MIRABEAU AT THE JACOBIN CLUB.

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assured them that his conscience did not reproach him for having maintained an opinion which, for four whole hours, had appeared to be that of the National Assembly, and which none of the leaders of public opinion had attacked. This was a bitter justification; for the word leaders was grating to the ears of the Jacobins, "Moreover," added he, boldly, 66 my sentiment on emigration is the universal opinion of all philosophers and wise men; if one be mistaken in company with so many great men, there is ground for consolation." According to this insinuation, therefore, the Jacobins were not great men.

Duport's respectful language and Mirabeau's provoking apology had violently exasperated Alexandre de Lameth. Moreover, he plainly perceived that the Jacobins were incensed, and he felt that he was about to express the general hatred with his own; all this transported him beyond the bounds of reason, and made him blind to every political consideration. He thought only of the Assembly, and no longer beheld two men, in whom, however, everything at the moment centred. He did not see Mirabeau, so close to him, whose monarchical opinions differed in reality but little from his own, and whom he ought to have tried to conciliate; neither did he any longer see the pale-faced Robespierre, who, silent, as in the morning, was quietly waiting till Mirabeau was destroyed.

Lameth, addressing himself first to the richest fund of human nature, pride and envy, repeated and envenomed Mirabeau's imperious apostrophe: Silence, you thirty members!" Then appealing to party spirit, the special vanity of the Jacobins: "The friends of despotism," said he, "the friends of luxury and wealth, justly alarmed by the progress of this society, illustrious throughout the world, have sworn its destruction. Now, this is the last plot that they have planned. They have said: There are 150 incorruptible Jacobin deputies; well then! we will ruin them; we will invent so many libels that they will be looked upon as factious. Ah! gentlemen, had I not been acquainted with this plot, I should have spoken this morning. O miserable situation, for patriots to be forced to be silent and accept expedients! At the first words I uttered, they raised an outcry of 'Factious!' next, they made a riot, and then said to the king: Well! Sire, behold the Jacobins undone !' Who is now the centre of your enemies? Mirabeau, ever Mirabeau. Then again, he has drawn up the proclamation of the departments; and it is you whom he denounces therein as the factious who are to be exterminated."-Then turning towards Mirabeau: "When you thus denounced the factious, I carefully refrained from uttering one word by way of objection; I let you speak on, for it was important for us to know you. If there be any one here who did not see your perfidy this morning, let him belie me !"-A voice: "No."-"Who dares say No?"-The same voice: "I meant to say, M. de Lameth, that no member of the Ambly could contradict you."-Nobody having protested, Lameth

took advantage of Mirabeau's expression "Leaders of public He flattered all those who had remained silent, and urging ith the trinius of Tartufe: "Insolent distinction!" said he nation that so many modest deputies are

-so many excellent citizens !-In them,

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LAMETH'S ATTACK ON MIRABeau.

patriotism is religion; and they are satisfied with letting heaven alone behold its fervour! This does not render them less precious to their native land; and would to God that you had served it as well by your speeches as they have by their silence!"

Among other things, Lameth made use of a furious expression, which betokens a fund of hatred such as is seldom revealed: "I am not one of those," said he, "who think good policy dictates that M. de Mirabeau should be treated carefully, that he ought not to be driven to despair.”

Mirabeau was sitting near at hand, "and drops of perspiration," says Camille Desmoulins, "poured down his face."

Yes, Camille was right. The great orator who, on a question of equity, liberty, and humanity, saw himself perishing, was not unworthy, after all, to have also his bloody sweat, and to drink the bitter cup. Whatever

this vicious, this culpable, this unfortunate great man may have done, let him be cleansed from his transgressions. To have suffered for justice, for the humane principle of our Revolution, will be his expiation and his redemption before posterity.

CHAPTER XI.

DEATH OF MIRABEAU (APRIL 2, 1791).

Ir is much to be regretted that we have not Mirabeau's reply, which, if we may judge from its results, must have been a triumph of address and eloquence. We have an extract of it which has probably been garbled; but, nevertheless, we may still perceive from it that this reply must have contained, among many flattering and insinuating expressions, bursts of irony, like the following: "And how could they attribute to me the absurd design of representing the Jacobins as factious, when they so well refute this calumny every day, by their replies and their public meetings?"

Notwithstanding this, the great orator showed himself so cleverly a complete Jacobin, so sensible of their good opinion, that one moment was sufficient for him to change every mind. He confessed that he had jeered the Jacobins, though doing them justice at the same time. He thus gained their applause; but when, in concluding, he exclaimed: "I will remain with you till the day of ostracism," he had once more made a conquest of their hearts.

