Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/247

Mirabeati^s Secret Mission to Berlin 237 return to the state of nature preaclied in the Hterature of his time, — but to nature, not under its Watteau or Trianon aspect, not as seen from the banks of blue Geneva, but to ferocious, volcanic, all- devouring nature, — that of the Septcuibriscurs and of the Carmag- nole. But under all his extraordinary lack of moral restraint, of respect for the rights and opinions of others, under all his over- weening vanity and overbearing insolence and invective, Mirabeau was possessed of a keen, shrewd insight that showed him facts as they were, and not as they appeared. To this he added the rare power of clear and effective expression, which, when he wrote or spoke with sincerity, at times rose to the greatest height of forcible eloquence. He wrote letters (as some of these from Berlin) that in delicacy of wit and irony equal the most vaunted of Madame de Sevigne's, but that in force, in knowledge, in freedom from artifice, immeasurably surpass them. There was nothing mincing about Mirabeau. As the flow of his pen, so that of his tongue, and as his written words brought financial ruin and caused sovereigns to tremble, so those he spoke perhaps changed the face of Europe, might perhaps, had he lived, have saved a monarchy. Gabriel Honore de Riquetti, son of the Marquis de Mirabeau, was born in 1 749. His father, known from the name of a success- ful pamphlet as L Ami des Homines, came from a family of petite noblesse that had for some generations been unfavorably known for the eccentricities of' its members. The marquis duly maintained the traditions of his fathers, or surpassed them even ; for in vice and profligacy he was a source of wonder even to that remarkable generation. His wife was not much better than he, and the quar- rels and disorders of the couple were for some years the standing scandal of France. The old marquis, among his other amiable peculiarities, was a domestic tyrant of the worst kind, for which, as well as for the vicious example their parents presented, his large family had to pay. Daughters were made to marry or to take the veil at the earliest possible age, and young Mirabeau was subjected to a sys- tem of harsh discipline totally unsuited to his precocious, expansive and intelligent nature. The repression that had marked the period of his early educa- tion had not tended to improve his character. It was at length exchanged for the military service. Hardly had he entered on this career than he embarked on a series of grave disorders that resulted in imprisonment. After his release he served in an expedition to Corsica, and there, apparently, revealed military talents of a high order. Although only eighteen he was already beginning to im-