the 
 Jansenist, the chief deviser of the civil constitution, 
 exclaimed in the midst of the general uproar, " We can- 
 not listen to such things," and a large majority charged 
 the Ecclesiastical Committee to prepare a more seemly 
 and moderate proclamation. Mirabeau printed and 
 published the rejected address an act which proves 
 that his violence was not so much intended to mislead 
 the Assembly as to increase his popularity in the 
 streets. After this he can scarcely have been surprised 
 that he lost many votes in the presidential election on 
 January 17. He was somewhat consoled by being 
 chosen on the same day commander of the National 
 Guards of his district, and a little later a member of the 
 Council of the Department of the Seine. 
 
 He had reason to be gratified at obtaining a place in 
 the governing body of the capital. Paris attracted him 
 with the fascination of a mysterious and terrible monster. 
 What greater triumph could there be than to bring the 
 force which he justly regarded as the most dangerous 
 motor of anarchy under control, and to make it the 
 instrument of his wiser policy 1 The influence of La- 
 fayette was still sufficient to prevent Mirabeau, although 
 supported by Danton, from being chosen chairman of 
 the Council of the Department, but when the new 
 administrative body was solemnly received by the 
 Assembly he was their spokesman. " We shall con-
 
 206 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 sider," he said, "the maintenance of public tranquillity 
 as the first of our duties. . . . Factious men, in the 
 hope of overthrowing the constitution, persuade the 
 people to take action in person, as if there were neither 
 laws nor magistrates. We shall strip the mask from 
 these guilty enemies of public tranquillity . . . and 
 proclaim that the proper function of private citizens is 
 the pursuit of peaceful employments, and the practice of 
 the social and domestic virtues." 
 
 But before these words were spoken Mirabeau had 
 at length received from the Assembly that distinction 
 which had been bestowed upon forty -three members 
 before it was grudgingly granted to him, who was 
 assuredly the most talented and renowned among the 
 representatives of France. He was elected by a con- 
 siderable majority president for the first fortnight of 
 February 1791. 
 
 Mirabeau's iron constitution, undermined by long 
 illness La Marck says he had never known him enjoy 
 a day's perfect health and by constant labours, which 
 he only intermitted to indulge in more deadly pleasures, 
 was rapidly breaking up. Acute inflammation of the 
 eyes had all but blinded him; he appeared in the 
 Assembly his face swathed with compresses and bleeding 
 from leech-bites ; he was shaken by constantly recurring 
 fever- fits and racked by internal pains. Even his 
 buoyant self-confidence began to despair of the future. 
 Yet his spirit bore up unbroken against all his sufferings, 
 whether physical or moral, and the ascendency of his 
 genius was never more conspicuous than when, as 
 president of the Constituent Assembly, he extorted the 
 admiration of even his most prejudiced opponents.
 
 xii PRESIDENT OF THE ASSEMBLY 207 
 
 Chateaubriand compares him to Milton's Chaos, calm 
 and unmoved in the midst of the jarring factions of his 
 tumultuous realm, but Mirabeau little resembled the 
 "Anarch old with faltering speech and visage incom- 
 posed," who "by decision more embroiled the fray." 
 Rene's Miltonic reminiscences might have supplied an 
 apter parallel. The great tribune towered above his 
 compeers like the rebel archangel in Pandemonium. 
 
 Confusion heard his voice ; and wild uproar 
 Stood ruled. 
 
 Not only did he introduce a new order and dignity 
 into the debates of the Assembly, not only in his 
 improvised answers to deputations and on other sudden 
 emergencies did he appear to be always able to say the 
 right thing ; the business of the Assembly was also far 
 more rapidly dispatched under his presidency. More 
 was done, the English ambassador wrote, in that fort- 
 night than previously in the space of months. This 
 conduct is not easily to be reconciled with his avowed 
 intention of bringing the Assembly into odium and con- 
 tempt, but no doubt, as Lord Gower says, it " conciliated 
 to Mirabeau the minds of the friends of government 
 and of the lovers of peace, who natter themselves that 
 his great talents may at last prove of service to his 
 country." 
 
 Among those who began to conceive such hopes was 
 Malouet. Although they had not spoken since the 
 apology for the sack of the Hotel de Castries, he was 
 now invited by Mirabeau to an interview in the pres- 
 ence of Montmorin. The conference lasted from ten 
 o'clock in the evening till two hours after midnight.
 
 208 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 The great plan which Mirabeau had submitted to the 
 minister in December was discussed. The account given 
 by Malouet of the scheme, Avhich was, he said, placed in 
 his hands by Montmorin, has led some historians to 
 believe that the draft preserved by La Marck had been 
 subsequently amplified and completed. But Malouet 
 had a treacherous memory. There are obvious inac- 
 curacies in this part of his reminiscences. It is therefore 
 probable that when he enumerates the positive improve- 
 ments to be introduced into the constitution such as 
 the creation of a second chamber, the restoration to the 
 king of the right of absolute veto and of dissolution- 
 he is attributing his own views to Mirabeau, who may 
 very possibly have expressed his approval of such 
 changes in the course of their conversation. 
 
