DC 146 .ri7 F6 V. 8 no. 4 Copy 1 THE YOUTH OF MIRABEAU By FRED MORROW FLING REPRINTED FROM THE l^mmatt p)St(»tfiat §mm VOL. VIII No. 4 July 1903 THE YOUTH OF MIRABEAU The last week in February, 1764, young Mirabeau, a stout, pock-marked youth of fifteen, arrived at Versailles, where he ap- peared incognito, probably under the name M. de Pierre-Buffiere.^ M. de Sigrais, the friend of the marquis who had agreed to take charge of the boy, was a "brave soldier, a good Latinist, a captain of cavalry, and a member of the Academie des iiisa'iptions et belles- lettres." Although married, Sigrais had no children. His wife being first lady in waiting to the dauphine, the mother of Louis XVI., he resided with her for a portion of the year at Ver- sailles.^ Of the experiment tried by the Sigrais family we know little more than that it promised much, but failed signally. In a letter to his brother the marquis described the manner in which he had worked on their feehngs and induced them to take his son : ^ " As to my eldest, who has given me, and still gives me, more trouble than all the rest of the family, do you know what action I have taken ? He has now been for three days incognito at Versailles in the hands of the big Sigrais, who has taken charge of him. You know this worthy man, his appearance and manner. He is to have with him ■ Correspondance Generale, IV. 384, The marquis to the bailli, Paris, February 28, 1764. (It is by this title that I refer to the manuscript correspondence between the marquis and his brother. It is contained in twelve large volumes and is the property of M. Lucas de Montigny of Aix en Provence, through whose kindness I was allowed to consult it. This correspondence, only portions of which have been published, is the chief source of information concerning the early life of Mirabeau.) *'I1 est actuelle- ment depuis trois jours incognito a Versailles." The marquis does not state in this letter what name had been given to his son. In a letter of June 2, 1764, the boy is referred to as M. de Pierre-Buffi&e. " C'^tait tout simplement," writes M. de Lomenie {Les Mirabeau, III. 23), "le nom d'uneterre importante, prds de Limoges, devant revenir au marquis du chef de sa femme, et qui lui permettait de prendre le titre de premier baron du Limousin. Nous ne jurerions pas que le marquis n'etait mis quelque vanite a faire porter par son fils le nom de cette terre." This hypothesis is clearly untenable. Mira- beau left home in disgrace. Referring to his departure, the marquis wrote his son in 1770, " Je vous ai dit en sortant de chez moi que vous ne reverrez la maison paternelle que je ne vous scusse change" (Correspondance Generale, VI. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, June I, 1770). In May, 1770, when Mirabeau was with his uncle in Provence, the marquis wrote to his brother : " Si tu continues et persistes a en etre con- tent, je te prepare un cadeau k lui faire, c'est d'obtenir qu'il prenne notre nom" (Corre- spondance Generale, VI. The marquis to the bailli, May 29, 1770). 2 Lomenie, Les Mirabeau, III. 22. 3 Correspondance Generale, IV. 384. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, February 28, 1764. 657 658 F. M. Fling for some time yet a friend of his youth of the same cut and figure as himself, but stouter and more rustic. He will take the young man into the fields and be the good soldier, while Sigrais will be the bad one. To describe to you the course that I took to win these worthy people, not only hiding nothing from them, but even heaping up the measure, would take too long. You will see at once that I touched the noble and almost romantic soul of Sigrais and that this success is the result of the reputation that providence has conferred upon me by paying me in the money of the esteem of honest people, which is worth as much as any other treasure. It is a matter of religion with this good man to do everything to suc- ceed. As for myself, I hope at least to draw from it the consola- tion of having neglected nothing in the performance of my duty in this matter and in the attempt to correct nature.'" At the end of three months Sigrais, with tears in his eyes, announced to the marquis that he would remain the jailer of his son as long as he pleased, but he despaired of ever doing anything with him. "That means," commented the marquis, "that the inexplic- able derangement of his head is incurable."^ He had never been confident that the experiment would succeed. After the boy had been with Sigrais two months, the marquis referred to the possi- bility of his eldest son's becoming a good man as the result of pun- ishment.^ It was his method of "correcting nature." There is no indication in this letter — the only one in which Mirabeau is referred to before his father announced the failure of the experiment — that Sigrais was succeeding. The marquis still entertained the idea of dividing the estate, even if the eldest should be reclaimed. Boni- face, "who is always the same, an excellent child," was being educated in the school of the Barnabites at Montargis. The mar- quis informed his brother, with much satisfaction, that "Father de la Roque, who had especial charge of him, has written, in a letter to his brother that I was not expected to see, ' I have never seen a child at the same time more active and more gentle.' " The mar- quis believed that he had every reason to be contented with his youngest son."* 1 While Mirabeau was with Sigrais the bailli wrote to the marquis as follows : " Quant k I'aini, je souhaite et meme j'esp^re que le Sigrais en tirera le parti le plus avantageux que son ditoffe comporte. II ressemble diablement pour la figure au grand p4re maternel. Pent etre que quand le monde le pressera de tous cotes et qu'il ne trouvera plus I'indulgence qu'il est impossible qu'on ne trouve pas dans la maison paternelle, son amour propre I'engagera au moins montrer ses defauts et cela les diminue b. cet age \k." Ihid., IV. 476. The bailli to the marquis, Malte, May 24, 1764. ''■Ibid., IV. 465. The marquis to the bailli, Bignon, June 2, 1764. 3 Ibid., IV. 396. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, April 24, 1764. ^ Ibid., IV. 384. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, February 28, 1764. y^ ^ . Correspondance Generale, V. 270. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, March 31, 1767. The Youth of Mirabeau 665 It is not necessary to assume that the marquis was actuated by harsh motives in removing his son from the Choquard pension. Mirabeau was eighteen years of age and, as his father intended him for the army, it was high time for him to begin the serious work of his life. "As to my boys," he wrote to the bailli,' announcing his intended action, " the eldest is still a cross ; the world is full of trouble. I am going to send him as a volunteer (new style) to the roughest of military schools. A young man, but of the antique type, has founded it in his regiment. He pretends that the exclu- sive air of honor, united to a hard and cold regime, can restore lungs, even those that are naturally in very bad shape. I asked of him as mentor an officer who, without argumentation or talkative- ness, has by instinct a disgust and natural disdain for everything related to cowardice. He said that his man was such a one. I have, in fact, seen two fathers thank him for having created a son for them. I ought to neglect nothing. I am going, then, to follow this road." " When my son entered the service," he wrote later," "you may infer from what you know of the past that I neglected nothing that he might be in good hands, were it for no other reason than that I might have nothing to reproach myself with. The Marquis de Lambert, to whom I had confided him, and who was pointed out to me on all sides as keeping the best and strictest military school, asked of me, at least for a time, a trusty domestic and one author- ized to denounce him, above all one that he [Mirabeau] recognized as a mentor, not wishing to accustom him to think that espionage, even for a good motive, was a usual method. I proposed Grevin, whom he knew, and with whom he was delighted. I had difficulty in persuading him [Grevin] to consent to it for a time, but he is there." The Marquis de Lambert, to whose care Mirabeau had been entrusted, was colonel of the regiment of Berri-Cavalerie, belonging to the light horse of the French army, at that time stationed at Saintes. He was the grandson of the famous Madame Lambert, and related to the Vassans. He did not, however, take the part of the Marquise de Mirabeau in her affairs with her husband, being a friend of Madame de Rochfort and a devoted disciple of the Ami des liommes. Although holding the rank of brigadier, the Marquis de Lambert was at this time but twenty-six years of age. ^ On the nineteenth of July, 1767, Mirabeau joined his regiment. Saintes, the garrison town, charmingly situated upon the banks of ^ Ibid., V. 270. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, March 21, 1767. ^Ibid., v. 35g. The marquis to the hailli, Paris, August 7, 1767. "Lomenie, III. 29. 666 F. M. Fling the Charente not far from Rochelle, is a quaint old place to-day and could hardly have been less so one hundred and thirty years ago. The broad, quietly flowing stream ; the old Roman bridge connecting the two parts of the town and supporting a beautiful triumphal arch ; the wide main avenue, with its great trees casting a deep shade, rising from the bridge over the hillside ; the crooked, picturesque streets ; the remains of the Roman amphitheater ; the impressive romanesque churches ; and the fine old fagade of the palace of justice — this was the picturesque environment of the young volunteer. Life in such a place was certainly not a hardship. Of Mirabeau's life during the first year we know practically nothing. Local tradition indicates a house in the Rue d' Alsace- Lorraine as the place of his residence, and reports that at one time he was confined in the tower of the old palace of justice.' M. Charles de Lomenie writes that " Mirabeau was one of the most insubordinate soldiers in the Berri-Cavalerie ; he passed a portion of his first year of service in the prison of the regiment," yet he gives no proof and I have been able to find little more than this tradition to which I have referred.^ As the tradition gives no date for his imprisonment, it is quite possible that it fell in the second year. No reference to Mirabeau is found in the correspondence between the marquis and the bailli until April 21, 1768, or near the close of the first year. " The news from the other [Mirabeau] is good," runs the letter; "I am going to get him a commission."' His conduct must have been unusually good to satisfy two such censors as his colonel and his father. On the twentieth of April, 1768, the marquis addressed himself to Choiseul, asking that his son be made a second lieutenant in the regiment in which he had served for nearly a year. " I have a son," he wrote, "whose youth was wayward. I prolonged and stiffened 1 I have repeated the tradition as it was given to me by IVI. Louis Audiat, librarian of the city library at Saintes. ^ The only additional evidence that I have found is in the report made in 1776 by the commission on Icltres de cachet on Mirabeau's case : " Apres une jeunesse beaucoup trop orageuse, avait et^ toujours en prison au regiment de Berri cavalerie oil Ton I'avait mis pour son ecole militaire sous le Mis. de Lambert." Memoire sur Mr. le Comte de M. Archives nationales, K. 164, No. 2, 32. The value of this evidence is questionable. The com- missioners undoubtedly had the statements of the marquis before them, and at the time this memoir was drawn up the marquis was extremely hostile to his son. A memoir of this character drawn up in 1776 could hardly outweigh the evidence of the marquis him- self given in 1768, that "the news from the other," meaning Mirabeau, " is good ; I am going to get him a commission." At the same time he made this statement to his brother, the marquis informed the minister to whom he applied for the commission that his son was " esteemed " in his regiment. The significance of this application for a com- mission evidently escaped M. de Lomenie. 3 Correspondance Generale, V. 399. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, April 21, 1768. The Youth of Mirabeau 667 his education in every way and by every method, preferring to delay his entry into the service rather tJian have him ruin himself at the outset ; when his age finally forced my hand I asked of the best officers of my acquaintance which of the military schools was the strictest and most exact. All agreed in namjng the regiment of Berri commanded by the Marquis de Lambert. I put him in this regiment as a volunteer. The young man submitted. He has now made himself esteemed and has never lacked wit nor talent. I waited until his colonel should say to me that it was time to ask a commission for him ; he has sent me the memoire that I have the honor to transmit to you ; my son was nineteen years old the tenth of March. I was not aware that a copy of his certificate of baptism would be necessary; I have sent to his birthplace for it and I promise you to send it to the bureau in a short time." ' The inclosed incmoirc from the colonel was as follows : " The Marquis de Lambert requests M. le due de Choiseul to be kind enough to procure for the Comte de Mirabeau a commission as sojis-liciitcnant reforvic a la suite dii regiment de Berry, where he has served for a year in the position of a volunteer. His birth is suf- ficiently well known so that it would be useless to add the ordinary certificates. The extract from the baptismal record is subjoined."^ M. Brette calls attention to " the cleverness with which De Lambert dwells upon the birth in order to avoid speaking of the conduct and the aptitudes of Mirabeau. These words, commission de sotis-lieu- tenaiit irforme a la sidte, testify to an attempt to reduce as much as possible his military position and consequently his responsibilities." ^ It may be so, but in the face of the father's letter and of the fact that at this time the colonel was evidently satisfied with Mirabeau, the inferences of M. Brette seem hardly to be justified by the evi- dence. On the same day that Choiseul received the letter of the marquis Mirabeau was made soiis-lieutenant sans appointemcnts in the cavalry regiment of Berri.* Some three months later, on a July day, the marquis was startled by the news that the young lieutenant, having lost eighty louis at play, had deserted and that his whereabouts was unknown. The marquis asserted later in a letter to the bailli that the news did not disturb him. "On the contrar.y," he wrote, " I found myself ^The documents relating to Mirabeau's commission in the Berri cavalry were dis- covered by M. Brette and published in 1895 in the Bevohttion Fra7iiaut\ XXIX. 255— 264, under the title " Les Services Militaires de Mirabeau." The originals are in the Archives administratives de la guerre, " au nom de Gabrielle-Honore de Mirabeau, sans cote speciale." ^/(i/a',, 257. 3 Ibid. , 258. ^ Ibid., 259. 668 F. M. Fling relieved by the fact that he had been guilty of a prank similar to that of others." A few days later he was informed that " M. de Pierre-Buffiere had been found in Paris, addressing himself to M. de Nivernois and opening against M. de Lambert a pack of recrimina- tive lies, almost convincing by force of his eloquent effrontery. It was this action that dictated his arrest, and on seeing this hideous heap of contraverities and this ingratitude I felt the soul of my father reproach me for having hoped to do anything with this mis- erable being after so many trials." ^ Mirabeau was indeed at Paris and appealing to the Due de Nivernois, as his father had stated. He had taken lodgings under an assumed name at the Hotel de Bretagne, Rue St. Andre-des- Arts, and writing to the Due de Choiseul had begged him to act as a mediator with his father and to grant him a hearing. " I dare to implore your intervention with my father," ran the letter, "whom I shall find cruelly irritated with me on account of the inconsiderate act to which I was driven by vivacity, anger, and human respect. M. de Lambert, my colonel, affronted me twice in so outrageous a manner that I had the whole city murmuring at my patience, which was looked upon as baseness. I felt that my mind, prodigiously agitated, was getting beyond my control. The fear of committing the greatest of follies, the humiliation of seeing myself shamefully ridiculed made me decide to leave Saintes. I set out by post, and whatever chances I may take in announcing to you my residence, I count sufficiently upon your justice and your goodness to confide to you that I am in Paris. Deign to conceal this from my father until you have been willing to hear me and to verify the facts I shall have the honor to state to you. I dare, then, to supplicate you to send to the Hotel de Bretagne, Rue St. Andre-des-Arts, a card upon which you will have been kind enough to give me your orders Concerning the hour that I beg you to grant to me. This card, .vithout name, presented to the porter, will be faithfully remitted to me and I shall take the liberty of calling upon you." The letter bore the date of July 21, 1768." What were these affronts that had so affected the mind of Mirabeau that he deserted his regiment, even, it is said, abandoning^ 1 Correspondance Generale, V. 467. The marquis to the bailli, Bignon, August 24, 176S. 2 A copy of this letter, made from the original in the possession of M. Lucas de Montigny, is given in the manuscript of M. Mouttet's volume entitled Mirabeau en Provence, now in my possession. ^The memoir prepared in 1776 does not charge him with deserting his post, but states that he was sent to the lie de Re "pour avoir quitte et fui sans conge de ce regiment." Archives nationales, K. 164, Xo. 2, 32. The Youth of Mirabeau 669 his post when on guard, to save himself from the danger of com- tnitting some crime that he might afterwards regret ? It was a love-affair. The story is told by M. de Montigny, but without the •citation of a particle of evidence : ^ " The young and beautiful ■daughter of a constable of Saintes had pleased the Marquis de Lam- bert ; she had also pleased Mirabeau ; according to usage the second lieutenant had supplanted the colonel ; the latter, already harsh by nature, already indisposed, authorized, stimulated by the father and by Grevin, insulted his happy rival, had him insulted, or allowed him to be insulted by a coarse caricature, which set the whole regiment laughing at Mirabeau's expense ; then Lambert called the authority of his rank to the aid of his irritated amour-propre ; it was then that Gabriel, punished beyond measure, and unable