ART. VIII.-MIRABEAU.

1.-Œuvres de Mirabeau; précédées d'une notice. Par M. MERILHOU. Paris: 13 vols. 8vo.-Works of Mirabeau; to which is prefixed a Biographical notice. By M. MERILHOU. Paris: 13 vols. 8vo. 2.-Collection complette des Travaux de M. Mirabeau l'ainé, a l'Assemblée Nationale. Paris: 5 vols. 8vo.-Complete collection of the Speeches and Addresses of M. Mirabeau, the elder, in the National Assembly. Paris: 5 vols. Svo.

THE recent revolution in France, has caused the first great agitator and orator in the former convulsion, to rise again in our memory, and has fixed our attention upon volumes concerning him, which had long kept, unmolested, their position on our shelves. We have taken them down; read them anew with fresh interest and profit, and in offering to the American public a sketch of Mirabeau's life and character, we feel most the difficulty of abstaining from details and quotations, which we deem highly interesting, but which would require an inordinate number of our pages. A multitude of curious and striking references, or rapprochemens, might be made from his career and opinions, to the late and present course of events on the same theatre. As yet, no one of similar intellectual power, or correspondent influence, has appeared in the new drama; while the aims and doctrines in relation to the political constitution fittest for their country, of those who assumed the lead and ministry on the expulsion of Charles X., bear a close affinity with what may be styled his ultimate creed and purpose.

We are acquainted with but a single good biographical account of Mirabeau, and that is the one by M. Mérilhou, prefixed to the best collection of his works. This biographer and editor is an eminent advocate in the courts of Paris, and a counsellor of state; he writes like a man of letters; he has employed severe pains to be correct in his narrative, and has studied deeply, and with much fondness, the genius and productions of his hero. We may throw aside most of his reflections and glosses, and allow the facts which he reports to operate of themselves in deciding our minds upon the merits of conduct and character. Mirabeau, the elder, was an extraordinary man, gifted with splendid abilities and signal energies,-whose fortunes and performances were fitted to affect in his favour the imagination of almost any one of his countrymen inclined to liberalism; so far, that we may not be surprised nor indignant if his biographer should have forgiven. or insensibly palliated his enormous vices and excesses. In some instances there is a curious and melancholy contrast be

tween the facts which M. Mérilhou admits, and assists to prove, and the lenient or utterly repugnant interpretations which are given to them by a writer of so much general honesty and respectable sentiment.

Honore-Gabriel de Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, was born on the 9th March 1749, at Nemours, in France. His family was of high patrician rank, a circumstance of which,-like Lord Byron, he was not a little proud and tenacious, notwithstanding the latitude of his political faith. His father, the Marquis of Mirabeau, acquired much celebrity as a writer on Public Economy, by two works, one entitled 'Ami des Hommes-The Friend of Man-the other, Theory of Taxation. The Marquis was for some time extremely popular, from the zeal with which he assailed the abuses in the administration of the government. He was regarded as an apostle of liberty, but appears to have been a cruel despot with his wife and children, whom he caused to be imprisoned at different times. It was repeatedly stated by his son, that he inflicted upon his family no less than fifty-four lettres de cachet. The biographer of the son accuses the father, besides, of parsimony, that proved highly injurious.

Honore-Gabriel was educated for the profession of arms,he pursued with great ardour the studies proper for it, until his seventeenth year, when he entered a royal regiment as sub-lieutenant, and received a mark of distinction, implying the royal acknowledgment of the antiquity of his noble line. At eighteen, he had contracted debts, and conceived a violent passion for a young female whom he resolved to marry. His father at first adopted the idea of sending him to the Dutch colony of Surinam, of which the climate would have soon extinguished his lamp of life; but, for this harsh scheme was substituted a year's confinement in the fortress of the isle of Ré. It was at this period that the count composed his first work, the Essay on Despotism, which was published in Holland in 1776. At the expiration of the year, he obtained permission to proceed to Corsica, where he took part in the war waged between the French and the Corsicans, and obtained as the reward of his gallantry a captaincy of dragoons. He wrote at the same time a political and statistical account of the island.

At the end of the year 1769, he returned to France, was reconciled with his father, and became the steward or manager of the vast landed property of the Marquis. In this capacity, he continued to act for several years, dividing his leisure between application to books, and the indulgence of a keen appetite for pleasure. He borrowed and squandered large sums on his own account; and his parents being engaged in a scandalous public quarrel, he sided with his mother against his father, to whom he thus, of course, rendered himself more and more obnoxious. A

shrewd uncle managed, however, to procure for him a wife, a young and rich heiress, the daughter of the President of the Parliament of Provence. The "happy pair" took up their residence in the chateau of the Mirabeau family; harmony reigned between them for a year; a son was born; but, in the second year, the debts of the count amounted to the very large sum of 160,000 francs. The father-in-law would have lightened his load; his father deemed it best to lay a legal interdict upon him, by the operation of which, whatever property he possessed was given in trust to his father, in lieu of an annuity of a thousand crowns. This provision could not suffice for a spendthrift. Additional debts were contracted, attended soon by new embarrassments.

In 1774, his father caused a royal order to be issued, by which he was exiled to Manosque, a little town of Provence. About the same period he quarrelled with his wife, whom he accused of infidelity, and who retorted the charge. Having played truant from Manosque, and subjected himself to fine and imprisonment for buffeting a man of rank, he gave his father an opportunity of visiting him with further punishment. By virtue of another lettre de cachet, he was shut up in the castle d'If. His wife, whom he sent to Paris in order to plead for him with the prime-minister, M. de Maurepas, instead of executing this commission, repaired to her father's residence, and thus finally separated from her husband. In the castle d'If, he was detected in a love-intrigue, which afforded a reason or pretext for another lettre de cachet, that removed him to the fortress of Joux, near the frontiers of Switzerland. Here, another and much more important amour determined his fate-a very severe fate-for a number of years. Near this prison began his acquaintance with his Sophie, a lady as renowned in real life, as Rousseau's Julie in romance.

