1749-1791.
It is impossible to imagine a greater contrast of character than that
between the subject of the preceding memoir and the present. Condorcet
was a man of warm affections, well regulated mind, and clear precise
understanding; his enthusiasm was lighted up by benevolence, and the
love of that which he considered truth. He was timid, yet firm; mild,
yet resolute. Mirabeau resembled his Italian ancestors, rather than the
usual French character. His violent passions governed him, and caused
him to govern others through his earnestness and vehemence. His
intellect showed itself rather in eloquent bursts than in works of
reason, and yet he could apply himself more sedulously than almost any
other man when he had an object in view. Profligate, extravagant, and
proud, ardent and ambitious, with a warm kind heart, and a mind which
erred only under the influence of passion, he passed a life of adversity
and oppression, to die at the moment he reached a degree of power which
is allotted to few men not born to its inheritance.
The family and progenitors of Mirabeau were all remarkable. He left, in
manuscript, a sketch of the family history, and a more detailed life of
his grandfather, in which we find singularly displayed the energy, iron
will, and pride of the race. The name they originally bore was
Arrighetti; the family was Florentine, and driven from that city in
1268, during one of the revolutions occasioned by the quarrels of the
Guelphs and Ghibelines. A sentence of perpetual exile was pronounced
against Azzo Arrighetti and his descendants, and Azzo took refuge, as
many other ghibelines had done, in Provence; and the name of Riquetti is
found on various occasions in the history of Marseilles. Those who bore
it played at all times a foremost and bold part: they were eagle-eyed
men, fierce and headstrong, yet discerning. During the war of the fronde
the family was royalist, and was rewarded by a patent of Louis XIV.,
which erected their estate of Mirabeau into a marquisate. Jean Antoine,
grandfather of the subject of this memoir, was one of five sons, who all
ran an eccentric, bold, and active career. He passed his younger days in
the army, and went through many hairbreadth perils and incredible
adventures. The last campaign in which he served was that of the duke de
Vendôme, in Italy. He performed prodigies of valour in the battle of
Cassano, and was left for dead on the field. Found by the enemy with
some slight signs of life, prince Eugene, who knew and esteemed him,
sent him, without ransom, to the French camp, that the operation
necessary for his preservation might not be delayed. His life was saved,
but he survived frightfully mutilated, and a martyr to severe physical
suffering to the end of his life. He returned home to find his fortune
dilapidated, but never to lose that intrepidity and pride that formed
the foundation of the family character. He married, and found in the
admirable character of his wife the reward and solace of his sufferings:
she had been struck by the heroism of his character; and it is related
of her, that some expressions of pity for her being the wife of a
cripple, and of a man of a haughty, imperious character, having met her
ear, she exclaimed, "Ah! if you knew how happy one is to be able to
respect one's husband." He was an admirable landlord and a careful
father; and his family flourished under his superintendence, till
implicated, through the imprudence of his wife's brother, in the system
of Law, he was ruined on the breaking of the bubble. From that time he
lived in retirement, bending all his efforts to the paying his debts and
repairing his fortune. He died in 1737, at the age of seventy-one,
feared yet beloved by all in connexion with him.
He left three sons: Victor, the eldest, succeeded to the honours and
possessions of the house. This man was a strange mixture of good
intention and evil doing;--a general philanthropist, and yet the
persecutor and enemy of his own family; against various members of which
he obtained, at different times, fifty-seven lettres de cachet, nearly a
score of which were levelled against his eldest son. He had more vanity
than pride, and his haughtiness was unaccompanied by a spirit of
justice, yet joined to a perfect conviction that he was always in the
right. Implacable towards others, indulgent with regard to himself:
hence spring the contradictions observable in his character; we find
displayed a mixture of sternness and softness, rancour and good humour.
Had he been as severe with himself as others, his whole character had
been rigid, but he would have been more just and virtuous: as it was, we
find him plastic to the influence of his own passions or vanity, and
become gentle and even playful under their influence: whatever jarred
with these found him despotic and unforgiving. Thus he grew into a
domestic tyrant, and while he ran after popularity in his own person, he
disdained and crushed the talents of his son. His literary reputation
did not begin till he had passed mid-life; it was founded on "L'Ami des
Hommes," a work in five volumes, which, in the midst of great
diffuseness and confusion, is yet remarkable for the knowledge it
displays in agriculture and statistics, and for many clear and liberal
views. His "Théorie de l'Impôt," published in 1760, caused him,
through his attack on the financiers of the day, to be imprisoned in the
fortress of Vincennes. He wrote many other works on the same species of
subjects. It is a curious circumstance that, while he adopted in his
publications a bad, inflated, and obscure style, his private letters are
witty, gay, and flowing. He had, of course, served in his youth; but
disappointment with regard to promotion, combined with his desire to
acquire a literary reputation, caused him to quit the army. He married a
young widow of good birth and fortune, Marie Geneviève de Vassam, who
had been previously married to the marquis de Saulvebeuf. His desire of
shining in literature made him approach Paris, and he bought the estate
of Bignon, not far from Nemours, and gave himself up to what he
considered his vocation. For many years the disturbances of his domestic
life were confined under his own roof. He had a family of eleven
children: he was passionately attached to his mother, whom he regarded
with a filial veneration that belonged to the old school of manners and
piety. Fifteen years changed the scene; quarrels and litigations arose
between him and his wife. She was violent and indiscreet; he was
tyrannical and unjust; and conjugal infidelity rendered their separation
final. Madame de Pailly, a young woman of great beauty, to whom he was
attached, installed herself at Bignon, and exercised a most powerful and
sinister influence over his conduct towards his family. His wife was
indignant: he replied to her resentful representations by the most
odious acts of despotism, and conceived a violent hatred against the
mother of his children. A scandalous lawsuit was the result; the
fortunes of both parties were irreparably injured; and the unfortunate
offspring were in a worse situation than orphans;--hated by their
father,--not daring to see their mother, who was shut up in a
convent,--treated with the utmost severity on one hand, and without
resource in maternal affection on the other. Added to his matrimonial
dissensions were the attacks made on him in his quality of author.
"L'Ami des Hommes," as the marquis de Mirabeau was commonly called from
his book, carried all the impetuosity, self-sufficiency, and haughtiness
of his race into his literary career; and it may be supposed that
became as stormy as his father's had been on the field of battle. His
confidence in his own talents and powers was unbounded: he never
attributed the misfortunes that pursued him to any error or rashness of
his own; he looked on them as the dispensation of Providence, or as
arising from the folly and injustice of his fellow-creatures. No
hesitation, no doubt with regard to himself, ever entered his mind;
every thing was sacrificed to his opinions, his convictions, his
mistaken sense of his duties. He was blinded, as a French biographer
observes, by the most deceptive of all fanaticisms--that of his own
infallibility. The passions that in another he would have regarded as
crimes, he looked on as virtues in himself: he could never perceive the
shadow of right or justice in any cause or views at variance with his
own. Such was the father who became the bitter enemy and persecutor of a
son, endowed with all the genius, passions, and faults of his race.