He then went out, and never returned. His genius was quite contrary to that of the Jacobins. He could not willingly undergo the yoke of that spirit of mediocrity, which, possessing neither that need of talent which a select society experiences, nor the enthusiastic impulse of the people, with their natural and deep-seated instinct, requires that one should be of a middling stamp, just of the same standard, neither higher nor lower, and which, however distrustful it may be, allows itself nevertheless to be directed by tactics of a middling order. The Revolution, which was ever rising, raised these active mediocrities to power.

SILLINESS OF THE PARTY DEFENDED BY MIRABEAU.

565

The middle, citizen class, of which the most restless portion were agitators in the Jacobin Club, had now its advent; this class was truly middling in every respect, being middling in fortune, mind, and talent. Great talents were uncommon; and still more uncommon was political invention whose language was very monotonous, and always copied from Rousseau. Wide and immense was the difference between this and the sixteenth century, when everybody possessed a powerful language, a language of his own, which he had made himself, and the energetical defects of which are always interesting and amusing. Except four men of first rank,-three orators and one writer,-all the others are of a secondary order. Lafayette, the transient idol, and the future idols, the Girondists and the Montagnards, are generally of a middling stamp. Mirabeau beheld himself literally annihilated by mediocrity.

It was like, overwhelmed by a rising tide rushing in from the open sea, and he, a robust wrestler, was then on the shore, in the ridiculous attitude of opposing the ocean, the waves of which were ever rising. Yesterday the water was up to his ankle; to-day it reaches his knee; to-morrow it will rise to his waist. And then the waves of this ocean had neither figure nor form; every time he grasped them in his powerful hand, they slipped from him, weak, vague, and colourless.

It was an unprofitable struggle; by no means one of opposite principles. Mirabeau was scarcely able to define what he contended against. It was certainly neither the people, nor a democratic government. Mirabeau would have found his advantage in a republic; for he would undoubtedly have been the first citizen. He was struggling against an immense, yet very feeble party, composed of different appearances, and which itself desired nothing more than an appearance, something indefinable, an undiscoverable middle state, neither a monarchy nor a republic, a mongrel, hermaphrodite, or, rather, a neuter party, and impotent, restless in proportion to its impotency.

The most shockingly ridiculous feature in the situation of things, is, that it was this nonentity which, in the name of a still undiscovered system, organised the Reign of Terror.

Mirabeau was seized with grief and disgust. He began to perceive that he was the dupe of the Court, which had cheated and mystified him. He had dreamed of acting the part of arbiter between the Revolution and the Monarchy, and he had expected to acquire an ascendancy over the queen, as a man, and a statesman, and to save her. But the queen, who desired less to be saved than to be avenged, would not listen to any reasonable idea. The means that he proposed were those that she most obstinately rejected,-To be moderate and just, and always in the right; to act slowly, but steadily, on public opinion, especially in the departments; hasten on the close of the Assembly from which nothing could be expected; form a new one, and cause it to revise the constitution. (Mémoires de Mirabeau, vol. viii.)

He wanted to save two things,-royalty and liberty; believing royalty itself to be a guarantee for liberty. In this twofold attempt he met with a great obstacle, the incurable silliness of the Court that he defended. The right side of the Assembly, for instance, having ventured to make an insolent and extremely imprudent sally against the national colours,

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MIRABEAU BELIEVES HIMSELF POISONED.

Mirabeau replied by a fierce oration, in the very words that France would have used, if she had spoken. In the evening, he received a visit from M. de Lamarck, who came, inconsolable, to upbraid him, on the part of the queen, and complain of his violence. He turned his back on him, and replied with indignation and contempt. And in his speech on the regency, he demanded, and caused it to be decreed, that women should be excluded from it.

The Court did not wish seriously to make use of his assistance, but only to compromise him and make him unpopular; and it had, in a great measure, obtained this latter point. Of the three parts which may tempt genius in revolutions, those of Richelieu, Washington, and Cromwell, neither was practicable for him to perform. The best thing that remained for him to do, was seasonable death. Accordingly, as if he had been impatient to die, he was, throughout this month, which was his last, even more furiously prodigal of his life than usual. We find him everywhere; at the department, he accepts new functions in the National Guard; and yet he scarcely ever leaves the tribune, where he enlightens every subject with intelligence and talent, descending to specialties which would have been supposed to be most foreign to him (I allude to the speeches on the mines).