 Mirabeau, Malouet says, at first seemed exhausted by 
 the labours of the day and by disease. His inflamed 
 and bloodshot eyes were starting from their sockets. 
 His appearance was horrible. But he soon recovered 
 his wonted energy and eloquence. "I was carried 
 away," Malouet continues, "by his ringing voice, his 
 lively gestures, by the cogency and fertility of his' ideas. 
 All my prejudices, all my suspicions vanished, I found 
 myself sharing his passion, praising his plans and his 
 courage, exalting his resources. But my last words 
 stirred his anger. "You will best be able to repair," I 
 said, "the evil you have done." "No," he replied, 
 starting up. " I have done no evil willingly. I have 
 yielded to the inevitable. The great mischief which has 
 been done is the work of all, except the crimes which 
 are the guilt of a few. You moderates, who were not 
 sufficiently so to appreciate me ; you ministers, who
 
 xii INTERVIEW WITH MALOUET 209 
 
 never took a step which was not in the wrong direction ; 
 you, foolish Assembly, who know neither what you say 
 nor what you do, it is you who have done the mischief." 
 
 Malouet came away fully convinced of Mirabeau's 
 sincerity. La Marck had expressed some fear to Mercy 
 lest the growth of his friend's popularity might make 
 the temptation to play the demagogue irresistible. But 
 so far from this being the case Mirabeau appears to 
 have been encouraged, by the feeling that his position 
 was less precarious, openly to defy the radical leaders, 
 whom he had hitherto denounced in private, but treated 
 with civil deference in public. 
 
 Towards the end of January it was known that 
 "Mesdames" the king's aunts intended to betake 
 themselves to Rome, whence arose various reports and 
 much excitement in Paris. Mirabeau pointed out, in a 
 note for the Court dated February 3, that the prin- 
 cesses' journey might prove perilous to themselves and 
 productive of many dangers to the king and queen ; 
 that the ill-disposed would look upon the departure of 
 the old ladies as preparatory to that of the king him- 
 self ; and that it would be made the pretext for a new 
 agitation. The suspicions of the "ill-disposed" were 
 in exact accordance with the facts. Towards the end 
 of 1790 Lewis XVI. had assented to a plan for his 
 escape devised by Breteuil. He was to fly secretly 
 to Montmedy in the hope of reasserting his lawful 
 authority with the help of his loyal subjects and of the 
 army of Bouille, or, at the worst, with the support of 
 the sovereigns his allies. 
 
 La Marck, on the pretext of escorting a sister to 
 the frontier, visited Bouille (February 6), and explained 
 
 P
 
 210 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 Mirabeau's policy to him. Bouille, who from the first 
 had disliked the scheme of Breteuil, much preferred 
 that proposed by Mirabeau, and begged the king to 
 take it seriously into consideration. He had no high 
 opinion of his cousin Lafayette, but he heard with 
 pleasure that Mirabeau and Lafayette had again held 
 a long conference (February 8). He thought that 
 united they three might still save the Monarchy. 
 What Mirabeau now suggested was that the depart- 
 ments should be induced to demand the dissolution of 
 the Assembly, and the election of a new constituent 
 body. He professed to be able to determine the action 
 of thirty-six of the more revolutionary departments, 
 and Bouille's influence was great in six on the eastern 
 frontier; in many of the others the royalists and the 
 opponents of the ecclesiastical policy of the Assembly 
 were in a majority. The king must leave Paris. It 
 should be Lafayette's part to enable him to do so as a 
 king and not as a fugitive. Bouille, with his most 
 trusty regiments, must be prepared to receive him at 
 Fontainebleau or Compiegne. 
 
 There were no doubt many uncertain factors in this 
 combination. Did not Mirabeau greatly overrate his 
 influence in the provinces? Could Lafayette be in- 
 duced to help the royal family to leave Paris in other 
 words, to destroy his own importance 1 And even 
 if all went well, the prospect of a new Constituent 
 Assembly was singularly distasteful. Breteuil's plan 
 still appeared to the queen the simpler, the more 
 certain, and the more attractive. But since the king 
 and queen were determined on that secret flight to the 
 eastern frontier condemned from the first by Mirabeau,
 
 xn LAW AGAINST EMIGRATION 211 
 
 Lewis XVI. could not follow his advice and forbid his 
 aunts' journey. They must not be left at Paris as 
 hostages in the hands of the mob. After various ad- 
 ventures the old ladies were finally arrested by the 
 municipality of Arnai-le-Duc. Barnave sought to 
 justify this flagrant violation of personal liberty by the 
 dangerous sophism that the authorities had not broken 
 the law, since they believed themselves to be acting for 
 the public good. When Mirabeau advised that the 
 matter should be left to the executive, since the prin- 
 cesses' journey was not forbidden by any law, " Yes, 
 it is," shouted a member. "I can cite the law the 
 welfare of the nation." "The welfare of the nation," 
 retorted Mirabeau, "-requires above all that the laws 
 should be respected." After a violent debate the course 
 which he advised was adopted without a division. 
 
