Part 26

Dumont, in his "Souvenirs de Mirabeau," asserts that he drew up this address. On several other occasions, he assumes the merit either of writing for Mirabeau or suggesting his speeches. He speaks of him as a great plagiarist, putting all his associates to use in collecting materials for him, and contenting himself with giving them form, or sometimes only voice. This sort of accusation is exceedingly futile. The capacity of gathering materials, lying barren but for the life he puts into them, is the great attribute of genius: it hews an Apollo out of the marble block; places the colours of Raphael on the bare canvass; collects, in one focus, the thoughts of many men inspired by passion and nature: it, as with Mirabeau, takes the spirit of the times, the thoughts and words excited during a crisis; and, by giving to them a voice of command or persuasion, rules the minds of all. In this manner, Mirabeau was a plagiarist, but none but he could use, to govern and subdue, the weapons fabricated, it might be, by other hands. To quote the apt metaphor of Carlisle, he might gather the fuel from others, but the fire was his own. He was not a man formed of shreds and patches taken from other men, nor was Dumont endowed with creative powers to call such a being into life. Mirabeau was a man of God's own making, full of wild passion and remorseful error, but true to the touch of nature; fraught with genius and power; a natural king among those whom he used as his subjects to pay tribute to, and extend the sphere of, his greatness.

[Sidenote: 1789. July 11.]

The death of the marquis de Mirabeau, at the age of seventy-three, took place at this period. From the time that his son figured in the assembly, he became deeply interested in his career; declaring that his success was "glory, true glory." He was suffering by a chronic pulmonary catarrh, and evidently declining. Mirabeau frequently visited him, and was well received, though they never discussed politics during these short visits. But the marquis caused the speeches of his son to be read to him, as well as the papers that recounted the sittings of the assembly in which he figured. On the 11th of July, while he was listening to his grand-daughter reading, he closed his eyes--his breathing failed--and when she looked up he was dead, with a smile on his face.

Mirabeau, who venerated his father, in spite of the injuries he had sustained from him, was deeply affected by this loss: perhaps pride added to his demonstrations of affliction. He wrote to his constituents, that all the citizens in the world ought to mourn; he scarcely appeared in the assembly, and for a few days gave himself up to sorrow.

It was not a period when a great political character could withdraw himself for more than a few days. The crisis was at hand. [Sidenote: July 14.] The king had returned a cold answer to the address drawn up by Mirabeau, and presented by the most distinguished deputies; the court still pursued the plan of assembling troops; Necker was dismissed from the ministry; the investment of the capital by the military became imminent,--when the people, animated by mixed fear and indignation, rose: they seized on all the arms they could obtain; the bastille was demolished; for the first time the Parisians felt their power, and tasted of the triumph of shedding the blood of those who resisted them.

The terror of these acts spread to Versailles. The assembly sent deputation after deputation to the king, imploring him to pacify Paris by countermanding the troops. When the destruction of the bastille was known, a fifth deputation was prepared to be presented to the monarch. It was composed of twenty-four members: they were about to leave the chamber on this errand, when Mirabeau stopped them, and with increased vehemence exclaimed,--"Tell the king, that the hordes of foreigners that surround us were yesterday visited by the princes, the princesses, and their favourites, who caressed and exhorted them, and covered them with presents. Tell him that, during the night, these foreign satellites, gorged with gold and wine, predicted, in their impious songs, the servitude of France, and brutally invoked the destruction of the national assembly. Tell him that, in his own palace, his courtiers mingled in the dance to the sound of such music, and that similar to these were the preparations of Saint Bartholomew. Tell him, that Henry IV., whose memory the whole world blesses, he, who ought to be his model among his ancestors, sent provisions to Paris when it revolted, and he was besieging it in person; while, on the contrary, his ferocious advisers keep the corn, brought by trade, from his starving and faithful capital." The deputation was about to carry his words to the king, when the arrival of Louis, without guards or escort, was announced. A murmur of glad welcome ran through the assembly. "Wait," said Mirabeau gravely, "till the king has announced his good intentions. Let a serious respect receive the monarch in this moment of sorrow. The silence of the people is the lesson of kings."

Thus did this wonderful man, by means of the fire and impetuosity of his character, enter at once into the spirit of the hour, while his genius suggested the expressions and the tone that gave it direction and voice.