Gabriel Honoré was the fifth child of the marquis: through the previous
death of a brother in the cradle, he was, at the time of his birth, the
only son. He was born at Bignon. He came into the world with teeth, and
was an enormously large infant. It was remarked of him, that, destined
to become the most turbulent and active of men, he was born with a
twisted foot; and, gifted with extraordinary eloquence, he was
tongue-tied. At three years of age he had the small-pox, and his mother,
who dabbled in medicine, making some experiments on the pustules, the
result was that he remained frightfully seared and marked. His father
was evidently deeply mortified, and wrote to his brother, "Your nephew
is as ugly as if he were Satan's." His other children being remarkably
handsome, this circumstance became more disastrous to the sufferer. The
boy, however, early showed talent, which was nurtured by an excellent
tutor, and less judiciously overlooked by his father, who resolved to
give him an education of unequalled excellence--that is, one of
perpetual restraint, reprimand, and chastisement. We have interesting
details of his infancy and youth, in extracts from a series of letters
which passed between the marquis and his brother.[10] The bailli de
Mirabeau was entered by his father into the order of knights of Malta in
his infancy. He served in the French navy for the space of thirty-one
years, when he retired without recompence, except such as he derived
from a high reputation. He was a proud, austere, and resolute man,
possessing at the same time extreme piety, great goodness, and
unblemished integrity of character, together with a foundation of good
sense that contrasts with his brother's intemperate sallies.
Uncompromising even to roughness, he was ill suited to a court, while
his bravery and sound understanding fitted him for public service. Proud
of the antiquity of his race; openly disdainful of the new-created
noblesse; frank, upright, but somewhat discontented, as he well might
be, at the small reward his services received; yet at the same time too
haughty to wait obsequiously on the great, or even to take the measures
necessary to refresh their memory, he passed the latter part of his life
in retirement. He devoted his fortune to his brother's service, whom he
respected as the head of the family, and regarded with warm fraternal
affection. A correspondence subsisted between the one, living either at
Paris or Bignon, and the other, who was serving his country at a
distance, or established at Mirabeau, which discloses the secrets of the
family, and unveils the motives and passions that swayed the conduct of
the marquis. The bailli was deeply interested in the child who was to
transmit the family name, and, being at the time of the boy's birth
governor of Guadaloupe, wrote earnestly home for information with regard
to him. The child early developed quickness of intellect and turbulence
of temper, joined to kindness of heart. Poisson, his tutor, was a
careful but severe guide, and if ever he was softened, the marquis
stepped in to chastise. Soon, too soon, the paternal scoldings and
punishments became angry reprimands and constant disapprobation, which
verged into hatred. These feelings were increased by the imprudences and
vivacity of the boy, the misjudged quarrels of the mother, the artful
manœuvres of madame de Pailly, and the bitter hatred conceived by an
old servant named Gervin, who, from some unknown cause, exercised
extraordinary influence over the marquis. The chief fault particularised
by the father was the boy's habitual untruths. A love of or indifference
to truth is one of the characteristics with which human beings are born.
The former may be cultivated, the latter checked, but the propensities
do not the less remain; and it is the most painful discovery that a
parent can make, to find that his child is not by natural instinct
incapable of falsehood. This innate and unfortunate vice, joined to the
boy's wildness and heedlessness, caused the father to write of him in
severe terms, scarcely suited to his' childish years. "He seems to me,"
he writes, "in addition to all the baseness of his natural character, a
mere fool, an unconquerable maniac. He attends a number of excellent
masters; and as every one, from his confessor to his playmate, are so
many watchers, who tell me every thing, I discern the nature of the
heart, and do not believe that he can come to any good." The first
master, Poisson, set over him, however, took a liking to the boy, and
praised his prodigious memory and good heart. The father, instead of
being pleased, grew angry. He declared that he would now be utterly
spoilt, and took him out of his hands to place him in those of an abbé
Choquart, a severe disciplinarian, who was bid not to spare punishment.
The severity of the marquis may be judged by this one circumstance, that
taking his son from a tutor whom he loved, and placing him in a school
to which he was sent as to a prison, he insisted that he should go by
another name. "I did not choose," he writes, "that an illustrious name
should be disgraced on the benches of a school of correction, and I
caused him to be entered as Pierre Buffière.
[Sidenote: 1764.
Ætat.
15.]
My gentleman struggled, wept, argued in vain. I bid him win my name,
which I would only restore when he deserved it." Had the father been
just the youth would soon have regained his affections and name. The
abbé Choquart, at first severe with his pupil, soon became attached to
and proud of him. His progress was astonishing, his memory prodigious.
The dead and living languages, mathematics, drawing, and music, and
various manly exercises, occupied him by turns, and he distinguished
himself in all. In the midst of the marquis's vituperations we find no
absolute facts. He calls his son lying by nature, base, and so vicious
that the worst consequences are to be apprehended: this is carried so
far that, when he mentions that his masters applaud and his comrades
love him, he adds that the boy ought to be smothered, if it were only
for his powers of cajolery and fascination.
This severity frightened but did not conquer the youth. He worked hard
to obtain his father's approbation; but indiscretions came between to
widen the breach. Perpetually in expectation of some degrading or
excessive punishment, he lived in a state of excitement, and even
terror, ill fitted to inspire the gentleness and repose of spirit which
is the best ingredient of honour and virtue. As he grew older his
turbulence became more dangerous; and his father, considering it
necessary to tame him by increased hardships, placed him in the army. "I
am going to send him," he writes, "as volunteer, to the strictest and
most laborious military school. A man, a chip of the old times, the
marquis de Lambert, has founded one in his regiment. He pretends that
the exclusive atmosphere of honour, and a hard and cold moral regimen,
can restore beings the most vitiated even by nature. I have requested
him to name as Mentor an officer who, not from reason and deduction, but
from instinct, should have a disgust and natural scorn for all baseness.
I have named Gervin as his other Mentor, and the only servant-master of
this young man. Severity will cost me nothing, for with him it is my
right and my duty." The perpetual recurrence to the accusation of
baseness affords some excuse for the father's inveteracy; yet it was
certainly ill judged to set a servant over a proud aspiring youth as
master, and this servant, who hated him, was one of the chief engines of
perpetuating the marquis's bad opinion.
[Sidenote: 1767.
Ætat.
18.]
However, by placing him beyond the paternal control, under the impartial
jurisdiction of a regiment, the young man had a chance of being fairly
treated, and the consequence was that his good conduct was acknowledged
and a brevet rank promised him. He was not allowed to reap any
advantage: his father kept him so wholly without money that he incurred
a few debts; he lost, also, four louis in play, a vice to which he
showed no predilection in after life, and we may therefore judge that
this trifling loss was accidental. His father's wrath flamed out. "He is
cast," he wrote to his brother, "in the mould of his maternal race, and
would devour twenty inheritances and twelve kingdoms if he could lay his
hands on them. But I can endure as little as I like of that species of
evil, and a close and cool prison will soon moderate his appetite and
thin him down."