 Four days later (February 29), the committee 
 entrusted with the preparation of a law to check 
 emigration presented their report. Such a law, they 
 said, interfering with personal liberty, must be un- 
 constitutional and tyrannical, yet, in obedience to the 
 instructions of the Assembly, they had drafted a measure 
 which might, although oppressive, prove effectual. But 
 since their object could not be attained without violat- 
 ing the constitution, did the Assembly still wish to 
 legislate on the subject 1 This previous question was 
 hotly debated. Mirabeau, in the letter of advice with 
 which he had favoured Frederick William II. on his 
 accession, had denounced all laws against emigration as 
 unjust, oppressive, and futile. He did not long allow 
 his audience to doubt whether he would have the 
 courage to be consistent. He read the passage from
 
 212 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 this letter, and moved that the Assembly, convinced 
 of the unconstitutional character of such legislation, 
 should not ask the committee to communicate their 
 measure. He concluded with the words : " Should you 
 pass a law against emigration, I swear that I will never 
 obey it." But although his influence and reputation 
 had never been so great in the Assembly, he could not 
 obtain a majority. 
 
 A motion was made to refer the matter to the joint 
 consideration of all the more important committees of 
 the Assembly. When Mirabeau, for the third time, 
 rose in opposition, a member asked by what right he 
 claimed to dictate to the Assembly ; and the interrup- 
 tions of the Extreme Left were persistent, until turning 
 in the direction of Duport, the Lameths, and their 
 following, he uttered in his clear and deliberate voice of 
 calmly confident contempt the celebrated apostrophe 
 "Silence avao trente voix." He ended his speech by 
 proposing that, if the Assembly determined, against his 
 advice, to adjourn their decision, they should at least 
 decree that in the meantime no mobs be permitted 
 to collect. 
 
 The radicals, who after this challenge looked upon 
 Mirabeau as their declared enemy, determined to attack 
 him that same evening in the Jacobin Club, where they 
 felt themselves to be strongest. It has always been one 
 of the least amiable characteristics of the French popu- 
 lace to be over ready to believe charges of treachery 
 and corruption when brought against its favourites; 
 and Mirabeau, as we have seen, even when most ad- 
 mired and most popular, was never wholly trusted. 
 It had therefore been easy for Duport and his allies
 
 xii SPEECH TO THE JACOBINS 213 
 
 to poison during the past month the minds of the 
 Jacobins against their late president. Enough had 
 happened during the day to arouse a wild frenzy of 
 angry and suspicious terror among the fanatics and the 
 mob (February 28). The law against the refugees 
 had been adjourned, a riot at Vincennes suppressed by 
 Lafayette, and reports were rife of royalist conspiracies, 
 based on the fact that a number of gentlemen, who had 
 collected at the Tuileries to protect the king against a 
 threatening mob, had been disarmed and roughly treated 
 by the National Guard. Mirabeau's enemies were not 
 without hope that the known hostility of the audience 
 would deter him from attending the meeting of the 
 Jacobins. But when Duport rose to denounce him, 
 Mirabeau was sitting opposite, with impassive scornful 
 face, as if he held the invectives of the orator and the 
 angry cheers they excited in like disdain. Never did 
 he prove more fully than on this last occasion his 
 mastery of that art which he so highly prized the art 
 of daring (Part closer, Virtu, Machiavelli called it). 
 Duport accused him and Lafayette of plotting to steal 
 the king from Paris, as the first step towards a counter- 
 revolution. In opposing the law against the refugees, 
 Mirabeau had, he said, revealed his wicked design. 
 The invective of Charles Lameth was more venomous, 
 more personal, and far more able than that of Duport. 
 All the follies and faults of his opponent's youth and 
 later life, all the crimes which had been laid to his 
 charge by calumny and senseless suspicion, were revived 
 and shown in the most odious light. He strove to make 
 Mirabeau appear at once contemptible and hateful. An 
 eye-witness a foreigner who gives the only authentic
 
 214 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 account of this memorable scene, says that the relentless 
 rancour, the impassioned malice of the speaker, the 
 eager and cruel applause of the crowd so affected him 
 that he was ill for several days. Mirabeau had with 
 difficulty obtained a hearing for a short reply to Duport; 
 when he rose after Lameth's speech howls and insults 
 were heard on all sides, and the president tried to 
 prevent him from reaching the tribune by declaring the 
 meeting to be at an end. "But I soon learned," says 
 our author, " with how little cause I had feared for this 
 mighty spirit, which is ever greatest in extremities. 
 He had listened to the most virulent abuse without 
 losing his self-possession, and now his lofty composure, 
 his dauntless courage, his fiery indignation commanded 
 attention. The very weapons hurled against him 
 became in his hands the means of inflicting more deadly 
 wounds on his assailants. After he had crushed them 
 by his eloquence, and by the ascendency of his person- 
 ality, he had the self-control to pause in the full tide of 
 victory, and casting aside all that was merely personal, 
 he told his audience political truths such as they had 
 seldom heard." As soon as he had ended he left the 
 hall with the words, " Only ostracism shall separate me 
 from you," applauded by the majority and admired 
 by all. 
 
 Such a triumph was a striking proof of the might of 
 Mirabeau's genius, and when we remember that he was 
 at the time miserably ill dying as by a slow fire, he 
 said to Dumont a not less striking proof of his un- 
 quenchable energy, but it could have no lasting result. 
 His hearers were convinced against their will by his 
 eloquence, and by the magnetism of his personal in-
 
 xii DESPONDENCY 215 
 
 fluence, but on the next day the established and 
 congenial sway of ignorance, fanaticism, and suspicion 
 reasserted itself. 
 