It is impossible to enter into the detail of all Mirabeau's speeches and acts. A rapid glance at his votes and declarations during this period must suffice. Mirabeau detested despotism, whose iron hand had fallen so heavily on himself. The aid given by the government of his country to his father's tyranny,--the ban placed on him by the nobility who were his equals,--the burning desire for distinction that consumed him,--his contempt for his inferiors in talent,--his faith in the revolution,--such were the passions that gave force to his genius. But his genius showed itself omnipotent nowhere except in the tribune. When he wrote, he but half expressed his thoughts; his passions were but half excited; and Mirabeau's power lay in the union of his passions and his genius. Apart, the former degenerated into vice, and the latter showed itself either exaggerated, sophistical, or inert. In the tribune, their union was complete. When he began to speak he was at first confused,--his breast heaved,--his words were broken,--but the sight of his opponents,--the knowledge of the sympathy he should find in the galleries,--the inspiration of the moment,--suddenly dispersed all mistiness; his eloquence became clear, fervid, sublime,--the truth conjured up images at once striking and appalling. When he was farther excited by the difficulties of a crisis, his courage rose to meet it,--he stept forward with grandeur; a word or a look, which his talent and ugliness at once combined to render imposing, shone out on the assembly,--electrified and commanded it.

This power of seizing on the spirit of the question, clearing the view of the assembly, and leading it onward in the right road, he exerted memorably on the 24th September, when Necker, to remedy the disastrous state of the finances, proposed a patriotic contribution of a fourth of the incomes. A committee, after three days spent in examination, approved the plan. Mirabeau, the known enemy of Necker, spoke, to engage the assembly to adopt it at once, on the recommendation of the minister, without taking any responsibility on itself. The friends of Necker saw the snare, and accused him of injuring the plan of the minister, while he pretended to support it. Mirabeau replied, that he was not the partisan, but, were he the dearest friend of the minister, he should not hesitate to compromise him rather than the assembly. Necker might deceive himself, and the kingdom receive no detriment; but that the public weal were compromised, if the assembly lost its credit. These words had some effect, but still the discussion went on, and still the deputies hesitated to adopt Necker's proposition, till Mirabeau, again ascending the tribune, burst forth with a torrent of overwhelming eloquence in its favour: he painted the horrors of a national bankruptcy, and the consequent guilt of incurring it; he expatiated on the wide-spread misery that must ensue. He continued,--"Two centuries of robbery and depredation have opened a gulf in which the kingdom is nearly swallowed; this gulf must be filled up. Here is a list of French proprietors; select among the richest, so to lessen the number of victims; but still select--for must not a few perish to save the many? Two thousand notables possess enough to fill up the deficit, to bring back order into your finances, and peace and prosperity to the kingdom. Strike! immolate without pity these hapless victims--precipitate them into the abyss;--it will close! Ha! you draw back with horror. Inconsistent pusillanimous men! Do you not see that when you decree bankruptcy, or, what is still more odious, when you render it inevitable without decreeing it, you stain yourselves with a still greater and yet a gratuitous crime? for this sacrifice will at least fill up the deficit. But do you think, because you do not pay, you will no longer be in debt? Do you believe that the thousands, the millions of men, who in one moment will lose by the explosion, or by its reaction, all that made the comfort of their lives, and, perhaps, their only means of support, will allow you to reap the fruits of your crime in peace? Stoical contemplators of the incalculable ills which this catastrophe will bring on France! Insensible egotists! who think that the convulsions of despair and misery will pass away like every other, and the more quickly as they are more violent;--are you sure that so many men, without bread, will tranquilly permit you to taste the viands whose quantity and delicacy you will not suffer to be diminished? No!--you will perish in the universal conflagration that you do not tremble to set a-light, and the loss of your honour will not preserve one of your detestable enjoyments.

* * * * *

Vote, then, for this extraordinary subsidy;--may it suffice! Vote it; because, if you have any doubts with regard to the means (vague and uncertain doubts), you have none on its necessity, and our want of power to replace this proposition by any other--at least for the present. Vote it; for public affairs will not endure procrastination, and we are accountable for all delay. Beware of asking for time. Ruin never gives that. Some days ago, gentlemen, in reference to a ridiculous tumult in the Palais Royal--a laughable insurrection which had no importance except in feeble minds--you heard the violent cry uttered, 'Cataline is at the gates of Rome, and you deliberate!' and then certainly we had near us neither Cataline, nor danger, nor faction, nor Rome. But now bankruptcy, hideous bankruptcy is before us; she menaces to consume you,--your possessions and your honour,--and you deliberate!"

These words raised a tumult of enthusiasm in the assembly. A deputy rose to reply, but the cries overbore him; and, frightened by his task, he remained motionless and mute. "I was near Mirabeau," writes madame de Staël, "when he thus delivered himself. Nothing could be more impressive than his voice; his gestures and words were pregnant with an animation, the power of which was prodigious. The assembly at once received the report of the committee, and adopted the plan of the minister." "This," remarks Thiers, "is the triumph of eloquence; but he alone could obtain it who was animated by the passions and just views of Mirabeau."