to deceive himself concerning the cause had, ivliile on guard, abandoned his post and fled to Paris." This account rests, as far as I have been able to discover, simply upon oral tradition. Certainly M. de Montigny would have cited his documents, had any existed. " In the absence of proof," ob- serves M. de Lomenie, " it seems to us difficult to admit the exacti- tude of this grief. It is not easily reconciled with the general ■esteem of which the character of M. de Lambert was the object. We shall see, elsewhere, on different occasions, that inventions of every kind cost little to Mirabeau's unscrupulous conscience." ' It is not safe, as a rule, to infer particular acts from a man's general character. The inferences may or may not be true. We know very little about the character of the Marquis de Lambert, and what we do know does not render the story impossible. The evi- ■dence upon which the story rests is, apparently, worth little. Mira- beau makes no mention of his colonel as a rival, nor does he make any specific charges against him. In a letter written to his mother the following year he referred to Lambert as " a colonel unworthy to command officers who are better than himself." He added : Lambert "has employed all possible methods to destroy me. He has not succeeded." The historian must pass over the charge against the Marquis de Lambert, not because it is difficult to recon- cile with a character concerning which little is known, but because the proof is lacking. There was, however, a love-affair, even if the colonel was not one of the lovers. The father had believed that the gambling debt was the cause of all the trouble. He later wrote to the bailli that investigation showed that " it was a promise of marriage and all the 1 Memoire de jMirabeaii, I. 2SS, 2S9. 2 Lomenie, III. 31. 670 F. M. Fling follies at one time." ^ There can be no doubt of this fact : we have Mirabeau's own word for it. In the letter to his mother already mentioned he referred to himself as " more unhappy than culpable," and added, "if I have sacrificed too much to love, I have given no cause for criticism as to the qualities of my heart and the knowl- edge relative to my profession." In the Lettres de Vinccnncs, in a memoire addressed to his father, Mirabeau asked what he had done at this time that should have led his father to think of sending him to the Dutch colonies. His own answer was, " I had loved." ^ In another letter in the same collection he summoned his father to de- clare why he was detained on the lie de Re: " Let him allege any other reason, if he can, than an intrigue with a woman that made him fear a union lual assortie." ^ The Due de Nivernois did not keep Mirabeau's secret. He communicated the news to the marquis ; and the Comte du Saillant, Mirabeau's brother-in-law, was "put upon his trail" — to use the language of the marquis — "frightening him, drawing him on, and consigning him to the hotel de Nivernois, surrounding him with spies, and discovering that he was connected with a horde of brig- ands ; his case won, he took him away by post, thirty-six hours later, to Saintes. There, in presence of the colonel, of the lieu- tenant-colonel, of his mentor, of Grevin, they made him confess at last, and they discovered that it is neither this nor that, it is a promise of marriage and all the follies at once. These worthy and zealous young men slip out and depart, and the Marquis de Lam- bert recovers his letters, comes back, and at once is taken ill, and I came very near losing this worthy young man who cherishes me and serves me like a son." ^ In a second interview, according to the marquis, who obtained his information from Lambert, the colonel " had read to him (Mira- beau) one of his letters that had been intercepted and that might have ruined him, cast it into the fire, and asked if he believed that a man capable of depriving himself of such weapons was an enemy. This act produced a sudden change ; he broke off at once all his liaisons, promised to submit to imprisonment as a favor, asked to have Grevin left with him, to be released only on the return of M. de Lambert, and to go back to his corps where he had so much to repair. The noble and sensible heart of M. de Lambert held out 1 Correspondance Generale, V. 467. The marquis to the bailli, Bignon, August 24, 176S. 2 Lettres Originates de Alirabeau^ I. 296. ^ Ibid., I. 189. J Correspondance Generale, V. 467, The marquis to the bailli, Bignon, August 24, 176S. The Youth of Mirabeait 671 some hope to him. As for myself, I remarked to him (Lambert) that it was the displacement of the hammer of this fool from be- neath the chime of the desperate prisoner and the passionate lover ; that we could draw no other advantage from it than to transfer him without a scandal injurious to his family." ' Was it this intercepted letter that caused Mirabeau, fearing the action of his colonel and his father, to desert ? The explanation is not an improbable one. It should be noted, however, that the real situation became known only after Mirabeau's return to Saintes, and that Lambert recovered the letters in the possession of the young lady only after the confession. The effect upon Mirabeau of Lambert's chivalrous action in burning the intercepted letter should not be overlooked. Mirabeau always claimed that his father had shown him little affection ; that he had tried to discipline him by rigorous measures when he might have led him by kindly treatment.' Undoubtedly the father was unsympathetic and unduly severe ; undoubtedly the boy was in need of sympathy and capable of attaching himself to those who loved him, but his intentions were always better than his deeds and he was always ready to condone his own faults. The love-affair did not end here. " In 1770 Mirabeau was still in correspondence with the object of this first passion, through the medium of his sister, Madame de Cabris."