 There was henceforward open war between Mirabeau 
 and the Jacobin leaders. They attacked him in the 
 Assembly, and they libelled him vigorously in the 
 revolutionary press. He, on the other hand, persuaded 
 the Council of the Department to warn the people in 
 placards against those pestilent agitators who attempted 
 to excite disorder by reports that the enemies of liberty 
 were plotting against the constitution. "Let not the 
 citizens allow themselves to be persuaded that the laws 
 can be defended by being broken." What would be the 
 issue of the struggle 1 Mirabeau himself was not hope- 
 ful. Dumont says that when he parted from him three 
 weeks previously, he embraced him with unusual emotion. 
 "I shall die before anything is accomplished, perhaps 
 we shall not meet again. . . . The members of the 
 Assembly have wished to govern the king, instead of 
 to govern through him, but soon neither he nor they 
 will govern. A vile faction will impose its yoke on 
 both alike, and cover France with atrocities." Little or 
 nothing had been done to influence public opinion in 
 the provinces an essential part of the plan proposed to 
 the Court through Montmorin, as well as of the later 
 scheme approved by Bouille. Montmorin himself, 
 though honest, was weak and undecided, and Mirabeau 
 had no other ally except La Marck whom he could 
 wholly trust. The self-confidence and conceit of La- 
 fayette made an understanding with him as impossible 
 as ever. Yet nothing could be effected against the 
 Jacobins, the common enemy, without his co-operation.
 
 216 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 Mirabeau was moreover only half aware of the insecurity 
 of his position. He did not know that, while he was 
 risking his popularity by defying the revolutionists, 
 he had entirely lost whatever influence he had ever 
 possessed at Court. That he had never obtained the 
 full confidence of the queen he knew; but La Marck 
 imagined himself to be trusted by Marie Antoinette, 
 and he no doubt led his friend to believe that no serious 
 resolution would be adopted without his knowledge. 
 Towards the end of February, Mercy wrote to Leopold 
 II. that he feared Montmorin and Mirabeau would find 
 that they had made their reckoning without the queen ; 
 and Bouille 1 was informed by Lewis XVI., a fortnight 
 before Mirabeau's death, that he had resolved to escape 
 to Montme"dy towards the end of April. What would 
 Mirabeau have done, had he lived to hear that the royal 
 family had fled from Paris to seek the protection of an 
 Austrian army ? We can imagine the fiery vehemence 
 of his indignation, the eloquence with which he would 
 have denounced an act not less treacherous to himself 
 than treasonable to the nation. Speaking shortly before 
 his death of the reports which were current about the 
 intended flight of the king, he said to his friend and 
 physician Cabanis that, were such a thing to happen, he 
 would be the first to propose to the Assembly that the 
 throne be declared vacant, and a republic proclaimed. 
 Would he, after his quarrel with the Lameths and 
 Duport, have been able to place himself at the head of 
 the republican party ? They probably would not have 
 rejected the overtures of a man who might be so useful 
 as a friend, so dangerous as an enemy. But in his own 
 phrase they and others in the Assembly were as little
 
 xii FOREIGN AFFAIRS 217 
 
 disposed as ever to pardon his superiority, and, if he 
 perhaps dreamt of being the first president of a 
 French Republic, he must have forgotten the nervous 
 anxiety to raise a barrier which should exclude him 
 from the ministry, the jealousy which had refused to 
 him for nearly two years the distinction of presiding 
 over the legislature. But the little space we have left 
 must not be wasted in futile speculations on what might 
 have been, when it barely permits a brief and insufficient 
 sketch of the work done by Mirabeau as a member 
 of the Diplomatic Committee. No other part of his 
 political career was more fruitful of results, or proved 
 more clearly that he possessed the best qualities of a 
 practical statesman. 
 
 Among the majority of the Assembly abstract 
 theories or passing fancies and emotions, vague, 
 visionary, and inconsistent, determined the view taken 
 of every question of foreign policy. The members of 
 the Left alternated between dreams of a brotherhood 
 of nations piously respecting the Rights of Man, a 
 millennium in which selfish ambitions and war should 
 be no more, and fearful visions of confederate tyrants, 
 ruthless in their terror, conspiring against liberty with 
 domestic traitors. Their one practical principle was 
 that the will of the sovereign people and the validity 
 of natural rights could not be limited by any treaties 
 or international conventions. 
 
 This dogma was the more likely to lead to com- 
 plications with foreign powers, because, while La- 
 fayette seemed eager to play the part of a knight- 
 errant of liberty wherever a people rose against their 
 rulers, the more advanced Jacobins, honestly, perhaps,
 
 218 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 believing that foreign intervention must come, held that 
 the wisest policy was to anticipate their enemies, and to 
 carry on an active revolutionary propaganda, so that 
 they might in the end oppose a league of peoples to the 
 league of kings. 
 
 Mirabeau saw clearly from the first that peace 
 was essential to enable the country to escape the most 
 frightful convulsions, that war would destroy the last 
 chance of saving the Monarchy. He therefore con- 
 sistently endeavoured to dissuade the Assembly from 
 measures likely to embroil France with her neighbours. 
 In August 1790 he became a member of the Diplomatic 
 Committee, and, as he alone had some knowledge and 
 experience, some acquaintance with foreign countries 
 and foreign statesmen, he soon exercised much influence 
 over his colleagues. Even Barnave, who had said that 
 when the people and reason ruled, diplomatic secrecy 
 was out of date, appears to have yielded to his ascend- 
 ency. To prevent any action on the part of the Assembly 
 which would endanger peace, and to prevent the com- 
 plete isolation of France, were the two objects which 
 Mirabeau perseveringly pursued, and not without a 
 certain measure of success. 
 
