Part 27

We have an interesting picture of his position at the commencement of the year 1791 from Dumont--who though his friend, and at times his secretary, or rather, as he affirms, the composer of some of his most successful speeches, gives no signs of partiality. "I dined several times at the house of Mirabeau, who told me that he was on terms with the court, and directed its counsels; and that his hopes were well founded--as the royal personages had begun to see the necessity of attaching him to their cause, and of no longer listening to the advice of the emigrants and princes. He now lived in good style, and his house was handsomely fitted up: he was better off than he had ever been, and showed no discretion in the use of his money. I was surprised to see him show off, after dinner, a case in which were several jewels. This was proclaiming his being on the civil list, and I wondered that his popularity did not suffer by it. His table was splendid, and his company numerous. His house was filled early in the morning, and it was a perpetual _levée_ from seven o'clock till the hour of his repairing to the assembly; and a great crowd frequently assembled at that time to enjoy the felicity of seeing him pass. Although titles were abolished, he was still the comte de Mirabeau, not only with his servants and visiters, but also the people, who love to decorate their idols. I could have learnt from him the secret of his intercourse with the court, his views, means, and intrigues, for he was well disposed to open himself to me; but I neither wished to be censor nor flatterer. He insinuated twenty times that his only object was to save the monarchy, if it were possible. That means were necessary to accomplish this end; that trivial morality was hostile to that on a large scale; that disinterested services were rare; and that hitherto the court had wasted its money on traitors.[15]

"During the last week of my stay in Paris, I saw him in a new situation, which he had often pretended to despise, but more from mortification than indifference. He was president of the assembly,--never was the place so well filled. He displayed new talents. He put an order and clearness into the work, of which no idea had hitherto been formed. By a word, he threw light on a question; by a word, he appeased a tumult. His deference to all parties, the respect he always testified for the assembly, the conciseness of his speeches, his answers to the various deputations that came to the bar,--which, whether spontaneous or prepared, were always delivered with dignity and grace, and gave satisfaction even in refusals,--in a word, his activity, impartiality, and presence of mind added to his reputation and success in a place which had been a stumbling block to his predecessors. He had the art of putting himself foremost, and drawing the general attention on himself, even when, not being allowed to speak from the tribune, he appeared to have fallen from his best prerogative. Several of his enemies and rivals, who had chosen him for the sake of putting him in eclipse, had the chagrin of finding that they had added to his glory.

"He was far from being in good health, and told me that he felt himself perishing away. I observed that his style of life would long ago have killed a man less robust than himself. He had no repose from seven in the morning till ten or eleven at night. He was in continual conversation and agitation both of thought and feeling. When we parted, he embraced me with an emotion he had never before displayed.--'I shall die at the oar,' he said, 'and we probably shall never meet again. When I am gone my worth will be acknowledged. The evils that I have arrested will burst over France, and the criminal faction that trembles before me will no longer be bridled. I have only prophecies of evil before my eyes. Ah! my friend, how right we were when we desired at the beginning to prevent the commons from declaring themselves a national assembly,--that was the origin of our evils. Since they were victorious, they have not ceased to show themselves unworthy; they have desired to govern the king, instead of governing through him. Now neither they nor he will have authority; a vile faction will domineer over them, and fill France with terror."

He lived for three months after saying these words, and lived still to triumph, and to add to his glory. The last scene of moment in which he displayed his mighty influence was during the discussion of the law against emigration. Mirabeau opposed it as tyrannical and unjust: the popular voice went the other way, and cries were uttered against him. His thunder silenced their more feeble demonstrations. "The popularity," he exclaimed, "which I desired is but a feeble reed; but I will force it into the earth, and it shall take root in the soil of reason and justice!" Applause followed this burst. "I swear," he continued, "if a law of emigration passes, I swear to disobey you." He descended from the tribune, having silenced his enemies, and astonished the assembly. The discussion went on, and the adjournment was moved, to give time to prepare a law different from the one under discussion, and so to calm the people. The tumult continued, and cries of applause or disapprobation drowned every other sound, till Mirabeau demanded attention. A deputy, M. Goupil, who some time ago had attacked Mirabeau with the cry that Cataline was at their doors, now exclaimed,--"By what right does M. de Mirabeau exercise a dictatorship?" At these words the orator threw himself into the tribune. The president remarked,--"I have not accorded the right to speak; let the assembly decide." The assembly listened.--"I beg my interruptors," said Mirabeau, "to remember that through life I have combated against tyranny, and I will combat it wherever it is to be found." Speaking thus, he turned his eyes from right to left, while applause followed his words;--he continued:--"I beg M. Goupil to remember that not long ago he was mistaken as to the Cataline whose dictatorship he now resists. I beg the assembly to remark that the question of adjournment, simple in appearance, comprehends others, since it supposes that there is a law to form." Murmurs rose from the left; the orator fixed his eyes on the inimical party, and its leaders, Barnave and Lameth. "Silence those thirty voices," he cried: "I am content also to vote for the adjournment, but on condition that no sedition follows."