Added to this error was the unfortunate circumstance of an amour, the
first outbreak of his passionate nature on emerging from boyhood, in
which he was the successful rival of his superior officer, who thus
became his enemy, and joined with the father to crush the young man's
spirit. Mirabeau, in after years, always spoke with great bitterness of
M. de Lambert's discipline. He escaped from it on this occasion, and
took refuge in Paris with his father's intimate friend, the duke de
Nivernois. His brother-in-law, husband of his sister, the marquis du
Saillant, mediated between him and his father: he defended himself
against accumulated accusations. His father speaks of his defence as a
mass of falsehood and ingratitude: he meditated, or, rather, was
instigated, to send him to the Dutch colonies in India, but milder
thoughts prevailed;--he would not kill, but only tame, as with blows,
the fiery-spirited boy; so he caused him to be imprisoned in the
fortress of the Isle de Rhé; and the youth felt that all the world was
his enemy, and the chief his harsh implacable parent. In his eloquent
letter to the marquis, written some years after, in the prison of
Vincennes, he alludes with bitterness to this period of his existence.
"I may say," he writes, "that from my earliest years, and on my first
entrance into life, I enjoyed few marks of your kindness; that you
treated me with rigour before I could have merited it; and yet that you
might have soon perceived that my natural impetuosity was excited,
instead of repressed, by such treatment; that it was as easy to soften
as to irritate me; that I yielded to the former, and rebelled against
the latter. I was not born to be a slave; and, in a word, that, while
Lambert ruined, Vioménil would have preserved me. Allow me also to
remind you, that, before you restored me to your favour, you confessed
in one of your letters that you had been on the point of sending me to
one of the Dutch colonies. This made a profound impression, and
influenced prodigiously the rest of my life. What had I done at eighteen
to merit a fate the thought of which makes me tremble even now?--I had
loved."
In his prison, Mirabeau acquired the friendship of the governor, whose
mediation only added to his father's irritation. He was, however,
induced to liberate him, and permit him to join an expedition to
Corsica. He was entered as sub-lieutenant of foot in the regiment of
Lorraine. The same mixture of wild passion, unwearied study, and eager
aspiration for distinction, marked this period. He wrote a history of
Corsica; he fabricated an itinerary of the island, founded on his
personal inquiries and perambulations; the manuscript, the
voluminousness of which testified his industry, were deemed of such
value by the Corsicans themselves, that they desired its publication;
but it was destroyed by the marquis. In addition, he studied his
profession--he felt a vocation for a military life--the aspect of danger
calmed his fiery spirit, and he was ambitious of glory--he dedicated all
his time to the study of tactics, and declares that there was no book in
any language, living or dead, that treated of the art of war that he had
not read at this period, making, as he went on, voluminous extracts. In
after times he wrote to his sister--"I deceive myself greatly, or I was
born for a military life; for in war alone I feel cool, calm, gay, and
without impetuosity, and I am sensible that my character grows exalted."
On returning from Corsica, he was allowed to visit his uncle, the
bailli, at Mirabeau, and soon acquired the favour of this unprejudiced
man, who was astonished by his talents, his industry, and his genius.
His heart warmed, and the praises that overflowed had some effect on his
father, still distrustful, still fearful of showing favour. The first
mark of kindness which he gave was to insist that his son should throw
aside all his favourite pursuits, and dedicate himself to political and
agricultural economy, studying them in the works which he had himself
written. Mirabeau, per force, obeyed, and thus somewhat propitiated his
parent, so that he consented to see him during a visit he paid to
Provence. He put the young man to hard trials, and made him labour
indefatigably, preaching to him the while, and forcing political economy
down his throat. The marquis was averse to his following the military
profession, and by turning him from it plunged him in adversity. The
excessive activity of Mirabeau's mind, and his physical vigour, could be
satisfied in no other career: his exuberance of spirits and unwearied
strength rendered every other vocation tame and trivial; however, he
laboured at various occupations devised for him by his father, and was
rewarded, at the earnest solicitation of all the relations, by being
restored to his name--he having for some years gone by that of Pierre
Buffière. His father was so far won by his manifestations of talent as
to permit him to visit Paris, and pay his court at Versailles:--"He
behaves very well," the marquis writes; "his manners are respectful
without servility--easy, but not familiar.
[Sidenote: 1771.
Ætat.
22.]
The courtiers look on him as half mad, but say that he is cleverer than
any of them, which is not discreet on his part. I do not intend that he
shall live there, nor follow, like others, the trade of robbing or
cheating the king: he shall neither haunt the dirty paths of intrigue,
nor slide on the ice of favour; but he must learn what is going on: and
if I am asked why I, who never would frequent Versailles, allow him to
go so young, I reply that 'he is made of other clay.' For the rest, as,
for 500 years, Mirabeau, who were never like the rest of the world,
have been tolerated, he also will be endured, and he will not alter the
reputation of the race."
This gleam of paternal favour was soon clouded over. Mirabeau himself
accuses those around his father of inspiring him with distrust; but
there was something in the young man's character that jarred with the
father's, and produced a perpetual state of irritation and
dissatisfaction. The self-will, pedantry, economy, and self-sufficiency
of the marquis were in perpetual contradiction with the genius,
activity, recklessness, the winning frankness and plausible fascinations
of his son. In vain the youth transacted some troublesome business for
his father with diligence and success--in vain he entered into his
agricultural projects--the father writes bitterly, "His infancy was
monstrous, his adolescence turbulent, and both seem the worthy exordium
of his life, which is now a mixture of indiscretion, misconduct, and
garrulity; and at the same time so turbulent, so presumptuous, and so
heedless, that the enterprise of saving him from the dangers which his
years and his character present, is enough to fatigue and deter thirty
Mentors, instead of one." At length, tired of the young man's society,
and urged by those about him, he sent him (December, 1771) to Mirabeau,
to endeavour to pacify and regulate the dissensions subsisting among the
tenants of the marquis, which his usual agents were incapable of
rectifying. The young man fulfilled his task with zeal and ability: he
became known and liked in Provence, and his success inspired the idea of
settling him in marriage--so to calm down his turbulence in domestic
life: his father had before entertained this project, believing that a
woman of good sense would exercise the happiest influence over his mind.
The young lady pointed out was an heiress. A number of men of higher
pretensions than himself on the score of fortune aspired to her hand.
This circumstance, and the avarice of his father, who acted with his
usual parsimony, at first deterred Mirabeau; but, urged on by the
marquis's sarcasms, he exerted himself to overcome all difficulties and
succeeded, though the measures he took, which compromised the reputation
of the young lady, were highly reprehensible, and naturally excited the
disgust and disapprobation of his father.
[Sidenote: 1772.
Ætat.
23.]