 We have mentioned (page 64) that before 1789 he 
 had advocated an alliance with England. But, during 
 the negotiations between England and Spain after the 
 Nootka Sound difficulty, he obtained from the Assembly 
 the ratification of the defensive and commercial clauses 
 of the treaty between France and Spain. The friend- 
 ship of England, he said, could only be bought by the 
 sacrifice of French manufactures to the English spirit of 
 monopoly, and the commercial progress which must be
 
 xii FOREIGN AFFAIRS 219 
 
 one of the first fruits of French liberty, would confirm 
 the ill-will of the jealous islanders. It appeared im- 
 portant to Pitt that reliance on French help should not 
 make the Spaniards more stubborn, and in August 1790 
 he sent an agent, William Miles, to persuade Lafayette 
 and other liberal leaders that he was no enemy to the 
 Revolution. When a few weeks later Mirabeau's in- 
 fluence in the Diplomatic Committee was recognised, 
 Hugh Elliot came to Paris to convince his old friend 
 that a better understanding between France and England 
 would be advantageous to both countries. Elliot's 
 mission appears to have been a complete success. In 
 October 1790 Mirabeau spoke of England in a tone so 
 changed, that he was accused of being the hireling of 
 Pitt. 
 
 The English minister, his object gained, showed little 
 disposition to make any definite proposal. Perhaps he 
 did not wish to commit himself until he could forecast 
 the future development of the Revolution ; perhaps he 
 shared the delusion of Burke, who thought that France 
 had become a cipher in European politics, at the very 
 moment when, as Mirabeau said to Mercy, it was a most 
 dangerous volcano, needing to be very carefully watched. 
 Miles vainly insisted that it was in the power of the 
 English Government to exercise a most beneficent 
 influence on the course of events in France ; that an 
 alliance with England would do much to relieve the 
 French from that haunting dread of foreign interference 
 which not only inflamed the frenzy of the fanatics and 
 threatened the safety of the king and queen, but led 
 even moderate men to shrink from resistance to extreme 
 measures as unpatriotic. Lafayette, Barnave, and other
 
 220 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 leaders were, he said, not less well disposed than 
 Mirabeau to an English alliance. 
 
 Disappointment that the hopes raised by Elliot were 
 not realised caused Mirabeau to speak with bitterness 
 of Pitt. Yet he did his best to avoid international 
 complications. The German princes owning fiefs in 
 Alsatia were impoverished by the abolition of feudal 
 dues and loud in their complaints. The theorists in 
 the Assembly listened with impatience to claims not 
 based on natural rights, but Mirabeau persuaded the 
 Diplomatic Committee to advise that ample pecuniary 
 compensation should be offered. In the case both of 
 Liege and of Avignon he convinced his colleagues that 
 international obligations cannot be wholly disregarded ; 
 even though they should be hard to reconcile with the 
 imprescriptible right of the sovereign people to de- 
 termine how it shall be governed. 
 
 The constant fear of a counter-revolution brought 
 about by foreign invasion, a fear encouraged on the one 
 hand by the foolish confidence of the aristocrats, and on 
 the other by the language of the revolutionary press, 
 disturbed the public mind, and, more perhaps than 
 anything else, increased the influence of the most violent 
 faction. Mirabeau, as the spokesman of the Diplomatic 
 Committee, endeavoured to show that this terror was base- 
 less. The people had now, he said, secured their rights. 
 Let them begin to perform their duties. One of the 
 first of these was to have confidence in the authorities 
 they themselves had chosen, and, until the signal of 
 danger was given by them, not to allow themselves to 
 be so idly alarmed. There was not one of her neighbours 
 whom France had any just reason to fear. The aristo-
 
 xii THE REGENCY 221 
 
 crats who had emigrated were not a serious danger. 
 Even the Court of Turin knew its own interest too well 
 to support them, and what great nation was likely to 
 espouse their vengeance, to supply them with arms and 
 subsidies, and to lavish on their behalf the gold of its 
 taxes and the blood of its citizens? Certainly not 
 England, where public opinion would sweep aAvay any 
 minister so ill-advised as to attempt such a foolish 
 and criminal enterprise. By these and other arguments 
 Mirabeau (January 28, 1791) endeavoured to deliver his 
 countrymen from the nightmare of terror which was 
 afterwards the cause of many of the worst excesses of 
 the Revolution. 
 
