Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/641

MIOT MIOT, Andre Francois, count de Melito, a French author, born in Versailles, about 1762, died in Paris', Jan. 5, 1841. He was connected with the ministries of war and foreign affairs and the diplomatic service, and was councillor of state under the empire, minister of war and the interior under Joseph Bonaparte in Na- ples, and intendant of his court in Madrid. In 1835 he was admitted to the French academy. His principal works are : a translation of He- rodotus with a life of Homer attached (3 vols., Paris, 1822) ; Bibliotheque historique de Dio- dore de Sidle, a translation containing all new fragments of the works of Diodorus (7 vols., ISSS-'S) ; and his posthumous Memoires sur le consulat, V empire et le roi Joseph (3 vols., 1858). MIQIELO*. See SAINT-PIEEKE. MIRABEAU, Gabriel Honore Riqnetti, count de, a French author and statesman, born on his father's estate of Bignon, near Nemours, March 9, 1749, died in Paris, April 2, 1791. A huge- headed infant, who had come into the world with a pair of grinders, one foot twisted, and tongue-tied, disfigured when three years old by confluent smallpox, he grew up " as ugly as the nephew of Satan," but giving signs of bod- ily strength, passionate temper, and intellectual power. His father was a philanthropist and the author of a work entitled UAmi des hom- mes, but was a tyrant at home, and tried to subdue his son by severity and contempt. The boy was educated at first by private tutors, and then was entered at a military school in Paris, under the assumed name of Pierre Buffire, because his family were ashamed of him. On July 19, 1767, his father placed him as a vol- unteer in the Berry regiment of cavalry, under a colonel notorious for his severity. He con- tracted a few debts, lost 40 louis at the gaming table, and surpassed his colonel in the affec- tions of a young girl at Saintes. These of- fences brought upon him the wrath of his father, who in the autumn of 1768 banished him by a lettre de cachet to the fortress on the isle of Re. Here he made a friend of his jail- er, who reported favorably concerning him, and his father procured him a commission as second lieutenant in the regiment of Lorraine, which was sent to Corsica in 1769. During a year of hard service he evinced such alacrity, courage, and fidelity as to command the esteem of his officers and the affections of his com- rades. On his return he was sent to his uncle, the bailli of Mirabeau in Provence, who under- took to conciliate his father. At last Mirabeau was allowed to assume his true title, and was presented at court. By his father's advice he married, June 22, 1772, Marie Emilie de Covet, the only daughter of the marquis of Mari- gnane. She had no portion, and he soon be- came involved in pecuniary difficulties. His father not only declined to help him, but pre- vented the marquis of Marignane from doing so, and on Aug. 23, 1774, imprisoned him in the castle of If at Marseilles; and when his wife and family prayed for his release, he had 561 " VOL. xi. 40 MIRABEAU 623 him removed, May 25, 1775, to the fort of Joux, in the Jura mountains. Being allowed occasionally to visit the neighboring town of Pontarlier, Mirabeau fell in love with Sophie, marchioness de Monnier, the young and gifted wife of an old magistrate. In August, 1776, he eloped with her to Verrieres, Switzerland. A few weeks later they were in Amsterdam, where Mirabeau, under the fictitious name of Saint-Mathieu, tried to make a living by wri- ting for Dutch publishers. He made some translations from the English, and wrote his Avis aux Hessois, a pamphlet against the Hes- sian sale of soldiers to England for service in the American war. On May 10, 1777, he and his paramour were condemned by the tribunal of Pontarlier, he being sentenced to be be- headed for "forcible abduction and seduction," while she was condemned to imprisonment for life. On May 14 they were arrested and taken to Paris ; he was imprisoned at Vincennes, and she was sent to a convent at Gien. His father had resolved to keep him a prisoner for life. In his dungeon he constantly wrote love letters to Sophie (a favor which had been granted to him by the chief of police, as the only means of pre- venting his suicide), and accomplished a good deal of literary work, the most important part of which was his Lettres de cachet et prisons d'etat. In spite of the fact that he was at- tacked by several serious diseases, and was los- ing his eyesight, his father was deaf to all ap- peals, until the death of his little grandson sug- gested the " necessity of perpetuating the fam- ily," and Mirabeau regained his liberty Deo.' 13, 1780, after an imprisonment of three years and a half. He at once set to work to settle a warfare that had been going on between his pa- rents for many years ; but here he failed. His mother was for ever alienated from him ; but the success which she obtained in her lawsuit against her husband was followed by a recon- ciliation between father and son, May 20, 1781. Meanwhile Mirabeau had had an interview with Sophie ; but jealousy had sprung up be- tween them, they parted in anger, and in 1789 she committed suicide. An attempt at recon- ciliation with his wife was unsuccessful, and he resorted to legal proceedings for her recov- ery. These he conducted himself, with marked ability and eloquence. His pleadings before the parliament of Aix created deep emotion among the people of that city, the majority of whom sided with him ; but one half of the judges were relatives of Marignane, and the court de- creed, July 5, 1783, 'that the wife should re- main separated from her husband. Though defeated, Mirabeau became a popular idol. After a futile attempt to appeal the suit, he went to England, where he published his Con- siderations sur Vordre de Cincinnatus, and his Doutes sur la liberte de VEscaut, a defence of the Dutch monopoly against the designs of the emperor Joseph II. He returned to Paris in April, 1785, and wrote several able pamphlets on financial subjects. At the close of this year