Marie Emilie de Covet, only daughter of the marquis de Marignane, was
then eighteen: she was a lively brunette, scarcely to be called pretty,
but agreeable, witty, and superficially clever. Although an heiress, she
enjoyed a very slender fortune during the life of her father; and the
marquis, while he entailed the family estate on his son, allowed him
scarcely any income, and advanced him nothing for the expences of his
nuptials. This was the worst sort of marriage that Mirabeau could have
made. Marrying in his own province a girl of good family, and surrounded
by the _éclat_ that attends an heiress, he was led to desire to make an
appearance suitable to his name and his father's fortune. He incurred
debts. Madame de Sévigné remarks that there is nothing so expensive as
want of money. Debt always begets debt. Mirabeau was constitutionally
careless with regard to expense. His father lent him the chateau of
Mirabeau to live in: he found the ancestral residence as furnished by
his progenitors; and, obliged to make some repairs, he went to the other
extreme, and fitted up the apartments destined for his wife with
splendour. False pride caused him to load her with presents, and to
dress her richly, in spite of her remonstrances. At the same time he had
projects for the improvement of the culture of the estate, the proceeds
of which, he believed, would cover all his expenses. His father still
pursued the degrading plan of employing hirelings as spies over him.
These men, to cover their own peculations, represented that he was
selling the furniture of the chateau and injuring the property. Every
plan Mirabeau formed to pay his debts, as the best foundation of
retrenchment, was opposed by his father. Feeling the storm about to
break, and resolved to proceed no further on the road to ruin, he
commenced a system of rigid economy; but his father, deaf to all
explanations, excited by the representations of his servants, and
exasperated in the highest degree, obtained a lettre de cachet, and used
it to order his son to quit the chateau, and to confine himself in the
little town of Manosque. This sort of confinement was ill calculated to
appease the spirit of Mirabeau, who ought rather to have been thrown
into an arduous career, so to fill and occupy his mind. At Manosque he
was reduced to a scanty income of about 50_l_. a year, to support
himself, his wife, and child; his only employment was study, to which he
gave himself up with ardour, but it was not sufficient to tame and
engross him. He wrote here his "Essay on Despotism," a work full of
passion and vigour, into which he poured his own impatience of control.
He left behind him no good reputation among the people of Manosque; and,
if his wife afterwards refused to join him, she had the excuse that his
behaviour as a husband was such as to disgust any young lady of feeling
and delicacy. His own conduct did not, however, prevent him from being
jealous himself, and this passion, awakened toward his wife, renewed, by
the actions it occasioned, the persecutions of his father.
A girlish and innocent correspondence had been carried on by his wife
before her marriage with the chevalier de Gassaud. This, and other
circumstances, combined to excite jealousy in the mind of the husband; a
duel became imminent; till, pacified by the representations of the young
man's family, and consideration for the reputation of Madame de
Mirabeau, he became willing to listen to an explanation. The previous
scandal, however, threatened to break an advantageous marriage, on foot
between the chevalier and the daughter of the marquis de Tourette.
Mirabeau, resolving not to be generous by halves, left Manosque
secretly, and repaired with all possible speed to the town of Grasse: he
pleaded the cause of the chevalier with such earnest eloquence that the
family dismissed their objections, and he hastened to return to his
place of exile.
Most unfortunately he met on his way back the baron de Villeneuve-Moans.
This man had, a short time before, grossly insulted his sister, the
marquise de Cabris. The brother demanded satisfaction, which being
refused, he now, meeting him by accident, struck him. The baron
proceeded legally against him, and thus his evasion from his place of
exile came to light.
[Sidenote: 1774.
Ætat.
25.]
The implacable father demanded a stricter imprisonment; and Mirabeau,
taken from his wife and his infant son, then dangerously ill, was
conducted to the chateau of If, a dismal fortress, built on a naked rock
by the sea-shore, near Marseilles. He was here at the demand of his
father, interdicted all visits and correspondence; and the marquis also
took the pains to write to the commander of the castle, Dallegre,
exaggerating the faults of his son, and blackening his character; but
here, as before in the Isle de Rhé, the commander was won by the
frankness, courage, and fascinating qualities of his prisoner, and wrote
to the marquis to entreat his liberation. "All the province knows," he
wrote, "that you have made the freedom of the count de Mirabeau depend
on the report I shall make of his good conduct. Receive, then, the most
authentic attestation that, since the count has been confined at the
chateau d'If, he has not given me, nor any other person, the slightest
cause of complaint, and has always conducted himself admirably. He has
sustained with extreme moderation the altercations I have sometimes
entered into for the purpose of trying his temper, and he will carry
away with him the esteem, friendship, and consideration of every one
here." Madame de Mirabeau made a journey to Bignon to intercede with his
father, who at length explained that his purpose was to try his son;
that he meant to keep him yet longer in the chateau of If; and if, by a
miracle, he committed no new fault, he should be transferred to some
other fortress where his perseverance in a good course should continue
to be put to the test, till by degrees he should be restored to his
privileges of husband and father. When we consider that Mirabeau really
filled these sacred functions, and that his sole crime towards his
father was debt,--a crime the consequences of which visited him only,
and visited him severely,--we revolt from the insolent tyranny exercised
against him.
[Sidenote: 1775.
Ætat.
26.]
In pursuance of this plan, he was transferred to the fortress of Joux,
near Pontarlier, and placed in the hands of the governor, count
Saint-Mauris. He submitted to this new exile among the mountains of
Jura, away from his wife and child, from every friend and connection,
with entire resignation; still hoping, by patience and good conduct, to
vanquish the prejudices and gain the good will of his father.
Until now we appear to detail a series of cruel and causeless
persecutions. The conduct of Mirabeau, tried by the laws of morality,
had been vicious, but not criminal, and was punished as the latter. He
had, to a certain degree, redeemed his extravagance, by living for a
considerable period within the limits of an income scarcely sufficient
to afford the necessaries of life. He had obtained the favourable
attestation of the man under whose guard he was placed: it was evident
to every one, except his inexorable father, that the husband ought to be
restored to the young wife, already suspected of indiscretion--the
father to his child; a young man of ambition and talents, to the
enjoyment of liberty and of the privileges of his birth.
Mirabeau painted his feelings eloquently in a letter to his uncle, dated
from the fortress of Joux, 22d of August, 1775. "Ought I," he writes,
"to be for ever excluded from a career in which my conduct and
endeavours, aided by your counsels, might give me the means of one day
becoming useful and known. Times are mending, and ambition is permitted.
Do you believe that the emulation that animates me ought to remain
sterile, and that, at the age of twenty-six, your nephew is incapable of
any good? Do not believe it; deliver me; deign to deliver me: save me
from the frightful agitation in which I live, and which may destroy the
effects produced on me by reflection and adversity. Believe me, that
there are men whom it is necessary to occupy, and that I am of that
number. The activity which accomplishes all things, and without which
nothing is achieved, becomes turbulent, and may become dangerous, if
left without object or employment." His father was insensible to these
representations, and, although the pretence of his continued
imprisonment was, that he should regain by degrees the paternal favour,
the marquis's letters prove that it was his heartfelt wish to drive his
son to extremities; and he too fatally succeeded.