This was the greatest, and it was the last struggle that Mirabeau had with the jacobins,--his last attempt to stop the progress of that revolution to which he had given form and dignity during its primal struggles. "I would not," he wrote, in a letter meant for the eye of the king,--"I would not have laboured only at a vast destruction." Thus pledged by his principles and his promises to the court to prop the monarchy, his task was becoming one that demanded more force than, even giant as he was, he possessed. The shades of death cover the probabilities of the future; but it can scarcely be doubted that he must have modified his views, animated the king to a more resolute and popular course, or been swept away in the torrent of blood so soon about to flow.

For some time, incessant labour and excitement undermined his life. The ophthalmias, which had first attacked him in his prison, in Vincennes, were renewed, and he Was often obliged to apply leeches to his eyes during the intervals of one day's sitting of the assembly. The sense of disease at work within seemed to him to resemble the effects of poison; and the medicines he took added to, instead of diminishing, his conviction that he was perishing. His last and fatal seizure was accompanied by intense pain and agonising spasms; and the only physician he admitted, who was his friend, began to lose hope. As soon as his illness became publicly known, his house was surrounded by an anxious and mute multitude. In the hour of danger they remembered him as their leader, their preserver, their hope. The bulletins of his progress were seized on with avidity. Louis XVI. sent ostensibly twice a day, and much oftener in secret, to hear how he went on. For a moment, the king and the people appeared united by a common interest, and had a desire of currying favour with the revolutionary party animated the monarch, and induced him to visit the dying man, he had acquired a popularity never to be forgotten. The demagogues feared that he might have been led to such an act; but it was out of character with Louis, who clung longer to the etiquettes than to the reality of royalty.

The last days of Mirabeau were divided between agonising pain and calm and affectionate conversation with his friends. While he hoped to recover, he gave up all his thoughts to his cure; and even refused to receive his friends, that the remedies might have a fairer chance. But, when he felt the sure approach of death, he was eager to have them around, and talking with them, holding their hands, and looking affectionately on them, found deep enjoyment in the consciousness of their sympathy and love. Already he spoke of himself as dead--with great reluctance he allowed another medical man to be called in, whose remedies proving ineffectual, Mirabeau said, "You are a great physician, but there is one greater than you; he who created the wind that destroys all--the water that penetrates and produces all--the fire that vivifies or decomposes all." He heard with emotion of the demonstrations of affection made by the people. His last hours were marked by mingled philosophy and gaiety: he called his friends about him, and discoursed of himself and public affairs, with a view to futurity after he was gone; he made his will--the legacies of which the count de Lamark, who had been his means of communication with the court, promised should be paid. The visit of his enemy, Barnave, who came in the name of the jacobins to inquire concerning him, afforded him pleasure. He gave M. de Talleyrand a discourse he had prepared for the tribune; and, speaking of Pitt, he said "he is a minister of preparations, and governs by threats: I should have given him some trouble had I lived." He felt the approach of his last hour. "I shall die to-day, my friend," he said, to Cabanis; "no more remains than to crown one's self with flowers, and surround one's self with music, so to pass peacefully into eternal sleep." Hearing the report of cannon, fired for some ceremony, he exclaimed, "Hark! the funeral rites of Achilles are begun!" As he lost his speech, he yet smiled softly and serenely on his friends. The spasms returned with renewed violence. Unable to speak, he wrote, asking, that opium might be given him to appease them; but, before he could take it, he was no more. His death took place on the 20th of April, 1791, at the age of forty-two. The news quickly spread through the court, the town, the assembly. Every party had placed their hopes in him, and he was mourned by all except such as might envy his fame. On hearing the fatal intelligence, the assembly interrupted its sitting; a general mourning was ordered, and a public funeral.

He was buried in the Pantheon (formerly church of Sainte Geneviève), which had been dedicated "Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnoissante;" and Mirabeau was the first buried there. His funeral took place on the morrow of his death. The ministers and magistrates, the assembly, the army, the municipalities, in short, the members of every public institution, accompanied the procession. He was more numerously and honourably attended, and he was more sincerely mourned, than kings and princes had been, or than any other great man of his own times. During the reign of terror his remains were torn from the tomb, and scattered to the winds, as those of a traitor to the nation.