The governor of the fort, after some time, allowed his prisoner to seek recreation in the adjoining town of Pontarlier. One of the most distinguished noblemen and public officers of this place, M. de Monnier, had married when upwards of sixty years of age, a girl, Sophie de Ruffey, of the most respectable connexions, and very attractive person and manners. She was an exemplary wife, until Mirabeau, when a guest of her husband, conceived a passion for her, to which she yielded after a struggle of six months. Their mutual attachment soon became notorious, and it happened that the commander of the fort was Mirabeau's disappointed rival. Hence, a rigorous confinement-a denunciation of his conduct to his father. Soon, he planned an elopement with Sophie-both being married; he twenty-eight years of age; she twenty-two-both destitute of pecuniary

means. They fled-were separated-contrived to meet again," and finally sought refuge, together, in Holland.

At Amsterdam, Mirabeau was obliged to labour incessantly for the booksellers, in order to support his idolized companion. They passed six months undisturbed; but, notwithstanding the use of a feigned name, and total seclusion, they were discovered by the police, acting under the instructions of his father. Apprehending this result, they had resolved to emigrate to America. Before this project could be executed, Sophie was seized by the authorities of Amsterdam, to be restored to her relatives in France. Mirabeau himself might have escaped. His honour, as he thought, and his feelings, required that he should share her doom. They proceeded as prisoners to Paris. The lady, after giving birth to a child in a private establishment of the police, was consigned to a convent by a lettre de cachet. Mirabeau was locked up in the tower of Vincennes, where he remained in the most painful durance, from the 8th of June, 1777, until the 13th of December, 1780. In this situation, with scarce enough of light in his cell to read or write, often destitute of what elsewhere would have been deemed necessary clothing, restricted as to quantity of paper and books, he nevertheless endited able and voluminous works, and greatly enriched his understanding. To obtain paper, he rifled the books which were lent to him, of their blank leaves; to accomplish the more with his pen, he contracted his autograph to the smallest character: fearing that he would become blind, from the want of light in his labours, and the want of sleep produced by chagrin, he devoted an hour a day to composition with his eyes shut. Some of the productions which he sold to the booksellers during this imprisonment, are of a very licentious cast. His biographer deems them pardonable, because, writing for bread, he was obliged to consult the public appetite!

It was in the tower of Vincennes that he composed his Essay on Lettres de Cachets and State Prisons, a work recommended by exceedingly eloquent and forcible passages, and well adapted to the times in which he was destined to ride triumphantly in the whirlwind. But the most remarkable of his solitary performances is the long series of his copious letters to Sophie, with whom he was permitted to correspond, on condition that what might be written on either side, should be submitted to the inspection of certain public functionaries, and after having been perused by all parties, deposited in the police office of Paris. It is impossible to conceive any expression of feeling, more passionate any action of the soul in the recollection or manifestation of love, more intense and effective-than we find them in this correspondence. Sentiment is blended with literary and ethical opinion-all topics are handled with power

and vehemence; sophisms against domestic duty and conjugal faith abound; and a depraved imagination is indulged in a strain of grossness, which argues that Sophie herself,-in his opinion at least,-must have lost all delicacy of love and refinement of taste. The volumes of his letters have been more read, and have remained much longer in vogue, than any of his other works.

Before Mirabeau was liberated from Vincennes, both his son by his wife, and his daughter by Sophie, died-a mortality which, according to his biographer, greatly aggravated the distress of the unhappy prisoner. We might conclude, however, from the narrative, that he was chiefly, if not wholly, occupied with schemes for his enlargement. It occurred to him that he might achieve this object by seeking a reconciliation with his wife. On this head, he consulted-Sophie! and she advised him to make the experiment. The biographer is in raptures with the generosity of her conduct, particularly as she had declined an overture from her husband to return to him, on the most liberal terms for her comfort and reputation. Looking only to the vows and homage which Mirabeau had addressed to her from his cell," we should have supposed him willing to endure any prolongation of his imprisonment, or even a hundred deaths, rather than renounce the most remote chance of being reunited with her, or yoke himself with any other of her sex.

His first application to his wife was repelled; a second letter, more urgent and submissive, induced her to promise that she would interfere for his release, provided he would engage to keep at such a distance as to relieve her from all apprehension of his visits or importunities. To this proviso he humbly acceded. His prison-bounds were at first widened; and at length, on the 13th of December, 1780, he was suffered to issue forth into the world, still subject, by order of the king, to the authority of his father. It was said that he attempted, very soon after, to carry off Sophie from the convent in which she was detained. But it appears to us that he showed more anxiety to get possession of his wife and her fortune. The unhappy mistress had permission to join her relatives at Dijon, on the death of her husband, Monnier. Some years afterwards, she accepted a tender of marriage, but the new lover having given occasion for jealous suspicion, she committed suicide by inhaling the vapour of charcoal, in the year 1786, at the age of twenty-six. Mirabeau never saw her from the period of his incarceration in 1777. He was obliged to repair to Pontarlier, in order to bring about a compromise with regard to the heavy penalties which the courts had decreed against him as a ravisher; and it was not, without the most laborious efforts that he extricated himself on this occasion. His next arduous enterprise was to accomplish