Mirabeau had hitherto wasted his ardent nature on vulgar amours; he had
never felt real love. Had he been allowed to follow an active career, it
is probable that love, in an absorbing and despotic form, had never
governed him. Driven into solitude, separated from all the ties of
nature, friendless and persecuted, his heart in an unfortunate hour
became inflamed by a passion that sealed his ruin. The fortress of Joux
is situated in the neighbourhood of Pontarlier; the only family of note
resident in that town was that of De Monnier. Madame de Monnier belonged
to a family of the name of Ruffey, distinguished for a piety carried to
bigotry, and a parental severity, that caused them to devote several
children to a monastic life. Sophie was married at eighteen to M. de
Monnier, who was more than fifty years her senior. She joined to
gentleness of disposition and sweetness of temper great decision and
ardour of character. The young people became acquainted. She saw only
the bright side of Mirabeau's character; and, while she consoled him in
his misfortunes, she became entangled by the fascinations of passion. It
is impossible to conceive a more unnatural position, than that of a girl
sacrificed according to the old customs of France. Sophie de Ruffey was
taken from the nursery, and given, even without her consent being asked,
to a morose, avaricious, decrepit old man; who only married to annoy his
daughter. He was unamiable in all the relations of life; and the home of
the ardent girl was dull, and yet full of harassing cares. She had no
children; none of the sweet hopes and expectations that ought to attend
opening life; and, while she devoted herself to an existence full of
ennui and annoyance, she reaped no reward in the kindness and confidence
of her husband. It is not strange that, placed in this position, her
heart should be open to impression, and before she knew her danger she
was in love. The enthusiasm and fervour of her disposition caused her to
exalt her lover into the idol of her imagination. Misled by passion, she
began to regard her tie to her septuagenarian husband as
criminal--fidelity and devotion to her lover as a paramount duty.
Mirabeau knew better what life was. He felt love for the first time in
all its truth and intensity, and he trembled at the prospect. According
to a wise poet,
"Love is too young to know what conscience is;
Yet who knows not that conscience is born of love?"
and thus he, who hitherto had looked on love as a mere sensual
enjoyment, and who, accustomed to occupy himself in arduous study for
the third of each day, had little leisure to employ in pursuits of empty
gallantry, became aware of the absorbing nature of real passion, and to
fear the misery that must ensue from its indulgence. He wrote letters of
eloquent supplication, imploring to be removed from a neighbourhood
which he found so dangerous: his father treated his appeals with
contempt; he then wrote to his wife a long letter, entreating her to
join him with their child, feeling that the presence of those who were
united to him by such sacred ties would check his pursuit, and at once
crush the affection of her he loved. Madame de Mirabeau was a frivolous
and weak woman: a separation of more than a year had alienated her from
her husband, whose conduct had been far from irreproachable, and she
replied to his supplications by a dry note of a few lines, in which she
treated him as out of his wits. Still Mirabeau struggled against the
seductions of love, and had the unfortunate pair been treated, not to
say with kindness, but with prudence, all had been well. It so happened
that the governor, count de Saint-Mauris, who was nearly seventy years
of age, was also in love with madame de Monnier, who had received his
declarations with the disdain which they deserved. His rage knew no
bounds, when he perceived the success of his prisoner. He roused the
suspicions of the husband, and, the better to wreak his revenge, took
advantage of his knowledge of a promissory note for a small sum, which
Mirabeau, left in a state of destitution by his father, had been obliged
to grant to procure necessary raiment, to report him to the implacable
marquis as incurring new debts, and so obtained a fresh order to confine
him strictly in the fortress of Joux. Mirabeau learnt the fate awaiting
him, and finding that his system of resignation had availed him nothing,
and shuddering at the prospect of a dungeon guarded by a malignant
rival, escaped from his surveillance, and secreted himself at
Pontarlier.
His position demanded the most careful reflection. His angry father
spared no pains to discover his place of refuge: he wrote to
Saint-Mauris, telling him to prepare a "healthy and dry, but well barred
and bolted dungeon for his son; and not to permit him the slightest
communication by writing or in person with any one." Hopeless of
softening the marquis, Mirabeau wrote to Malesherbes, the minister so
distinguished in France for benevolence and liberality; but Malesherbes
mediated in vain with his father, and, at length, told Mirabeau that he
had but one resource, which was to withdraw from his country, to enter
foreign service, and pursue the career of arms, for which his birth,
talents, and bravery, fitted him. Mirabeau was averse to renouncing his
country; again and again he applied by letters, written either by
himself or mediating friends, to his father, who at last replied, that
he renounced having any thing to do with him--told him that no country
was so foreign to him as his own; and, banishing him for ever from his
family, dissolved all natural and social ties that still held his son to
France.
Treated with this haughty cruelty, Mirabeau could not avoid contrasting
the marks of hatred and scorn, which he received from every other, with
the devoted love of her who was ready to sacrifice all to him. But,
though conjugal fidelity was held in slight regard and little practised
in France in those days, the carrying off a married woman was treated as
a crime to be punished by death or perpetual imprisonment, and Mirabeau
could not yet consent to lose himself or his mistress utterly. M. de
Monnier, informed by Saint-Mauris of the attachment of his wife,
surrounded her by spies, and treated her with the utmost severity. By
the advice of Mirabeau she left her husband, and took refuge with her
own family at Dijon. She found no kindness there; her angry father
refused to see her--her mourning mother caused her to be strictly
watched--her brother and sister taunted and insulted her. She was driven
to despair, and declared to her lover that she would destroy herself, if
by no other means she could escape the cruelty shown by all around. For
several months Mirabeau combated the passion rooted in his own heart,
and that which drove madame de Monnier to desperation. He had escaped
from France and gained the frontier: he might easily have now entered on
a military career in a foreign state, but devoted love bound him to
Sophie, who was on the eve of being imprisoned in a convent, and who,
revolting from such tyranny, believed that every genuine duty and
affection of life bound her to him she loved, and had become resolved to
devote her life to him. After much hesitation, many months spent in
wanderings in Switzerland, dogged close the while by emissaries of his
father, whose pursuit he baffled, and whose strength and patience he
wearied out; after many fruitless endeavours to avoid the catastrophe,
the hour at last arrived, when Mirabeau, cast off by father, wife, and
country, doomed to exile and a career dependent on his industry, and
feeling in the affection of his mistress his only solace in this
accumulation of disaster, and assured also that, if he deserted her,
Sophie, driven to desperation, would destroy herself, consented to their
flight.
[Sidenote: 1777.
Ætat.
27.]
She escaped from her husband's house and joined him at Verrières
Suisses, whence, after a fortnight's delay, they proceeded to Holland.
On the 7th of October they arrived at Amsterdam, and took a lodging at
the house of a tailor, where, destitute and friendless, Mirabeau was at
once forced to earn their daily bread, and to conceal his name and
identity, so to escape further persecution. He sought for occupation in
translating for a bookseller. After some delay he obtained work from
Rey, and was able to earn a louis a-day by means of extreme hard labour.
From six in the morning till nine in the evening he was at his desk: his
only recreation was an hour of music: but the lovers were happy
together. Sophie, fallen from a life of ease to one of privation, yet
regarded it no sacrifice to exchange annoyance and ennui, though
surrounded by luxury, for seclusion with one whose ardent affection,
brilliant imagination, and entire confidence, could easily supply every
void, and fill her existence with interest and delight.