^ The bailli was much incensed at the action of his nephew. " Your letter of the twenty-fourth of August, dear brother," he wrote, " filled me with consternation, informing me, as it did, of the new pranks of M. de Pierre-Buffiere, and fortunately the .little hint that you dropped before prepared me. But after having ruminated three days since the receipt of your letter upon the unique course to take, I see only one way. It is for you to decide, after a very detailed inspection of the case, whether you ought to follow this course, that is to say, if the excesses of this miserable being are such that he should be forever excluded from society, and in that case Holland is the best of all. You are certain of never seeing reappear on the horizon a wretched being, born to cause chagrin to his parents and shame to his race. It is, I say, for you, after the examination of his acts and deeds, to judge if the heart is rotten : if it is, there is no resource." Toward the close of the same letter he added, " I repeat to you, dear brother, this wretched being, if his heart is rot- 1 Memoires' lie Mirabeau, I. 299. The marquis to the Comte du Saillant, October i, 1768. ^ Le/tres Originales de Mirabeau, I. 295. 2 Lomenie, III. 34. 672 F. M. Plmg ten, is without hope and in that case I know of nothing better than Holland." ^ It was not a simple ainoiirette, as M. de Montigny has called it; ^ it was the fear of a mesalliance on the part of the eldest son that appeared to enrage the uncle more than the father. It is not difficult to realize what the feelings of the bailli were, filled as he was with the pride of his race, when he learned of the narrow escape of the family from a disgrace like that formerly inflicted upon it by his younger brother. The more he dwelt upon it, the more serious it seemed and the more his anger increased. "I assure you," answered the marquis, "that I agree with all that you have said to me, both for the present and the future. But these things are easier to plan than to execute, above all in the age in which we live and with a rogue who has all the intrigue of the devil and the intelligence of a demon. The Marquis de Lambert said to me the other day that he had divided the city and the prov- ince between reason and him, and that in spite of his odious charac- ter, he would have found in the city of Saintes 20,000 livres that are not there." ^ Before hearing his brother's suggestion, the marquis had acted, sending Mirabeau to the lie de Re. " The bad subject is in prison," he announced in the same letter that informed the bailli of the esca- pade. " His brother-in-law, who has said so much in his behalf, is forced now to admit that a miracle will be necessary and that such as he is, he is a sewer. All this is shocking for the head, the stomach, and the purse of your elder brother, and as you could do nothing in the matter, it seemed better to say nothing at all to you about it ; but it is difficult to silence the heart in the presence of those whom we love and esteem. As I have domestic dragons of different kinds, for the present I would not have said anything more about it to you, had I not feared from your letter that you would accuse me of reticence toward you." ■* 1 Correspondance Generale, V. 475, 476. The bailli to tlie marquis, Mirabeau, September 10, 1768. According to Mirabeau, his father assured him after their recon- ciliation in 1770 that in 1768 he had thought seriously of sending him to the Dutch colonies : " Qu'il me soil permis seulement de vous rappeler qu'apres m'avoir requ en grace, vous m'avez ayoue dans unede vos lettres,que vous aviez ete au vionte7ii de m^ envoyer aitx colo7iies Hollandahes, lors de ma dHentio7i d Visle de Rhe. Ce mot tit une profonde impression sur moi ; il a prodigieusement influe sur le reste de ma vie : et voila pourquoi je vous le rapelle. Daignez reflechir, en y pensant, que vous etes prompt a envisager les partis les plus violens. Qu'avais-je fait a dix-huit ans, pour que vous eussiez une telle id^e qui me fait fremir encore aujourd'hui que je suis enseveli toutvivant dansun tombeau?" Leiires Origina/es de Mirabeau, I. 295, 296. ' ^ Memoires de Mirabeau, I. 289. ^5 Correspondance Generale, V. 489. The marquis to the bailli, Fleury, Oct. 18, 1768. * Ibid., V. 467. The marquis to the bailli, Bignon, August 24, 1768. The Youth of Mirabemi 673 Reasoning from the fact that the Icttre de cachet transferring Mirabeau to the ile de Re was issued by the minister of war, M. de Choiseul, and not by M. de Saint-Florentin, the minister who issued letters for matters of family discipline, M. de Lomenie infers that his imprisonment was a military punishment for his desertion.' It is possible, but it should be noticed that Choiseul would naturally deal with the matter because Mirabeau was an officer of the army, and also that the Marquis de Mirabeau evidently conducted the negotiations with the minister. " I assume that he is caged now," wrote the marquis to his brother, September 21, 176S, " in the chateau of the lie de Re and well recommended to the Bailli d'AuIan. This determination was necessary, the Marquis de Lambert not being able to keep him." - The colonel was eager to be rid of the troublesome lieutenant. " I have been occupied, " wrote the marquis, " in appeasing the im- patience of M. de Lambert, who, without taking distance into con- sideration, had hardly written to me before he was seriously dis- turbed at not seeing all that he asked of me arrive, nor any plan of agreement. As I had asked of M. de Choiseul that there should be as little scandal as possible, he proposed to me to send an order to M. de Pierre-Buffiere to carry a letter to the Marechal de Sen- neterre at Rochelle, who at once would have him arrested and con- ducted to the lie de Re." ^ It was in this way, probably, that the first lettre de cachet was executed against Mirabeau, and he found himself a military prisoner in the citadel at St. Martin on the lie de Re. The lie de Re, the scene of Mirabeau's first imprisonment, is a picturesque island off the harbor of Rochelle, some three miles from the mainland. Its length is some eighteen miles and its breadth three. The population to-day is nearly fifteen thousand, distributed among several towns. The largest is Saint-Martin de Re with two thousand inhabitants. At the entrance to the harbor of Saint-Martin rise the outworks of the fortress to which Mirabeau was consigned. Although now used as a depot from which con- victs are shipped to New Caledonia, the citadel has changed but little since the days when it was occcupied by its most distinguished prisoner. The diminutive harbor with its fishing craft ; the town with its quaint, antique streets shut in by stone houses whose white 1 Lomenie, III. 33. ^ Correspondance Generale, V. 476. The marquis to the bailh, Fleury, September 21, 1768. ^ Memoires de Mirabeau, I. 294. The marquis to the bailli, September 16, 1768. No letter of this date appears in the Correspondance Generale. There is a letter of the date of September 21, but it does not contain the quotations given by Montigny. 