He went about speaking and acting, and yet he felt he was dying, and believed himself to be poisoned. Far from combating his languor by a different manner of living, he rather seemed eager to anticipate his death. About the 15th of March, he passed a night at table with females, and his health grew worse. He had but two decided tastes,women and flowers:* moreover, we must make a distinction: women worthy of his affection; for, with Mirabeau, pleasure was never separated from love. On Sunday, the 27th of March, he was in the country, at his small residence at Argenteuil, where he was charitably employed in doing good to the poor. He had ever sympathised with the miseries of mankind; and he became still more humane at the approach of death. Here he was seized with a cholic, of which he had previously had attacks, accompanied with inexpressible agony, and found himself dying alone, without a physician or any assistance. Assistance came at length; but it was of no avail, for, in five days, he expired.

Nevertheless, on Monday, the 28th, though death was stamped upon his countenance, he was obstinately resolved to go once more to the Assembly. The question on the mines, a very important affair for his friend, M. de Lamarck, whose fortune was engaged in them, decided him. Mirabeau spoke five times; and, though more dead than alive, was once more victorious. On leaving the Assembly, all was over. With that last effort, he sacrificed the rest of his life to friendship.

On Tuesday, the 29th, a report that Mirabeau was ill spread a strong sensation throughout Paris, and all men, even his adversaries, then felt

* Etienne Dumont, ch. xiv., p. 273.-" Mirabeau used always to write surrounded with flowers. His taste was more delicate than has been stated. He ate plentifully, like a man of his strength, and one so prodigal of his energies; but he never drank to excess: his eloquence was not, like that of Fox, Pitt, and other English orators, inspired by the fumes of wines."

MIRABEAU'S LAST MOMENTS.

567

how much they loved him. Camille Desmoulins, who was then waging war so violently against him, feels his heart yearn once more towards his former friend; and the furious editors of the "Revolutions of Paris," who were at that moment proposing the suppression of royalty, say that the king has sent to inquire about Mirabeau, and add, "Let us feel grateful that Louis XVI. did not go himself; it would have occasioned a fatal diversion; for the people would have adored him."

On the Tuesday evening, the crowd thronged about the sick man's door. On the Wednesday, the Jacobins sent him a deputation, headed by Barnave, from whom he received with pleasure an obliging expression that was related to him. Charles de Lameth had refused to join the deputation.

Mirabeau was afraid of being beset by priests, and had given orders that the curate should be told, if he came, that he had seen, or was to see, his friend, the bishop of Autun.

Nobody was ever more noble and affectionate in death. He spoke of his life as of the past, and of himself, who had been, and had ceased to be. He would have no other physician than his friend Cabanis, and was totally given up to friendship and to the idea of France. What gave him the most uneasiness in dying, was the doubtful threatening attitude of the English, who seemed to be preparing war. "That Pitt," said he, "is governing with threats, rather than with deeds; I should have given him some trouble, if I had lived."

They spoke to him of the extraordinary eagerness of the people in inquiring about his health, and of the religious respect and silence of the crowd which was afraid of troubling him. "Ah! the people," said he, "such good people well deserve that a man should sacrifice himself for them, and do everything to found and strengthen their liberty. It was my glory to live for them; and it is my consolation to feel that I am dying amidst the people."

He was full of gloomy presentiments about the destiny of France: "I am carrying away with me," said he, "the funeral of monarchy; its remnants will become the prey of the factious."

The report of a cannon having been heard, he exclaimed, with a start: "Is this already the funeral of Achilles?"

"In the morning of the 2nd of April," says Cabanis," he ordered his windows to be opened, and said to me in a firm tone: Friend, I shall die to-day. On such a day, it only remains to perfume oneself, and then, crowned with flowers, and surrounded with music, to be lulled agreeably to that sleep from which there is no waking.' He then called his valetde-chambre: Come,' said he, 'prepare to shave me, and to dress me carefully and completely.' He ordered his bed to be moved nearer an open window, in order that he might contemplate the first symptoms of vernal vegetation on the trees in his little garden. The sun was shining; and he exclaimed: If this be not God, it is at least his cousin-german.' Soon after, he lost the use of speech; but he still replied by signs to the proofs of friendship which we showed him. The slightest attentions affected him, and caused him to smile; and when we approached him, he did all he could to embrace us."

His sufferings being excessive, and as he was unable to articulate any