The peculiarity of Mirabeau, as we before remarked, was the union of great genius with impetuous passions. The last, manifesting themselves in boyhood, in a family which, while the members were remarkable for vehemence in themselves, exacted the most entire filial obedience from their offspring, caused him to be opposed, persecuted, and oppressed. Seventeen _lettres de cachet_ had been issued against him, while he felt that his crimes were rather errors in which the public or the state had no concern. Shut up in a narrow fortress or narrower cell, his hatred of tyranny was strongly excited, and he sought in his writings to express it; and, when the occasion offered, he combated it with impetuous eloquence and determined resistance. At that time, aware how much his influence was lessened by the errors of his youth, he had been known, when he felt his progress checked by the disrepute in which his private character was held, to weep, and to exclaim, "I cruelly expiate the errors of my youth!"

With all his errors he was a warm and kind-hearted man, and gifted with undaunted courage. During his political career, his enemies were perpetually endeavouring to embroil him in duels, which he avoided without the most distant suspicion of cowardice being attached to him. He was a man of wit, and many of his sayings are recorded. They are often bitter epigrams on his enemies, and inspired by hatred rather than truth. He called the virtuous La Fayette Grandison-Cromwell; and said of him that he had _bien sauté pour reculer_, as his latter conduct did not come up to his first entrance on life when he went to America. He was the implacable enemy of Necker, who, he says, was "a clock always too slow." While speaking in the national assembly, he pointed to a picture, emblemising Time, with his scythe and his hour-glass always full, exclaiming, "We have taken his scythe, but we have forgotten his time-piece." Of the national assembly he said, "It has Hannibals in plenty, and needs a Fabius." It was the fashion to call Clermont-Tonnerre the Pitt of France: "As you please," said Mirabeau; "but how would Pitt like to be called the Clermont-Tonnerre of England?" His faculty of wit rose sometimes into grandeur. When he spoke of the convulsions that would ensue on the entire overthrow of the monarchy, he cried, "You will have assassinations and massacres; but you will never rise to the execrable height of a civil war." Talleyrand said that he dramatised his death. It is a strange moment for vanity to become paramount; and the chief trait of his death-bed was his gentleness and serenity, and the affection he showed to his friends. Politics occupied him at times; and he said to those about him, "Après ma mort, les factieux se partageront les lambeaux de la monarchie."

The great quality of his mind was the power of seizing on any word or idea presented to him, and reproducing it at the right moment, with such vigour and fire as made it omnipotent. It was the eagle eye that enabled him on the instant to discern the right path, or the commanding idea, and to express it with force and majesty. With a lion heart, untiring perseverance, and the strength of a giant, he swept away opposition, inspired confidence, and fixed his standard far within the ranks of the enemy, where none dared touch it.

So well could he adapt his very ugliness, his flashing eyes, abundant hair, and marks of physical power, to the sentiments which he expressed, that an actor on hearing him speak in the tribune exclaimed, "Ah! what a pity he was born a gentleman; he has missed his vocation!" He was greater as an orator than a leader. But each day he lived he advanced in the science of party strife. At the last, when he contemplated an organised opposition to the jacobins, he became expert; but it may be believed that he would have found an insuperable obstacle to success in the passions of the people.

In early life his misfortunes arose from not having embarked in a fitting career. As a military man, a century before, as a marshal under Louis XIV., he had replaced Turenne; a few years later, he might have emulated Napoleon. As it was, had he been allowed to seek active service in the army, his turbulence had found vent in the midst of hardship and danger--a general would have been given to his country. Another school was needed to form the leader of the revolution: the exasperation engendered by tyranny, the resolution born in the solitude of a dungeon, the ambition nurtured by contempt of inferior men--all that had quelled a feebler man--gave force and direction to his passions, perception and enthusiasm to his genius, and made that Mirabeau, whom his countrymen regard as one of the greatest of their leaders, and whose name is a light that burns inextinguishably amidst the glory that illustrated the commencement of the French revolution.

[Footnote 10: These extracts form the best part of the "Memoirs of Mirabeau," by M. Lucas Montigny, his adopted, or, rather, his natural son,--a work of zeal and labour, but undigested, diffuse, and ill-judged. Had the author published a selection from these letters, which were placed in his hands by the family, we should have an invaluable work. As it is, we are often as much tantalised by what is omitted, as edified by what is given, of the correspondence. When the extracts from it cease, the pages of the memoirs lose all their charm and value: they degenerate into little else than extracts from newspapers, and vapid discussions by the author.]