 We have seen that Mirabeau's health had been under- 
 mined for years by ailments chronic and acute, caused 
 by as reckless a life as ever was lived by man. Drunken- 
 ness, said his brother the Viscount, was the only excess 
 which his elder brother had left for him. Yet such was 
 the vigour of his constitution that he lived this life to the 
 very last. Until he knew Mirabeau, says Dumont, he 
 had not dreamt how much could be done by one man in 
 twenty-four hours. From seven in the morning till ten 
 or eleven at night he did not allow himself a moment's 
 rest, not even during his meals. No small part of his 
 political discussions and negotiations were conducted at 
 table. When he visited his sister, Madame du Saillant, 
 it was to meet Cazales and other moderate men of the 
 Right without attracting observation. The only relaxa- 
 tion he allowed himself from time to time, when his 
 long day of work was over, was to sit till daybreak 
 supping with ladies of the ballet. He had two severe 
 attacks of illness during the first fortnight of March
 
 222 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 1791. When, on March 22, it was debated whether 
 the prince of the blood next in the order of succession 
 should be regent, as the Constitutional Committee pro- 
 posed, or whether, as some preferred, the representatives 
 of the nation should elect the regent from among the 
 members of the royal family, Mirabeau said that he had 
 been too ill to give the necessary thought to the subject, 
 and begged that the discussion might be adjourned. 
 Cazales pointed out that the English Parliament had 
 adjourned a debate out of a like consideration for 
 Fox ; but the majority were less accommodating. 
 
 Mirabeau wrote to La Marck that he now for the 
 first time felt dismay, that the existence of hereditary 
 monarchy was at stake, that Sieyes had never before 
 intrigued so actively. It might therefore have been 
 expected that he would have spoken in favour of the 
 proposal of the committee, especially as it appeared to 
 be approved by the majority. Instead of doing so, he 
 made, on the second day of the debate, a somewhat 
 elaborate speech, dwelling on the disadvantages of 
 allowing mere chance of birth to decide who shall 
 govern the State, using arguments at least as valid 
 against hereditary kingship as against an hereditary 
 regency. Yet, he concluded, the question was un- 
 important, since neither sovereign nor regent would 
 have much power under the new constitution. As, 
 therefore, the proposal of the committee accorded better 
 with the habits and prejudices of the nation, he should 
 give it his support. He argued, as Brissot said, white 
 and concluded black. M. de Lomenie sees in this 
 strange inconsistency a proof of failing powers, but 
 Mirabeau's intellect remained vigorous to the end, and
 
 xii LAST ILLNESS 223 
 
 the more probable explanation seems to be that he was 
 determined by some subtle calculation, by one of those 
 h part de finesse which, according to La Marck, made 
 it at times so difficult to forecast his action. Nor is 
 Mirabeau's conduct the only mystery in this debate. 
 The reasons which induced Maury, the fearless and un- 
 compromising champion of monarchy, to vote in favour 
 of an elective regency are equally obscure. 
 
 Mirabeau's exertions in a debate which lasted three 
 days and a reckless orgy aggravated his disease. He 
 passed the night of March 26 in a villa he possessed 
 at Argenteuil, trusting that the purer air might restore 
 his strength for the next day, when the laws regulating 
 the mining industry were to be finally discussed and 
 passed. The fortune of La Marck, a large proprietor 
 of mines, was at stake. During the night he suffered 
 pain so intense that he several times fainted. Yet on 
 the next day he persisted in driving to the Assembly. 
 On the way he called at La Marck's house, who begged 
 him to give up all idea of attending the debate, his 
 appearance was so ghastly, his exhaustion so obvious. 
 "No," he said, "were I not to go those men would nun 
 you." During the debate he spoke at great length and 
 with his usual energy, sacrificing, said Lafayette, what 
 remained in him of life to his friendship. It was with 
 difficulty that his doctor, Lacheze, supported him to his 
 carriage and brought him back to La Marck. As he 
 sank fainting on a sofa, "Your case," he said, "is won, 
 but I am dying." Lacheze accompanied him to Argenteuil. 
 During the night he obtained some rest, but in the 
 morning his sufferings increased. He wished to be 
 treated by Cabanis, the brother-in-law of Condorcet,
 
 224 MIR ABE AU CHAP. 
 
 who was equally celebrated as a physician and a wit, 
 and with whom he had of late become intimate. He 
 therefore returned to his house in the Chaussee d'Antin, 
 and was so revived by a hot bath that he ventured in 
 the evening to the Italian opera, to be driven back to 
 his bed by a more violent paroxysm. In four days he 
 was dead. He was only in his forty-second year, and 
 his activity and energy, continuing to the last, made his 
 death appear as sudden as it was unexpected. It is not 
 therefore surprising that rumours of poison should have 
 spread at a time when everybody and everything were 
 suspected, although the doctors were convinced that 
 there was no symptom not to be accounted for by 
 natural causes. Indeed, that he should have lived so 
 long, and not that he should have died, was the greater 
 wonder. No deathbed was ever more carefully watched, 
 more minutely described. Cabanis chronicled both the 
 symptoms of his patient and the sayings of his friend. 
 La Marclc, Frochot, and the " adopted son " are copious 
 in detail. 
 
 La Marck relates that on a former occasion, when 
 Mirabeau was describing with impulsive eloquence some 
 dramatic deaths of ancient and modern times, he himself 
 objected that those famous deaths seemed to him less 
 admirable than the resigned courage with which he had 
 seen men, too humble to be sustained by affectation or 
 hope of fame, meet an obscure fate in the field or 
 hospital. Three days before his last Mirabeau asked 
 him to go through his papers, and, destroying the rest, 
 to take charge of those the notes for the Court more 
 particularly which might help to justify his conduct to 
 posterity. After La Marck had done what was desired,
 
 XII LAST ILLNESS 225 
 
 he returned to the sick-room and was sitting by the fire, 
 when Mirabeau held out his hand and, alluding to their 
 former conversation, said, "Well, my dear critic of 
 courageous deaths, are you satisfied 1 " Tears prevented 
 La Marck's reply, and the dying man pressing his hand 
 told him in affectionate and touching terms how much 
 his friendship had been to him. 
 