674 F- M. Fling walls reflect the dazzling rays of the summer sun ; the attractive old town square with its ancient trees ; and, close by, the house formerly the home of the governor of the island, now occupied by the village school ; beyond the town, the vine-covered fields ; toward France, the waters of the Atlantic — these things to-day form a not unpleasant picture. It certainly was not a disagreeable place of exile, and in the mind of Mirabeau few unpleasant recollections were to be connected with it. The governor of the island, the Bailli d'Aulan, was not a harsh jailer, although the marquis had instructed him that the young man " was fiery, wrongheaded, and a liar by instinct." ^ The Comte de Broglie has called D'Aulan " the happy king of the lie de Re, the happiest region of France." He was z grand- croix, commander of the temple of Agen, marechal de camp of the armies of the king, and "the delight of the island." With his six feet of stature and his distinguished face, the Bailli d'Aulan was a worthy representative of the king.^ It is not probable that Mirabeau was closely confined in the cit- adel. Local tradition points to a room in the vicinity of the chapel as the one that he occupied,'' but he soon won the favor of the gov- ernor, and went and came much as he pleased. Although Gervin remained with him, the surveillance did not prevent Mirabeau from contracting debts nor even from corresponding with his mother, from whom he received financial aid.'* All this was a violation of the marquis's orders, but the son, as the father expressed it, "had bewitched the Bailli d'Aulan — who contrary to my orders allows him > Lom(Snie, III. 35. 2 The local histories of the island contain notes upon D'Aulan. It is from one of these by M. Thedore Phelippot that I gathered the data upon D'Aulan found in the text. The hospital of Saint-Honor6 at Saint-Martin possesses a rather striking portrait of the bailli, which the sisters were kind enough to show to me. It is the face of a man of abundant good-nature and one not likely to prove a harsh jailer. The marquis wrote of him : " La reputation du Bailli d'Aulan est excellent ; c'est encore un nouveau temoin que je me procure et un nouveau appui de decision dans tous les cas." Correspondance Generale, V. 476. The marquis to the bailli, Fleury, September 21, 1768. 'The search for material both at Saintes and at Saint-Martin was disappointing. The local archives in both of these places had been destroyed by fire a short time before my visit. From Dr. Kemmerer, a resident of Saint-Martin and one of the historians of the island, I learned that Mirabeau, according to tradition, occupied a room in the cita- del next to the chapel, but as there were three equally near the chapel the information was not very definite. The only change in the citadel, I was told, had been the construction of an inner wall between the main entrance and the chapel. The building that Mirabeau is supposed to have occupied is of stone, one story in height, with rooms not at all unat- tractive. It was from the lips of an American that the commandant of the place learned for the first time that Mirabeau had once been a prisoner in the citadel. I had a similar experience with the commandant of the Fort de Joux on the eastern frontier. ^Manuscript of M. Mouttet, Mirabeau en Provence y 24-26 : " Je compte, ma chere Maman, sur le petit secours pecuniaire que vous me promettez, le nouveau m'est necessaire pour des dettes urgentes et forc^es que j'ai faites dans ce pays-ci." Tlie Youth of Mirabeau 675 to promenade in the citadel — , my friends, and everybody." ' He was not only permitted to promenade in the citadel, but even " to go to the city (Saint-Martin or Rochelle) to dine in style."" The bailli was not the only one that Mirabeau bewitched. A certain Cheva- lier Brechant received the letters from his mother, and Mademoiselle de Malmont, the sister of the lieutenant of the citadel, performed a like service for him.'^ Mirabeau remained seven months on the lie de Re. At the end of six months the marquis realized that it would be difficult to pro- long the imprisonment. " The fact is," he wrote to the bailli on the fifteenth of February, 1769, "that it is necessary to end this affair; that I do not know how to keep his eldest brother in cage later than the spring ; that he asks to go to Corsica and interests the Bailli d'Aulan and my friends and Grevin in this request. I know well that, once free, he will end in having himself locked up for good before three months have passed ; but the theater of his follies is his passage through Provence." * On the twenty-seventh of the same month the marquis had decided to grant his son's request and to allow him to join the expedition against Corsica. " What you tell me, however," ran the letter, "causes me to decide upon my course. I cannot keep M. de Pierre-Buffiere any longer in cage and I cannot miss the occasion offered by Corsica ; so be assured that next month he will pass through Provence, but so carefully guarded and so rapidly that you will not even hear of it."" A few days later the news of the decision had reached Mirabeau. On the fifth of March, 1 769, he wrote to his mother : " My affairs have taken a more favorable turn ; the Bailli d'Aulan, governor of the He de Re, is soliciting the revocation of my lettre de cachet and it appears to be decided that I shall go to Corsica in a short time." ^ The Bailli d'Aulan interested himself in securing the release of his prisoner, but the important party in the transaction was the father. This is demonstrated by an official document bearing the date of March 13, 1769. "The twentieth of April, 1768," states the rec- ord, " the son of M. le Marquis de Mirabeau obtained the rank of 1 Memoires de Mirabeau, I. 300. The marquis to the bailli. M. de Montigny refers to a letter of February 15, 1769, for this quotation ; but this letter, found in the collection that I have used, contains no such matter. The manner in which M. de Montigny manipulates his quotations and confuses dates in his foot-notes is inconceivable by any one that has not attempted to control his work by a comparison with the material that he used. 2 Lomenie, III. 35, quoted from a letter of the marquis of January i, 1769. 