The social law that bound Sophie to her husband was nefarious and
unnatural; but in breaking it she devoted herself to all the misfortunes
which attend an attachment not sanctioned by society: for a time love
may gild the scene, and, as was the case with Sophie, conscience be
satisfied that she had a right to exchange her forced ties with a
decrepit old husband, to whom she owed nothing, for a union with the man
of her choice. But the world and its laws dog the heels of a felicity
they condemn, and are sure at last to hunt down their prey. M. de
Monnier proceeded against his wife and her lover in a court of law, and
on the 10th May, 1777, sentence was passed on Mirabeau for rape and
seduction. He was condemned to be decapitated in effigy and to pay
40,000 livres as damages to the husband; while Sophie was condemned to
be confined for life in a house of refuge established at Besançon, to
be shaven and branded in common with the other prisoners, who were girls
of depraved life, and to lose all the advantages of her marriage
settlement. Such was the severity of the old French laws against
matrimonial infidelity--laws which permitted the most depraved state of
society ever known, and only made themselves felt in eases of exception,
when the most severe moralist would find excuses for, and be inclined to
pardon the errors of passion, which society punished only because the
victims refused to practise the hypocrisy which would have been accepted
as atonement.
The marquis de Mirabeau at first rejoiced in the catastrophe which
exiled his son for ever from the soil of France, and was willing to
forget his existence. Not so the family of Sophie: her mother, induced
by mixed feelings of religion, resentment, and even affection, was eager
to obtain possession of the person of her daughter, to separate her from
her lover, and induce her by severity or persuasion to return to her
husband. Through an imprudence the place of their retreat was
discovered, and the marquis writes to his brother, "He is in Holland,
and lives on the earnings of his pen. De Brugnierres is setting out to
fulfil a bargain made with madame de Ruffey, to seize her mad daughter,
for which he is to be paid 100 louis. I have profited by the occasion
and made the same arrangement--to be paid only if the man is taken to
his destination."
[Sidenote: 1777.
Ætat.
28.]
Mirabeau and his companion had lived eight months at Amsterdam: they had
made friends; and some among these told them that their retreat was
discovered, and an arrest impending. At first a treaty had been
commenced to induce Mirabeau to place madame de Monnier in the hands of
the French authorities, offering money and liberty as his reward: he
spurned these propositions and prepared to fly with her to America; yet
still the lovers were too secure, and delayed for the sake of obtaining
a sum of money. The very night on which they were to depart they were
arrested. Sophie, who, till the crisis arrived, was calm and serene,
though serious and resolved, was seized by despair: she resolved to
destroy herself. Mirabeau was her stay: he gained the goodwill of the
men about them, revealed his fears, and obtained the consent of M. le
Noir, lieutenant-general of police, to see her once, and afterwards to
correspond with her. His persuasions were all powerful, and she
consented to live. She was taken to Paris and imprisoned in a sort of
asylum for women, while Mirabeau was shut up in the donjon of Vincennes.
At first no gleam of hope lighted on the prisoners: all that bound them
to existence was the correspondence they kept up with each other, and
the fact that Sophie was about to give birth to a child. The letters
that Mirabeau wrote to his mistress from his prison fell afterwards into
the hands of a man who published them: certainly Mirabeau would have
been the last person in the world to have permitted the publication of
letters intended for the eye of his mistress alone, and drawn from a
nature whose paramount vice was excess of passion, now wrought to
intensity by close imprisonment and enforced separation from her whom he
ardently loved. These letters are in parts grossly indelicate and unfit
for perusal; but they display the burning ardour of his nature, and the
excess of his attachment for the unhappy woman whom he had drawn into
participation in his wretched destiny. For nearly two years these
letters are stamped with a hopelessness, often carried to desperation.
"There is no peace with my implacable enemies," he writes, at one time;
"there will be none except in the tomb. No pity can enter their souls of
gall: as barbarous as they are unjust, their commiseration will never
yield that which their iniquity denies. It is too much! I know not
whether, proscribed by that destiny which permits guilt to triumph, and
innocence to suffer, I am destined to die of despair, or to merit my
fate by the perpetration of crime, but the agony that precedes the
catastrophe endures too long, and I feel transports of indignation and
hatred, such as never before had influence over my soul." Again he
writes, "The rules of this house are so excessively, I had almost said
so atrociously severe, that I must perish if I remain longer. No species
of society is permitted: the turnkeys who wait on us are forbidden to
remain in our cells, or to speak to us--we have but one hour of exercise
out of the twenty-four. Alone with sorrow--no literary occupation--few
and bad books--interminable delays in the fulfilment of our most
innocent wishes and our simplest wants--no musical instruments--in a
word, no recreation--every consolation denied by a barbarous tyranny,
such is but a feeble sketch of our situation. A man who has any soul or
mind cannot resist such a mode of life, in which his talents, his
acquirements, and his most praiseworthy sentiments, instead of solacing,
must produce his ruin."
As a proof of the energy and fortitude of Mirabeau's soul, it must be
mentioned, that frequent opportunities of escape presented themselves,
but he declared that he would not desert Sophie and unlink his fate from
hers; nor renounce all hope of being restored to his station and rights
in his country. While he strung his soul to endure, his very strength of
purpose gave additional force to his hatred of tyranny. He, as being the
victim of his family, and not a state prisoner, was in the sequel
permitted many indulgences not allowed to any other. Books materials for
writing--connivance at his correspondence--more time allowed to his
walks--the visits of some of the superiors, who became his friends--such
were the licences permitted him; but we find him complaining that he was
forbidden to sing in his cell, and detailing the frightful physical
sufferings, to which he was the victim through confinement. A state
prisoner would have been treated with yet greater rigour; and the sense
of this, and the knowledge that others whose crimes were often their
virtues, were his fellow-sufferers, lighted up a horror of despotism in
his heart, which made him ever after its determined and bitter enemy.
With all his energy and fortitude, Mirabeau bore up with difficulty
under the hardships of his dungeon: at one time, he resolved on suicide,
and was saved only by the remonstrances of M. le Noir, whose kindness to
his prisoner was zealous and unalterable. Consenting to live, he found
study his sole resource, and he dedicated himself with ardour, and to
the injury of his health, to his pen. His works during his imprisonment
were numerous. He translated the "Kisses" of Johannes Secundus, with
abundant notes, containing extracts from all the erotic poets of
antiquity. He wrote a treatise on mythology; an essay on the French
language; another on ancient and modern literature; works undertaken for
the instruction and amusement of madame de Monnier. His "Essay on
Lettres-de-cachet and State Prisons" belongs also to this period.
His father, meanwhile, felt no compunction, no doubt as to the justice
of his conduct; no pity softened his heart, nor did he by any notice of
his son answer his many supplications. He declared that, having searched
and purified his heart each day before God, he is only the more
determined to persist; and the resolution in which he was to persist was
that of suffering his son to languish and perish in his dungeon.
[Sidenote: Oct.
8.
1778.
Ætat.
29.]