Mirabeau hated the assumptions of the aristocracy, but he looked upon royalty as a necessary defence between the lower and the higher orders; at the same time he believed that the welfare of his country demanded that the people should have a voice in the state. [Sidenote: Oct. 25.] He expressed his opinion on this subject in a letter to his uncle the bailli. He says,--"I have always thought, and now more than ever think, that royalty is the only anchor of safety which can preserve us from shipwreck. And how many efforts I have made, and make each day, to support the executive power, and combat the distrust which induces the national assembly to go beyond the mark! For the rest, we must judge of the revolution by the good and evil of its result, not by the license which prevails at present, which forms a state too violent to be durable. I am reassured with regard to the future, by the consideration, that the revolution, be it injurious or beneficial, is, in fact, consummated. The most enlightened men feel that they must assist the change, to lessen its violence; that resistance is as useless as it must be disastrous; and that every citizen, whether zealous or indifferent, must tend to the same end,--facilitate the consolidation of the empire, and give the machine that movement which will allow us to judge of its excellence or its defects. You recommend me to support the executive power; but you will easily discern that the obstinate resistance of one order of the state, by exciting fresh causes of revenge, and producing new commotions, would destroy that power round which the supreme law of the state commands us now to rally."

It was in this spirit that he spoke for the veto, though fear, perhaps, of compromising his popularity made him abstain from voting. The veto had become a sort of bugbear. When Mirabeau visited Paris, the mob thronged round his carriage, imploring him to prevent the king from having the veto. They were slaves, they said, if the king had the veto;--the national assembly was useless. "Mirabeau," says Dumont, "carried it off very well: he appeased the people; and, using only vague expressions, dismissed the mob with patrician affability."

At the period of the revolution, when the passions of men were excited to bandy calumny with eager voices and pens dipt in gall, Mirabeau was accused of being an Orleanist. It is difficult to say what an Orleanist was. The duke himself, weak but ambitious, never made one step forward but he made two back; so that it became a saying that the duke of Orléans did not belong to the Orleanists. His name, meanwhile, and money were employed to form a party rather inimical to Louis XIV. than favourable to himself. It added to the tumult and tempest of the times, but was of no real influence in the direction of events. Dumont declares that, living intimately with Mirabeau, the most indiscreet and confiding of men, he saw no trace of his complicity in any plot against the court: but that, familiar with the duke as with every one, his manner gave colour to a report which had no other foundation. That he was at this time the enemy of the court is, however, undoubted. When the fatal feast of the _gardes du corps_, at Versailles, was denounced in the assembly, and the cry of calumny was raised by the royalists, Mirabeau burst out with impetuosity, and declared that he was ready to accuse by name the principal actors in this sacrilegious orgie, on condition that it were first decreed that the person of the king only was inviolable. This expression, pointing at and criminating the queen, silenced the discussion.

During the days of the 5th and 6th October, Mirabeau sought to tranquillise, without any attempt at leading, the multitude. When he first heard of the approach of the rabble rout of _poissardes_ and their followers from the capital, for the purpose of forcing the acceptance of the constitution on the king, Mirabeau addressed the president Mounier, saying, "Paris is marching on us: make an excuse; and go to the castle and tell the king to accept the constitution purely and simply." "Paris marches," replied Mounier; "so much the better: let them kill us all--all, without exception--the nation will be the gainer." When the crowd had invaded Versailles, Mirabeau was not seen. Dumont found him in bed before eleven o'clock in the evening. He rose, and they went together to the national assembly, where he displayed his accustomed dignity by calling on the president to cause the assembly to be respected, and to order the chamber to be cleared of the strangers who filled it. It required all his popularity to succeed. The _poissardes_ in the gallery, with their usual familiarity, cried out, "Mother Mirabeau must speak--we must hear mother Mirabeau!" but he was not a man to make a show on these occasions.