 But no one, as Talleyrand remarked, ever dramatised 
 his death more than Mirabeau, or was more sustained 
 during his last hours by the exciting consciousness of 
 playing a part before a vast and sympathetic audience. 
 And yet no one was ever more the same man to the last 
 instant than he ; for the habit of posing, of arranging all 
 he said and did, of draping his virtues and even his 
 vices for effect, had become second nature. Surely no 
 unearthly phantasms danced, as Carlyle imagines, their 
 torch-dance round his soul. His intellect, except during 
 some intervals of delirium, remained as calm and un- 
 clouded as ever in the tribune of the Assembly. The 
 energy of his will triumphed over the agony of his body, 
 and enabled him to converse on public and private 
 business with his friends, as well as to coin and utter, 
 from time to time, short and sententious sayings, 
 emphatic commonplaces, but well calculated to strike 
 the popular imagination and to live in men's memories. 
 To Cabanis he said, "You are a great physician, but 
 there is one greater than you the author of the wind 
 that subdues all, of the water that penetrates and 
 fertilises all, of the fire that vivifies and dissolves all " ; 
 and on the last morning, as the sun rose, " If that is not 
 God, it is at least his brother," and then, " I shall die 
 to-day. When we have come to that, nothing remains 
 
 Q
 
 226 MIRABEAU CHAP. 
 
 but to perfume ourselves, to crown ourselves with flowers, 
 and, surrounded by music, to enter as pleasantly as we 
 can into the sleep from which we shall never awake." 
 
 Hearing the distant sound of cannon, he asked, " Are 
 the funeral rites of Achilles already begun?" To 
 Frochot, who was supporting him, " Yes ! raise that 
 head ; would that I could bequeath it to you ! " And 
 when he was told of some new disturbance, " I carry in 
 my heart the pall of the Monarchy. After my death its 
 remains will be the spoil of the factious." 
 
 We have seen how often in sincerer moments he had 
 bewailed the errors of the past "What could I not 
 have done," he had said not long before, " had I come to 
 the States-General with the reputation of Malesherbes ! " 
 But now on his deathbed, when the contrast between 
 what was and what might have been must have haunted 
 his thoughts, there was no word of regret for past faults 
 or lost opportunities. A confession of failure would not 
 have been in harmony with the effect he sought to 
 produce. In a character which he once wrote of himself 
 he said that, if you would have men think much of you, 
 you must persuade them that you are infallible. 
 
 M. Alfred Stern remarks that Mirabeau might well 
 have said, and perhaps in a more literal sense than the 
 dying Augustus, " Applaud me if I have acted my part 
 well." He died almost in the presence of the nation to 
 whom he acted. His faithful friends and his secretaries 
 were constantly about his bed. Talleyrand, the Berlin 
 letters at length forgiven, came more than once. The 
 house was thronged by anxious inquirers. Twice a day 
 the king sent publicly, and privately even more often. 
 The Jacobins forgot their grudges, and Barnave was
 
 xii DEATH 227 
 
 among the deputation sent to express their anxiety and 
 sympathy. Not so the Lameths. I knew them, said 
 Mirabeau, to be without adroitness, but I did not 
 imagine them to be fools ! In the street there was the 
 impressive silence of a vast crowd, anxiously waiting for 
 the bulletins which were circulated every three hours, or 
 communicating in low whispers the last rumours of what 
 the sick man had said or done. 
 
 Madame du Saillant was near her brother when he 
 died, but, as it would seem, no other member of his family. 
 His brother the Viscount, whom, forgetting sarcasms 
 and libels, he had more than once endeavoured to protect 
 at the risk of his own popularity, had crossed the 
 frontier. His uncle the Bailli, after watching events in 
 Provence, was soon to seek a refuge at Malta, where he 
 died in 1793. The wretched Marchioness of Mirabeau, 
 whose sordid fortunes were at their lowest ebb, com- 
 plained in a royalist newspaper that she had been 
 driven from the door of her dying son. It was, 
 however, believed that not the mother but the im- 
 portunate creditor had been excluded. 
 
 When Mirabeau's death was known, the grief and 
 consternation were almost universal. No prince or 
 king was ever so generally lamented by all classes and 
 by all parties. Only those who hoped for a counter- 
 revolution and those who wished to perpetuate anarchy, 
 a small minority of extreme men, rejoiced that the most 
 formidable opponent of reaction and disorder should be 
 no more. 
 
 Mirabeau desired in his will that his body should be 
 laid "in the chapel of his house at Le Marais," and that 
 the remains of his father and grandfather should also
 
 228 MIRABEAU CHAr. 
 
 be brought there. It was characteristic that he should 
 speak of an estate, the first instalment of the purchase- 
 money of which had not been and could not be paid, as if 
 absolutely his own. His was to be no such quiet resting- 
 place. Nor, had the choice been offered to him, can we 
 doubt that he would have preferred a funeral the, like 
 of which France had never seen and a tomb in the 
 Pantheon, even with the knowledge that three years 
 later he would be cast out, to make place for the blood- 
 stained corpse of Marat, who now was calling on the 
 people to rejoice that there was one scoundrel the less 
 on earth, since the infamous Eiqueti had departed. 
 