A circumstance happened, however, to change this resolve. His grandson,
the only son of Gabriel-Honoré, died. The mother resided with her child
at her father's chateau. She was surrounded by relations, collateral
heirs to her fortune if she died childless: some suspicion arose that
these persons had poisoned the boy; he was five years old, and of great
promise from the sweetness and docility of his disposition. The
grandfather was deeply afflicted: he could not doubt the uprightness of
his conduct nor the purity of his motives, so blinded was he by the
passions that urged him to persecute his family; but he was led to doubt
the support of Providence on which he had heretofore relied. From this
moment he began to meditate the liberation of his son. He was not
induced by justice nor compassion, but by pride: he could not endure
that the name of Mirabeau should be extinguished. "I reflected," he
wrote afterwards to his brother, "for a long time. It is certain that,
if my grandson had not died, I had insisted on the maintenance of the
promise made me, to keep the father in prison, and even to destroy all
trace of him. But, after the death of our poor little Victor, I found
that you felt as I did with regard to the extinction of our race; for,
however one may argue, however one may submit and resign one's self, a
feeling once entertained cannot be effaced." The marquis, however,
proceeded fair and softly in his design. Resolved both to punish and to
tame his son, he issued fresh orders, that he should be allowed no
indulgences; but he put several persons in action, through whose
suggestions Mirabeau commenced a correspondence with his uncle: the
letters were shown to his father, and some were addressed to the latter;
but he was not moved either by the protestations or representations they
contained to move faster or to alter his plan. In pursuance of this, he
declared that the liberation of his son depended on the intercession of
his wife. The countess de Mirabeau accordingly wrote to her
father-in-law, requesting that her husband should be set free; and
Mirabeau, hearing this, was touched by the generosity of her act. From
the moment, indeed, that hope gleamed on him of softening his father's
resolves, he became much more humble, and very ready to acknowledge his
faults. Sophie, also, with that generous ardour of disposition that was
at once the cause and excuse of her actions, wrote to the marquis,
taking all the fault of their attachment and flight on herself. Even the
old economist felt the nobleness of her conduct.
The affair, however, still lagged. M. de Marignane detested his
son-in-law. It was the interest of the relations around to prevent the
reunion of husband and wife: the countess was a weak and timid woman;
she resolved never to disobey, she feared to offend her father; and
besides, living as she did, in the midst of ease, luxury, pleasure, and
freedom, she had no wish to return to a life of penury with a husband
whom she no longer loved. Often, therefore, while receiving harsh
letters from his uncle, Mirabeau was ready to sink under multiplied
delays. He tried to cheat time by occupation; he gave himself up to
study--he learnt Greek, English, Italian, Spanish--translated a portion
of Tacitus--and this, in spite of failing eyes and ruined health.
[Sidenote: May,
1780.
Ætat.
31.]
Another event, sad to a parent's heart, and deeply lamented by Mirabeau,
happened to facilitate his freedom. His child, the daughter of Sophie,
died of a fever of dentition: this event acted as a spur to the marquis.
He permitted his only child with whom he was on friendly terms, madame
du Saillant, to correspond with her brother, dictating her letters, and
reading the replies--he allowed (for no step was taken except by his
permission, and even suggestion,) his son-in-law, M. du Saillant, to
offer to become his surety. And, at last, after many disappointments and
delays, he gave the signal, and the prison gates were opened.
[Sidenote: Dec.
13.
1780.
Ætat.
31.]
It was impossible to avoid giving the details of this unfortunate
portion of Mirabeau's life. Forty-one months spent in a dungeon forms
too important an epoch in a man's existence for a biographer to pass it
over; or to shun the detail of the causes and effects. Forty-one months
of solitude and privation--of alternate hopes and fears wound to their
highest pitch--of arduous study--of excessive physical suffering--must
colour a human being's whole after-existence. The devoted love of Sophie
ennobled his sufferings. She erred--but her error was redeemed by her
heroism and self-abnegation. Resolved in her own thoughts that she was
not the wife of the poor old man to whom her parents had forced her to
give her hand, but of him who possessed her heart, she believed it to be
her duty to bear all rather than concede. That her too ardent nature
required the stay of religion cannot be denied, but her generosity and
heroism are undoubted, and shed a grace over details which would
otherwise he revolting.[11]
Mirabeau quitted his prison, eager to gain his father's good will, and
redeem himself in the eyes of the world. He stept out, from so long a
series of suffering and imprisonment, with a spirit as vigorous and free
as in boyhood. All were astonished by his mingled gentleness and
vivacity; his submission to his father, joined to reliance in his own
powers. Some months passed before the marquis would see him, but, when
he did, he expressed himself to his brother in more favourable terms
than he had ever before done. Occupied in the task of reforming, he even
began to praise him. It is to be remarked, that the interloper in the
family, madame du Pailly, was absent at this time, and the son was
allowed to make his own way with his father.
The end of all the marquis's actions was to reunite his son to his wife.
This was a matter of difficulty, and the greater on account of the
sentence pronounced against Mirabeau at Pontarlier, on occasion of his
flight with madame de Monnier. Many plans were projected to get rid of
this sentence; the readiest was, to obtain letters of abolition from the
king. But Mirabeau refused a line of conduct which would have saved him
only; he was determined that his cause should not be separated from that
of Sophie.
[Sidenote: 1782.
Ætat.
33.]
With a resolution worthy of his impetuous and energetic nature, he
surrendered, and constituted himself prisoner at Pontarlier while the
cause was again tried. He was counselled to take the line of a timid
defence, but he refused. Convinced of the irregularity of his trial, and
the want of all judicial proof against him, he met the most imminent
danger calmly and resolutely. His father writes:--"His conduct is firm,
and his position as advantageous as possible. He is praised for his
nobleness and audacity in the singular tone of his appeal against a
capital sentence. Now that I see him in saddle, he holds himself well,
and has this real advantage with the public, of entirely exculpating his
accomplice, on which he is resolved at all events. You have no idea of
what your nephew is on great occasions." Nor did the imprisonment of
months in an unhealthy and narrow dungeon move him. When his father
desired to attempt measures of conciliation with the adversary, he
declared that the view of the scaffold under his window would not make
him accept any propositions while in prison. "I have said to my father,"
he wrote to his brother-in-law, M. du Saillant, "and I repeat to you,
that, before God and man, no one has a right to interfere in my affairs
against my will, my consent, my opinion; and with this firm conviction
I declare, that I will consent to no accommodation until former
proceedings are reversed; and I will sign nothing in which my simple and
entire acquittal, that of madame de Monnier, the restitution of her
dowery, an annuity for her, and the payment of my own expenses, are not
comprised." His memoirs and defence are eloquent and resolute, and in
them first shone forth that brilliant genius which afterwards ruled
France.