[Footnote 11: The subsequent history of this hapless victim of a depraved state of society which set the seal of guilt on her attachment, may be briefly stated. After the birth of her child, Sophie was taken from the asylum in which she was first placed, and confined in the convent of Saintes-Claires, at Gien. By degrees many indulgences were allowed her, and she received visits. Mirabeau became jealous, and angrily expressed his jealousy, both in letters, and in a single interview which they had after his liberation from Vincennes. Had Mirabeau come to this interview with a candid mind and a constant heart, he had at once have acknowledged Sophie's innocence. But his attachment had waned, and he was intent on completing his reconciliation with his father, and contriving one with his wife. He played the part of the wolf with the lamb in the fable; and, to the utter destruction of the nobler portion of his nature, the ties of love and affection, the knitting of which had occasioned misery and ruin to both, were broken for ever. Soon after, the death of her husband restored Sophie to her liberty, but she chose to continue to reside within the precincts of the convent, though she used her liberty to make visits and excursions. She was greatly loved by all who knew her. Her sweetness and gentleness attached many friends: her charity and kind sympathy caused her to be beloved by the poor, by whom her memory was long gratefully preserved. She formed a second attachment for a gentleman to whom she was about to be married, but his death prevented their union. Sophie resolved not to survive him. Immediately on receiving his last sigh, she prepared to die. She shut herself up with two braziers of burning charcoal; and was found on the morrow dead. She died on the 8th September, 1789, in the 37th year of her age.]

[Footnote 12: The subsequent life of Madame de Mirabeau was singular. For some years she continued under her father's guidance, and, at his wish, to live a life of pleasure; theatricals and every sort of dissipation being the order of the day. A reconciliation was set on foot, and had nearly been accomplished between her and her husband at the period of his death. She emigrated with her father during the revolution, and suffered a good deal of poverty. She subsequently married a count de Rocca, and visited Paris, to endeavour to recover some portion of her property. Her husband died soon after, and she resumed the name of Mirabeau, of which she became proud, reviving the recollections of past times, surrounding herself with every object that could remind her of the husband of her youth. She lived in intimacy with his sister, madame du Saillant, and extended her kindness to the young man whom Mirabeau had adopted. Though frivolous, she had never been ill conducted, and her faults, being those of timidity, are chiefly to be attributed to her father, who, loving ease and pleasure, and glad to have his daughter with him, prevented her by every means in his power from fulfilling her duties towards her husband. She passed her last years in the hotel de Mirabeau, and died in the year 1800, in the same room where her husband had expired.]

[Footnote 13: There is a fragment preserved of Mirabeau, remarkable for its know, ledge of human motives, which shows the stress he laid on a resolute line of conduct. It deserves to be quoted:--

"If I wrote a book on the military art, the chapter on enthusiasm should not be the shortest. If I wrote a treatise on politics, I would treat largely of the _art of daring_, which is not less necessary for the success of civil enterprises than of military operations; and also to try the strength of the man who leads; for it is the further or nearer boundary-line of the possible that marks the difference of men.

"In reading history, I find that almost all the faults committed by the chiefs, of whatever party, arise from indecision in their principles, and obliquity of conduct. They revolt by halves; they are faithful by halves: they dare not entirely cast aside duty, nor entirely sacrifice their passions. The first steps, which ought to be full of confidence, are vacillating and ill-assumed: they arrange a retreat, and take several roads to reach the goal. Artifices, that favourite resource of ordinary politicians, are the effect of this timidity of the understanding or the heart. They negotiate to disguise themselves, to attract partisans, while they ought to walk straight to the object in view by the shortest line. What is the invariable result? He who wishes to deceive is deceived; they have failed in seizing the decisive moment, and have persuaded no one. As much as extremes are unwise in the course of daily life, so much are half measures insufficient in critical events; and the most dangerous, as well as the most inconsistent conduct, is to get half rid of prejudices. But there are nearly as few resolute bad men as decided honest ones; and most men want character."]

[Footnote 14: The compiler of the memoirs and correspondence of La Fayette makes no doubt that Mirabeau belonged to the Orleanist faction till after the 6th of October, when he began to treat with the court. This was evidently La Fayette's own conviction, apparently founded on the evidence laid before the assembly, August 7th, 1790, which Mirabeau refuted, as mentioned in the text.]

[Footnote 15: Copy of a treaty with M. de Mirabeau.--"First, The king gives M. de Mirabeau the promise of an embassy: this promise shall be announced by Monsieur himself to M. de Mirabeau. Second, The king will immediately, until that promise be fulfilled, grant a private appointment to M. de Mirabeau of 50,000 livres a month, which appointment will continue at least for the space of four months. M. de Mirabeau pledges himself to aid the king with his knowledge, influence, and eloquence, in all that he may judge useful to the welfare of the state and the interest of the king--two things that all good citizens undoubtedly look upon as inseparable; and, in case M. de Mirabeau should not be convinced of the solidity of the reasons that may be given him, he will abstain from speaking on the subject.

(Approved) LOUIS.

(Signed) LE COMTE DE MIRABEAU."

"_Note._--The original of this article is in the handwriting of Monsieur, at present Louis XVIII."