 The National Assembly, the ministers, Lafayette 
 at the head of his National Guards, the Council of 
 the Seine, the municipality, the Jacobins for even 
 Robespierre lamented ' ' the illustrious patriot " thousands 
 of private citizens, formed part of the vast procession 
 which followed the bier on which was borne the one 
 great man of the Eevolution the one man whom his 
 countrymen instinctively felt to have possessed the 
 genius which might have swayed that mighty and 
 mysterious force this way or that, and whom they 
 united to lament because each party believed that he 
 would have guided it in the direction of their hopes. 
 
 The many sorrowed for the fearless champion of 
 liberty who on the memorable 23rd of June had opposed 
 the commands of the monarch in the name of the 
 sovereign people, who, while the Bastille was still 
 standing, defied and denounced a reactionary govern- 
 ment, and who had never ceased to declare that come 
 what might the old abuses should never be restored. 
 The Jacobins grieved for the defender of assignats and
 
 xii GENERALLY LAMENTED 229 
 
 of the civil constitution of the clergy. The constitu- 
 tional liberals lamented the statesman who had shown 
 his moderation in the debates on the veto, on the right 
 of peace and war, on the law against emigration. The 
 more moderate members of the Eight regretted that 
 the man whom they had feared and hated as their most 
 dangerous enemy should have died at the very moment 
 when they hoped that he was about to become their 
 most useful friend. 
 
 Certainly the contrast between Mirabeau distrusted 
 and shunned at the opening of the Estates as a dis- 
 honourable adventurer, and Mirabeau followed to the 
 grave within less than two years by a mourning nation, 
 is striking, but not more striking than the contrast 
 between the reverent pomp with which he was laid in 
 the Pantheon and the careless indignity with which, three 
 years later, his uncoffined remains were cast out to 
 mingle with the nameless mould in some corner of a 
 desecrated graveyard. 
 
 It is probable that the popularity of the living 
 Mirabeau would have waned not less swiftly than that 
 of the dead. He would have been crushed under the 
 hopes which he must have disappointed. He had to a 
 great extent bought his popularity by heavy draughts 
 payable in the future. He died before they fell due, and 
 was sincerely lamented by all who held his paper. Had 
 he lived we cannot say how each individual creditor would 
 have fared, whether some would have been paid in full, 
 while the claims of others were wholly repudiated, or 
 whether a moderate composition would have been offered 
 to all. But one thing is certain, that his capital would 
 have proved even more unequal to meet the demands
 
 230 MIRABEAU CHAP, xn 
 
 upon it than lie himself supposed. "Not the least of 
 Mirabeau's talents," wrote a Parisian journalist on the 
 day of his funeral, " was the gift of doing everything in 
 season. He has given a proof of this at the last. He 
 could not have chosen a better time to die." 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.
 
 FOREIGN STATESMEN 
 
 Publishers are issuing under this title the 
 Lives of eminent statesmen of Continental 
 Europe, corresponding in form and size, and similar 
 in scope, to the series which, under the name 
 " Twelve English Statesmen," is confined to the 
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 including every statesman who has made his mark 
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 limited to a selection from those who have exercised 
 a commanding influence on the general course of 
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 The Series is edited by Professor BURY of Trinity 
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 The following volumes have already been arranged 
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 RICHELIEU. 
 
 By Professor RICHARD LODGE, formerly Fellow and Tutor of 
 
 Brasenose College, Oxford, Professor of History in the 
 
 University of Glasgow. [Ready. 
 
 PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 
 
 By Rev. W. H. BUTTON, M.A., Fellow of St. John's College, 
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 WILLIAM THE SILENT. 
 
 By FREDERIC HARRISON. [Ready. 
 
 MARIA THERESA. 
 
 By Rev. J. FRANCK BRIGHT, D.D., Master of University 
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 JOSEPH II. 
 
 By Rev. J. FRANCK BRIGHT, D.D. 
 
 PHILIP II. OF SPAIN. 
 
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 CHARLES THE GREAT. 
 
 By THOMAS HODGKIN, D.C.L., Author of "Italy and Her 
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 LOUIS XI. 
 
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 CHARLES THE FIFTH. 
 
 By E. ARMSTRONG, Fellow and Lecturer of Queen's College, 
 Oxford. 
 
 FERDINAND THE CATHOLIC. 
 
 By E. ARMSTRONG, Fellow and Lecturer of Queen's College, 
 Oxford. 
 
 MAZARIN. 
 
 By ARTHUR H. HASSALL, Student and Lecturer of Christ 
 Church, Oxford. 
 
 LOUIS XIV. 
 
 By H. 0. WAKEMAN, Fellow of All Souls College, and Tutor 
 of Keble College, Oxford. 
 
 CATHERINE II. 
 
 By J. B. BURY, Professor of Modern History in the University 
 of Dublin. 
 
 MIRABEAU. 
 
 By P. F. WILLERT, Fellow and Tutor of Exeter College, 
 Oxford. [Ready. 
 
 CAVOUR. 
 
 By the Countess MARTINENGO CESARESCO. 
 
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