power to pull down and had flattered himself he might have the power to reconstruct. By his death-bed stood the Bishop of Autun. It was a curious combination of circumstances which thus brought together these two personages, whose characters were essentially different, but whose position was in some respects the same. The one was eloquent, passionate, overbearing, imprudent; the other cool, urbane, logical, and cautious. But both were of illustrious families, endowed with great abilities, ejected from their legitimate place in society. Both also were liberal in their politics, and this from vengeance and ambition, as well as from principle and opinion. Aristocrats allied with a democratic faction; monarchists in desperate conflict with those by whom monarchy was most held in reverence; they had engaged in a battle for moderation with extreme auxiliaries and extreme opponents. Mirabeau, the fifth child, but who became, by a brother’s death, the eldest son of the Marquis de Mirabeau (a rich proprietor of a noble house in Provence), had been, when very young, married to a wealthy heiress, and intended for the profession of arms. Nevertheless, quitting his profession, separated from his wife, constantly involved in scrapes – now for money, now for love – he had led a bachelor’s life of intrigue, indigence, and adventure, up to the age of forty, alternately the victim of his own wild nature and of the unwise and absurd severity of his father, whose two pursuits in life were persecuting his family and publishing pamphlets for the benefit of mankind. Thus, frequently in confinement – always in difficulties (the first and last means of correction with the old marquis being to procure a “lettre de cachet,” and to stop his son’s allowance), the Comte de Mirabeau had supported himself almost entirely by his talents, which could apply themselves to letters, though action was their proper sphere.
During a short interval in his various calamities – an interval which he had passed at Paris in a desperate effort to better his condition – he had become acquainted with M. de Talleyrand, who, struck by his abilities and affected by his misfortunes, recommended him to M. de Calonne, at whose suggestion he was sent by M. de Vergennes, then minister of foreign affairs, on a sort of secret mission into Germany, just prior to the Great Frederick’s death. From this mission he returned when France was being agitated by the convocation of the “notables,” speedily succeeded by that of the States-General. He saw at a glance that an era was now approaching, suited to his eminent talents, and in which his haughty but flexible character was likely to force or insinuate its way: his whole soul, therefore, was bent upon being one of that assembly, which he from the first predicted would soon command the destinies of his country.
Certain expenses were necessary to obtain this object, and, as usual, Mirabeau had not a farthing. The means which he adopted for procuring the money he required were the least creditable he could have devised. He published a work called “The Secret History of the Court of Berlin,” a work full of scandal, public and private, and betraying the mission with which he had recently been intrusted.18
The government was naturally indignant; a prosecution was instituted against him before the Parliament of Paris; M. de Montmorin, and others, by whom he had previously been patronised, told him plainly they wished to drop his acquaintance.
Through all these disgraceful difficulties Mirabeau scrambled. He denied that the work was published by his authority.
Rejected from their sittings by the nobility of Provence, who decreed that, having no fiefs of his own, and being merely invested with his father’s voice, he had no right to sit among the nobles, he became the successful candidate of the tiers-état for Aix; and at the meeting of the States-General stood before the ministry which had accused, and the aristocracy which had repudiated him, a daring and formidable enemy.
But, though made a desperate man by circumstances, he was not so either by inclination or by ideas.
His views for France were limited to the procuring it a representative government; and his views for himself were those which frequently lead ambitious men under such a government to adopt opposition as a road to power. “Tribun par calcul,” as was justly said of him by a contemporary,19 “aristocrat par goût.” He aimed at obtaining for his country a constitution, and being minister of the crown under that constitution.
M. de Talleyrand had the same wish, and probably the same ambition. These two statesmen, therefore, would naturally, at the meeting of the States-General, have acted together as two private friends who thought the same on public matters. But the publication of “The Secret History of the Court of Berlin,” offensive to the minister who had employed Mirabeau, could not be otherwise than painful and disagreeable to M. de Talleyrand, at whose intercession Mirabeau had been employed, and to whom, indeed, Mirabeau’s correspondence had been principally addressed. This circumstance had, therefore, produced a cessation of all private intimacy between these two personages who were about to exercise so great an influence over approaching events. It is difficult, however, for two men to act a prominent part on the same side for any length of time in a popular assembly, and this at a great national crisis, without relapsing into an old acquaintance, or forming a new one. To what extent the old relations between Mirabeau and M. de Talleyrand were thus renewed, it is difficult to say, but that on the 21st of October, 1789, they already talked together with some degree of intimacy is evident from a letter of Mirabeau to the Comte de la Marck, in which letter Mirabeau states that he had been told the history of a secret political intrigue by the Bishop of Autun.20
About this time, too, it is now known that Mirabeau projected a ministry to which I have already alluded, and in which he and M. de Talleyrand were to be united. Had this ministry been formed, it is very possible that the history of France during the next sixty years would have been different.
But the most fatal measure adopted by the Assembly was that (November 9, 1789) which prevented any of its members from being minister during its continuance, and from entering the service of the crown for two years after its dissolution. The consequences of this resolution, aimed at those who, like Mirabeau and Talleyrand, were hoping to erect a constitutional government, and to have the direction of it, were incalculable. The persons at that time who had most influence in the Assembly were men with moderate opinions, great talents, and great ambition. Had such men been placed as the head of affairs they might have controlled them and established a government at once popular and safe. But this new regulation prevented those who were powerful as representatives of the people from using their influence in supporting the executive power of the crown. It drove them, moreover, if their passions were violent and their positions desperate, to seek for power by means hostile to the constitution which annihilated their hopes.
It had this effect upon Mirabeau; and his sentiments becoming known to the court, a sort of alliance established itself between them in the spring of 1790; – an alliance entered into too late (since most of the great questions on which Mirabeau’s influence might have been useful were already decided) and most absurdly carried on; for whilst the King opened to Mirabeau his purse, he shut from him his confidence, and at first, and for a long time, exacted that the compact he had entered into with the great orator for the defence of his throne should be kept altogether secret, even from his own ministers.21
Mirabeau was to advise the King in secret, to help him indirectly in public; but he was not to have the King’s countenance, and he was to be thwarted and opposed by the King’s friends.
The error which both parties to this arrangement committed was the result of the feeble and irresolute character of the one, who never did anything wholly and sincerely, and of the over-bold and over-confident character of the other, who never doubted that whatever he attempted must succeed, and who now easily persuaded himself that having vanquished the difficulty of opening a communication with the court, he should promptly vanquish that of governing it. Indeed, the desire of Mirabeau to serve the crown being sincere, and his ability to do so evident, he (not unnaturally perhaps) felt convinced that his sincerity would be trusted, and his talents given fair play.
But
A defence has been set up for Mirabeau, viz., that the work, though written by him, was published without his knowledge by a bookseller’s wife, his mistress. But besides the utter improbability of this story, there is the fact that Mirabeau remained until his death on the best terms with the person who would thus have betrayed a most sacred trust and merited his bitterest contempt and indignation.
See
See
When M. Mercy, the Austrian ambassador, and for a long time the intermediate agent between the court and Mirabeau, left Paris, M. de Montmorin, the minister of foreign affairs, was, without the knowledge of his colleagues, admitted into the secret of the court’s engagements, and authorised to correspond with Mirabeau concerning their execution.
