his deserts, had time to vanish under the cock-crow of truth. His death was as well-timed as his political advent, and has been praised by French wit as the best evidence of his tact; for the expectations which the unparalleled rapidity, no less than the innate marvelousness of his achievements had raised, no future activity and fortune, scarcely those of a Napoleon, could have realized.
But if the retrospect of his career must convince us that one man in so short a period never accomplished so much before, against such disadvantages, so also must we admit that probably never before did any one rest so wholly for his amazing achievements on the sole power of intrinsic genius. It was intellect that did all with Mirabeau; and made his head, according to his own boast, a power among European states. It united almost every possible capacity and attainment. His rare and penetrating powers of observation were sustained by the equal depth and justness of his discrimination, and the rapidity and accuracy of his judgment. Uniting, to his admirable natural capacity, an activity and habitual power of application, more marvelous almost in their extent than even in their rare combination, he possessed an understanding full, beyond precedent, both of the recorded knowledge of books, and of that priceless experience of men and things, without which all else is naught; and as the complement of these amazing and unparalleled advantages, he had the still rarer advantage of a felicity and power of diction every way worthy of so incomparable a genius.
Looking with contempt at the stiff, ornamental, and childishly antithetical style of his day and nation, he welded the flimsy elements of the French language into instruments of strength akin to his own conceptions, and wrought out of them a style for himself in which a Demosthenic simplicity and severity of language is sustained by an earnest and straightforward power which vivifies and amplifies all that it touches. Startled by an innovation far beyond the conceptions of the French academy, the writer was smiled at and neglected by the critics; and it was not till they heard him launching from the tribune the thunders of justice, disposing at pleasure of the inclinations of the multitude, and subjugating even the captious by the imperious power of his eloquence, that they began to discover that there was a "power of life"10 in his rude and singular language; that "things, commonplace, in his hand became of electric power;"11 and that, standing "like a giant among pigmies,"12 his style, albeit "savage,"13 dominated the assembly, stupefying, and thundering down all opposition.
It is the affliction of history, that, while raising her monuments to gigantic genius, she is compelled so often to record an immorality of parallel proportions. It is right that the infamy of Mirabeau should be as eternal as his greatness. He was a man who, in his political, as in his private life, had no sense of right for its own sake, and from whom conscience never won a sacrifice. With great and glorious aims at times, he never had a disinterested one. His ambition, vanity, or passions, were his only standard of conduct – a standard, be it added, which, despite the wonderful justness of his judgments, the depravity of a sunken nature kept always below even his needs. Policy with him was often but a campaign of vengeance or market of venality, and the glorious exercises of literature but a relaxation of indecency or business of wrong. In the study, in the tribune, or in the council-chamber, glory was the only element that remained to counterpoise, often with a feather's weight, the smallest influence of gold or spleen; and in the most critical epoch of an empire, the poising of his tremendous influence – the influence of so much earnestness and magical power – was the accident of an accident. We admit for him, in palliation, the demoralizing influence of terrific example, and of maddening oppression; but where is the worth of a morality that, in a man of heroic mould, will not stand assay? and what is virtue but a name, if she may be betrayed whenever she demands an effort?
But however much a moral wreck was the heart of Mirabeau, nature, true to the harmony, no less than the magnificence, of her great creations, had essentially formed it of noble and gentle elements. Touched to the core by the contaminating influence of "time and tide," its instincts were yet to the kindly, the generous, and elevated; and those about him who knew him best – attached to him more by his affections than his glory – eagerly attested that in the bosom of this depraved citizen resided most of the qualities which, under happier agencies, would have made him a dutiful son, a devoted husband, an attached friend, and truly noble character!
In fine, with an eye to see at a glance, a mind to devise, a tongue to persuade, a hand to execute, this great man was circumspect in recklessness, poised and vigorous in violence, cool and calculating to a minutia in audacity and passion. As a friend, affectionate and volatile – as an enemy, fierce and placable – as a politician, patriotic and venal. Proud of his patricianship, whose status and manners he has lost, he is humble about a statesmanship that makes the first of his glories. The best of writers, his works are written for him; the greatest of orators, his speeches are made for him! Has he the most unerring of judgments? He prefers another's! Is he a popular tribune? He is also a royalist parasite! Is he earnest? He is then insincere! Does he evidence great principles? He seeks bribes! Does he enforce moderation? He awaits vengeance! Does he cause confusion? He is seeking order! Would he save the nation? He is selling its liberties! Wonderful man! great with enormous weaknesses, bad with many excellencies, immortal by the expedients of an hour, his genius is a combination of almost impossible perfections, as his political life the colossal result of a thousand contradictions. United, they yield a deathless character, whose Titanic proportions shall, age after age, be huger, as the mighty shadows that cover it shall grow darker!
THE "COMMUNIST" SPARROW – AN ANECDOTE OF CUVIER
We have been struck with the following anecdote of the great Cuvier, which is recorded in the "Courrier de l'Europe" for February, 1850, and trust the following translation will prove as interesting to our readers as it has been to us. It forms an amusing chapter in natural history, and forcibly illustrates that close observation which so frequently characterizes eminent men.
Poverty in youth has a purifying tendency, like the "live coal" of old which the angel passed over the lips of Isaiah. It inures the soul to struggling, and the mind to persevering labor and self-confidence: it keeps the imagination away from the temptations of luxury, and the still more fatal one of idleness, that parent of vice. It, moreover, becomes one of the most fruitful sources of happiness to the man whom God permits to come out of the crowd and take his place at the head of science and art. It is with ineffable delight that he looks behind, and says, in thinking of his cold and comfortless garret, "I came out of that place, single and unknown." George Cuvier, that pupil of poverty, loved to relate one of his first observations of natural history, which he had made while tutor to the children of Count d'Henry.
Cuvier and his scholars inhabited an old mansion in the county of Caux à Fiquanville; the teacher's room overlooked the garden, and every morning, at break of day, he opened the window to inhale the refreshing air, before commencing his arduous duties to his indifferently trained pupils. One morning he observed, not without pleasure, that two swallows had begun to build their nest in the very corner of his little chamber window. The birds labored with the ardor of two young lovers who are in haste to start in housekeeping. The male bird brought the moistened clay in his beak, which the female kneaded, and with the addition of some chips of straw and hay, she built her little lodging with wonderful skill. As soon as the outside was finished, the betrothed gathered feathers, hair, and soft dry leaves for the inside, and then departed to hide themselves in a neighboring wood, there to enjoy the sweets of repose after their labor, and amid the thick foliage of the trees the mysterious joys of the honeymoon. However that may be, they did not think of returning to take possession of their nest till the end of twelve or fifteen days.
Alas! changes had taken place during their absence. While the swallows were laboring with such assiduity in building a house, Cuvier had observed two sparrows, that perched at a short distance, watching the industry of the two birds, not without interchanging between themselves some cries that appeared to Cuvier rather ironical. When the swallows departed for their country excursion, the
Madame de Staël.
Bertrand de Moleville.
De Levis.
De Ferrieres.