At length an accommodation on his own terms, with the exception of the
pecuniary condition that regarded himself, was completed. Mirabeau left
his prison on the 14th of August, 1782. He left it, indeed, a beggar and
in debt; his father denied him every assistance, and refused, in
opprobrious terms, to become his surety. His courage sank under these
misfortunes; he wrote to his sister, "I am free, but to what use shall I
put my liberty? Disowned by my father; forgotten, hated perhaps by my
mother, for having desired to serve her; avoided by my uncle; watched
for by my creditors, not one of whom has been paid, though I have been
deprived of the means of subsistence under the pretence of satisfying
them; menaced by my wife, or those who govern her; destitute of every
thing--income, career, credit--O! that it pleased God that my enemies
were not as cowardly as they are malicious, and a thrust of a sword
would end all!"
To please his family and obtain an income, Mirabeau next entered into a
law-suit to force his wife to become reconciled with him. This was an
unworthy act. In the pleadings, where he stood forth as his own
advocate, he exerted an overwhelming eloquence, that silenced his
adversaries, and drew an immense audience of gentry belonging to
Provence to the hall where the trial was carried on. He however failed,
and a decree of separation was passed in the law courts of Provence, and
confirmed in Paris.[12] By this time the marquis had become as
inveterate as ever against his son: he did not imprison him, but he kept
the royal order, permitting him to assign him his place of residence,
hanging over his head, so to be able to remove him from his own vicinity
if he became troublesome.
Mirabeau felt the necessity of forming a career for himself, and earning
a subsistence. He failed in his first attempts in Paris, and, as a last
resource, turned his eyes towards England.
[Sidenote: 1784.
Ætat.
35.]
His visit to London, however, was full of mortification and
disappointment. He found no path open by which a French author could
maintain himself. His letters are full of bitterness at this period; his
father refused him the slightest provision, and, he says, used all his
address to cause him to die of hunger, since he could not hope to make
him rob on the highway. It is difficult for those who live in the
sunshine of life, as well as for those who are brought up to earn their
bread in a profession, or by trade, to understand the degree of
exasperation engendered in the heart of a rich man's son, reduced to
penury by the injustice of his parent. He finds it impossible to make
money of his talents, and indignities, unknown to the merest labourer,
swarm around him. It is much if he can earn a bare and precarious
subsistence, eaten into by previous debts, and dependent on the
selfishness and caprice of others. Mirabeau tasted of the dregs of
poverty; his natural inaptitude to calculation increased his
difficulties; he was generous and profuse, even when what he gave or
spent reduced him to absolute want.
[Sidenote: 1785.
Ætat.
36.]
On his return to France, he found the public mind engrossed by questions
of political finance. Mirabeau entered on the discussion with his
accustomed eagerness. He published several pamphlets, which attracted
general attention and added to his notoriety. The minister Calonne at
first made use of his pen, but they afterwards disagreed. Under his
patronage, Mirabeau endeavoured to get diplomatic employment in Germany.
He visited Berlin at the period of Frederic the Great's death, and
several times subsequently. His correspondence from Berlin is not,
however, worthy of his character or genius. It was not published at this
time; he kept it back till 1789, when, under the necessity of acquiring
money to carry on the expenses of his election in Provence, he had no
other resource except bringing out a book, sure to acquire notoriety
from the scandalous anecdotes it contained, but not adapted to sustain
the credit of the author. His pamphlets on finance, which attacked that
system of gambling in the public funds, called, in France, _agiotage_,
which, while it enriches individuals, is ruinous to the country, deserve
the highest praise for their utility. They, however, attacked powerful
interests; and one of them was suppressed by a decree of government, and
even his personal liberty was menaced.
[Sidenote: 1787.
Ætat.
38.]
He saved himself by a timely retreat to Liege. He here entered into a
financial controversy with Necker, which was rendered the more
conspicuous by the allusions made by Mirabeau to the necessity of
assembling the states-general and establishing a constitution. The
convocation of notables, which occurred during this year, was a sort of
commentary on his views. He expected to be named secretary to the
assembly, but that place was given to Dupont de Nemours; and, when he
returned to Paris in September, the notables were already dismissed.
Mirabeau, in his letters at this period, displays that deep interest in
politics which afterwards was to engross his life, and led to his
success and triumph. "It is impossible," he writes, "to witness the
excess of shame and folly which combine to engulf my country without
consternation. It is not given to human wisdom to guess where all this
will find a term." Meanwhile his pen was never idle; and in the midst of
various journeys, and multiplied occupations, he published a variety of
political works, which drew public observation on him; though now for
the most part they are forgotten, as belonging to a state of things sunk
in perpetual oblivion. In these he never ceased to attack the abuses of
government; to urge the necessity of framing a constitution for his
country; and to announce with enthusiasm his love of political liberty
and independence.
In the history of Mirabeau, so far, we find his life divided into two
parts. The first, up to the age of two and thirty, was stormy and
disastrous; but the accidents that marked it did not take him from
private life. Proud of his station and name, and ambitious of
distinction, yet the vices of youth wrecked him at the very outset, and
the conduct of his father, who acted the part of Cornish wrecker, rather
than taking his natural post of pilot, threatened his perpetual
submersion. As lord Brougham observes, in his observations on his
character, "There is, perhaps, no second instance of an individual whose
faults have been committed under such a pressure of ill-treatment, to
besiege and force his virtue, rather than of temptation, to seduce and
betray it." The extraordinary energy of his character alone saved him;
and he merited the praise, not only of delivering himself, through his
resolute and unwearied exertions, from the dungeon in which, had he been
a weaker man, he had been left to perish, but also of making good use of
the leisure which the sad and solitary hours of imprisonment afforded,
to store his mind with knowledge.
In the second portion of his life, till the election of deputies for the
states-general, he was no longer pursued by private enemies; and his
passions, though they were not sobered, yet, not being violently
opposed, no longer afforded a topic for public scandal. At first, he
chiefly endeavoured to obtain a maintenance, since his father's
parsimony reduced him to indigence. His pride and fortitude continued to
support him in so hard a trial. We have no instance of any application
of his for help from the rich and powerful--he was extravagant, but
never mean; and he could labour industriously without stooping to any
dishonourable shifts. By degrees he acquired such name and esteem among
men in power as induced them to employ him in public services. Then, as
the political atmosphere of France became overcast, and the howlings of
the coming tempest audible, Mirabeau felt within himself that the hour
was approaching when he should acquire greatness. He had displayed his
wonderful power of public speaking, during his law-suit with his wife,
some years before: the recollection of the effects produced by his
forcible and impetuous eloquence, which almost gained his cause against
reason and justice, gave foundation to his hopes of distinction, if he
should be allowed to speak for the public cause. These feelings did not
make him weakly eager to put himself forward; he was calm in the
knowledge of his power. "Leave me, then, in my obscurity," he wrote, in
1787, to the satellite of a minister,--"I say, in my obscurity, for it
is really my design to remain unalterably in it, until a regular order
of things arises from the present state of tumult, and till some great
revolution, either for good or ill, enjoins a good citizen, who is
always accountable for his suffrage and even his talents, to raise his
voice. This revolution cannot be long delayed. The public vessel is in a
strait, equally short and difficult. An able pilot could doubtless guide
it into the open sea; but he cannot, without the consent of the crew,
and at this moment no one sailor can be despised."