The king humiliated--the court, driven to extremities, yet still struggling, looked round for agents and supporters. The talents and influence of Mirabeau would render his accession to their party invaluable; Necker had named him "Tribun par calcul, et aristocrate par goût;" and this character, joined to his debts, his bad reputation, his known vices, and the very report that he acted for the duke of Orléans, inspired the notion that he was venal. [Sidenote: Nov.] There can be no doubt that, at this period, a thousand different schemes and hopes agitated this strange and powerful man. He detested the aristocracy and despotism; but he was attached to royalty and the image of the English constitution; and various advances made him by the court led him to believe that a conscientious support of royalty might be combined with his personal interests. Dumont mentions a conversation he had with him, in which he showed him a plan for the retreat of the king to Metz--the necessity the assembly would find itself under of following him there, and the consequent quelling of the anarchical power in France. Dumont, foreseeing that civil war and massacre would follow such attempts, argued strongly against it. Mirabeau replied that the court was resolved, and that he thought it right to combine to ensure its success, and cause them to act so as to preserve the liberty of the country. His purpose was, however, shaken by the arguments of Dumont, and the whole plan was subsequently given up. Thiers gives a somewhat different account. He narrates that in an interview with a friend, in the park of Versailles, that lasted the whole night, Mirabeau declared that he was resolved for the sake of his glory, for the good of his country, and the advancement of his own fortune, to remain immovable between the throne and the disorganisers, and to consolidate the monarchy while he participated in its power. His pride, however, stood in the way of any debasing steps. When the court made him offers, it was informed that he would make no sacrifice of principles; but that, if the king would be faithful to the constitution, he was ready to become his staunch supporter. His conditions were, that his debts should be paid, and that he should have a place in the ministry. According to law, the ministers could neither speak nor vote in the assembly--before accepting place, Mirabeau endeavoured to get this law repealed. He failed; and during the discussion Lanjuinais proposed that the actual deputies should be forbidden to accept place. Mirabeau angrily replied, that so baneful a decree ought not to be passed for the sake of one man; but that he would vote for it with the amendment, that a place in the ministry should not be forbidden all the deputies, but only to M. de Mirabeau, deputy for Aix. This outburst of frank audacity had no effect; Lanjuinais' motion passed; and Mirabeau felt exceedingly indignant towards the assembly, and often spoke of the members with bitter contempt; yet his letters bear the impress of generous forbearance, inspired by enlarged views of the duties of a citizen. "I do not say," he writes, "that the assembly is not somewhat severe towards me; with all that, nothing can prevent, when the occasion presents, this struggling, tumultuous, and, above all, ostracising assembly, from returning under my influence: that results from the firmness of my principles, and the support given by my talent. It was from the bottom of my heart that I once wrote, 'Malheur aux peuples reconnaissants!' One is never quit towards one's country. One gains glory, at least, by serving it in whatever state. No element of public servitude ought to exist--and gratitude is a very active one."

There is generosity, but not absolute wisdom in this dictum. In republics, more evil arises from want of accord and stability of purpose than from leaning on one man, especially among the French, who, vain by nature, are more apt each to believe in his own capacity than rely on that of another. Unfortunately, this distrust of public servants took firm root during the revolution. First, no deputy was allowed to be minister, so that no man of business could be deputy. Afterwards, the members of one assembly were not allowed to be elected in the succeeding one, so that inexperience, crude views, and want of mutual reliance, became the characteristic of the French legislators.

[Sidenote: 1790. Ætat. 41.]

Mirabeau's negotiations with the court meanwhile went on; he even received for a short time a pension from Monsieur, the king's eldest brother; the queen treated him with winning condescension--and she was won also by the charm of his superiority and frankness. Thus he did not sell his principles, which remained unchanged, yet he made a mart of them; and, in the eye of history, falls from the high position of a man above the reach of gold. His want of docility, meanwhile, often displeased the court--he refused to compromise his popularity at its beck, and despised the men who wished at once to make use of him and yet to render him useless.

His position, though it seem dubious, was plain enough. He wished to lead a moderately royal party, and give stability to the monarchy. He desired to oppose the jacobins and disorganisers; but his views did not meet the sanguine and senseless hopes and wishes of the court--which aimed at nothing less than a return to the _ancien régime._ He stood therefore companionless--seizing at times on and thundering from the tribune--making his power felt whenever he was roused, but walking in darkness, uncertain of the means which yet he grappled at, whereby to confirm his greatness.

In the assembly he continued to extend his influence by means of his enthusiasm, and his power of expressing it. Various methods had been made use of to get rid of the constituent assembly, and elect another--under the pretence that, the work of forming a constitution being accomplished, their task was at an end, and that the continuation of their power was illegal and a usurpation over the throne. In the midst of the cries which these words called forth, Mirabeau rose. "We are asked," he said "when the deputies of the people, became a national convention? I reply, on that day when, finding the entrance to their chamber surrounded by soldiers, they hastened to assemble in the first place they could find, and swore to perish rather than to betray or abandon the rights of the nation. Our powers on that day changed their nature. Whatever these powers may be which we have exerted, our efforts and our labours have legitimated them, and the adhesion of the whole nation has sanctified them. Do you remember the heroic words of the great man of antiquity, who had neglected the legal forms in saving his country? Summoned by a factious tribune to swear whether he had observed the laws, he replied, f I swear that I have saved my country!' Gentlemen, I swear that you have saved France!" At this grand oath, the whole assembly, carried away by a sudden impulse, closed the discussion and dismissed the question.

The same power gave him the victory, when he was accused of conspiring with the duke of Orléans to produce the commotions of the 5th and 6th of October, and caused the accusation to be cast aside as devoid of credit.[14]

[Sidenote: 1791. Ætat. 42.]