3 Mouttet, Mirabeau e7i Provence, 24-26. * Correspondance Generale, VI. 65, 66. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, Feb- ruary 15, 1769. ^ Ibid., VI. 72. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, February 27, 1769. ' Mouttet, Mirabeau en Prm.'e7ice, 24—26. 676 F. M. Fling second lieutenant in the cavalry regiment of Berri. He had served in this regiment a year as a volunteer. He has been detained since the past year in the citadel of Re for misconduct. M. le Marquis de Mirabeau observes that his son has urgently requested permis- sion to take part in the campaign against Corsica, and that M. de Viomenil is willing to take charge of him and send him under fire. He requests that he be attached as second lieutenant of infantry to the legion of Lorraine. He desired that Monseigneur would kindly grant to him some appointments ; he leaves that matter to his sense of justice; he observes that his son has served for three years without having any.' In order that his son may join the legion of Lorraine, he asks that the revocation of the Icttre de cachet that detains him in the citadel of Re be sent to M. le Chevalier d'Aulan." It follows from this document that Mirabeau was imprisoned for misconduct, and was released at the request of his father. On the very day when this record was made the marquis announced that " the orders for his liberation have been sent," ^ indicating that he was in close touch with all that was taking place. Hoping little good from this latest experiment, the marquis, as usual, endeavored through repression to diminish the evil consequences of it. On the thirteenth of March the orders for Mirabeau's release had been given and his route across France had been decided upon. On the fourth of April, at the latest, he was to join the legion of Lorraine at the Pont St. Esprit. He was to serve in the infantry. "The Baron de Viomenil, colonel of this legion," wrote the mar- quis, "has been represented to me as just the man that he needs, and that service also for his fiery spirit, which imagines that it will devour everything, but which will devour nothing but a plentiful supply of saber strokes, if he has the nerve to face them. He has been recommended to everybody, and I had an opportunity to dis- cover how people like to compliment those who are in trouble. M. de Vaux himself said to me that they would hang him at public cost if he proved unworthy of his father, but that otherwise he •would be favored by everybody. He is going then with Grevin. He has orders to remain incognito until he has embarked ; I assure you that that is very important, for he could not exist twenty-four hours without getting into some kind of a scrape and replying to an act of politeness with an insult." ^ The bailli replied that if M. de Pierre-Buffiere passed that way and called upon him, he would re- 1 La Revolution Frangaise, XXIX. 259. 2 Correspondance Genirale, VI. 80, Si. The marquis to the bailH, Paris, March 13, 1769. ^ Ibid. ... The Youth of Mirabeau 677 ceive him/ but the marquis assured his brother that he had given orders to the best of his abihty that his son should pass incognito, "and surely," he added, " he will not go to see you at Mirabeau." ^ Events seem to have justified the preventive measures taken by the marquis. Drawing his information from Grevin, wno accom- panied his son, he described the passage of the young man from Rochelle to Toulon in most vigorous language : " This miserable Pierre-Buffiere left the lie de Re a hundred times worse than he entered it, not on account of his comrades, but because of the lapse of his own folly. He fought at Rochelle, where he remained only two hours. I have had news from poor Grevin from Saint-Jean- d'Angely and from Puy. He says that he goes cursing, striking, wounding, and vomiting a rascality that has no equal." ^ M. de Montigny, citing a letter of Mirabeau to his brother-in-law, M. du Saillant, asserts that in the duel fought at Rochelle Mirabeau was not the aggressor. An officer, dismissed in disgrace from his regi- ment, with whom Mirabeau refused to associate, was the real cause of the trouble.^ The soul of the marquis was disturbed more, perhaps, by the debts that his son contracted than by his escapades. " Without paying for his pranks and a multitude of notes," he wrote, " he has devoured more than ten thousand livres in the last eight months, and the most of that time he has been in prison. . . . The villain- ous notes of that man terribly wound my soul, although well pre- pared and accustomed to vomit him up. . . . He has, in addition to his other good qualities, that of borrowing from all hands : ser- geants, soldiers, all are the same to him." ^ " After a painful journey, and even a perilous one in the moun- tains of Auvergne and Vivarais, which he was obliged to cross in snow twelve feet deep," Mirabeau finally reached Toulon and em- barked on the eighteenth of April for Corsica.*^ To be rid, for some time at least, " of an odious generation that keeps me without ceas- ing with a sword above my head and coals under my feet," ' was a '^ Ibid., VI. 83. The bailli to the marquis, Mirabeau, March 7, 1769. '^ Ibid., VI. 83. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, March 20, 1769. ^ /bid., VI. 100. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, April 10, 1769. *Memoires de Mirabemi, \. 2,02. M. de Pierre-Buffi^re to the Comte du Saillant, March 20, 1769. ^ Correspondance Gen^rale, VI. 100. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, April 10, 1769. ^ Ibid. For the passage through the mountains see Montigny, Memoires de Mirabeau, I. 303, who cites a letter of the marquis to the bailli of April 22, 1769. No letter of that date is to be found in the collected correspondence. ' Correspondance Generale, VI. 100. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, April lo, 1769. AM. HIST. REV., VOL. VIII. — 44. 678 F. M. Fling great relief to the marquis. Grevin returned to Paris by way of Mirabeau and remained for some time with the bailli, who thus had an opportunity to study the man that had acted as a mentor to his nephew. He "does not appear to me to be very admirable," was the opinion that he expressed to his brother.' The marquis himself referred to him as "jealous by nature,"^ and on another occasion he criticized him for not maintaining a stricter surveillance over his son at Saintes and on the lie de Re.* The Corsican campaign was not of long duration. Mirabeau landed the last of April, 1769, and the fighting was over in June. Although he saw Httle active service, he proved that he had a real genius for war and was a worthy descendant of Jean-Antoine. He won the good opinion of his superior officers and the affection of his associates. The major of the legion, the Chevalier de Villerau, declared some years later that " he had never known a man with greater talents than the Comte de Mirabeau for the profession of arms, if time had rendered him discreet." * Mirabeau wrote in later years that this man "loved me much and declared that I was a great officer in embryo." ^ Here for the first time he displayed the talent for hard work and the determination to master the thing in hand that were so characteristic of the man. " What I am most of all," he once wrote to his sister, " or I am much deceived, is a man of war, because there alone I am cool, calm, gay without impetuosity, and I feel myself grow in stature."'' He has himself described his enthusiasm for his profession and his efforts to master its minute details : " Reared in the prejudice of the service, fired with ambi- tion, and avaricious for glory, robust, audacious, ardent, and yet very phlegmatic,'' as I proved myself in all the dangers that I en- countered, having received from nature an excellent and rapid coup d'ceil, I had reason to believe myself born for the service. All my '^ Ibid., VI. 209. The bailli to ttie marqui.s, Mirabeau, September 23, 1769: ** IMais rhomine ^ qui tu I'avais confie et qui a passe ici quelque temps ne m'a pas paru bien admirable." ''■Ibid., VI. 139. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, May 30, 1769. 3 " Grevin et puis tous les superieurs de ce miserable ont laisse aller beau par le plus bas de maniere." Ibid., VI. 146. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, June 14, 1769. * Lom^nie, III. 38. The remark was made in 1787 and quoted in a letter of the marquis. ^ Lettres Originates de Mirabeau, I. 162. ^ Mhnoires de Mirabeau, I. 329. Mirabeau to Madame du Saillant, September 11, 17S0. ' Lettres Originates de Mirabeau, II. 258 : "Si moi, qui te parle, me sens bien la force d'en renverserquelques bataillons en sifflant dessus, c'est que la vie dure que j'ai menee, et les exercises violens que j'ai aimes (nager, chasser, escrimer, jouer a lapaume, courir k cheval) ont repare les innombrables sottises de mon education." The YoutJi of Mirabeau 679 views had, then, been turned in this direction, and although my mind, famished for every kind of knowledge, was interested in all sorts of things,' five years of my life were devoted almost exclu- sively to military studies ; there is not a book on war in any lan- guage living or dead that I have not read ; I can show extracts from three hundred military writers, extracts studied, compared, and annotated, and memoirs that I wrote upon all parts of the profes- sion from the greatest objects of war to the details of engineering, of artillery, and even of the commissariat." ^ In the period between the close of the campaign and his return to France Mirabeau was engaged in making a study of the island, its inhabitants, manners and customs, and history. "He perceived everywhere the traces of the devastations of the Genoese, the ves- tiges of their crimes ; and by this mark of despotism he recognized his enemy. His heart, palpitating with indignation, could not con- tain itself; his imagination, filled with ideas, flowed over. He wrote ; he traced a rapid sketch of the Corsicans and of the crimes of the Genoese. This work was taken from him by his father ; it was very incorrect, without doubt, but full of animation, of truth, of ideas, and of facts carefully observed in a country of which no correct notion had been given, because mercenary writers or fanatic enthu- siasts had alone undertaken to speak of it." ^ The history dealt chiefly with the forty years previous to the French occupation of the island. He had also prepared a description of the island, which he had studied "foot by foot," "with all possible political, economic, and historical details." ^ The history, he claimed, was prepared at the instigation of Buttafuoco.' "He took possession of the Cor- sicans, he had all their papers." '' Mirabeau declared while at Vin- cennes that the "deputies of the three estates of Corsica" besought his father to allow the work to be printed, but the marquis refused.' This statement should be confronted by the charge made by the marquis that his son " seduced a man in order to get possession of ^ Mirabeau had been an omnivorous reader from his childhood up. He was, accord- ing to M. de Montigny, " diis I'age de quatre ans . . . avide de lectures. II s'emparait de tous les papiers qui lui tombaient sous la main." Mhnoires de Mirabeau^ 1. 243. Mirabeau himself refers to his fondness for books while at school in Paris : "II empruntait toutes sortes de livres, les lisait sans methode et sans autre objet que celui d'assouvir son insatiable soif de savoir." Essai siir le Despotisme, xix. ^ Lettres Originates de Mirabeau, III. 21. ^ Essai stir le Despotisme, Ti-id.^ Lettres Originates de Mirabeau, I. 190. * Mhnoires de Mirabeau, I. 317. ^ Correspondance Generale, VI. 330. The bailli to the marquis, Aix, May 21, 1770 ; Ibid., VI. 375-3S0. The bailli to the marquis, Aix, August 23, 1770. ^ Memoires de Mirabeau, I. 316. The marquis to the Comte du Saillant, May 14, 1770. ''Lettres Originates de Mirabeau, III. 173. 68o F. M. Fling memoirs that a priest of the country had made ; he promised this man to pay him well and to return the memoirs. This man wrote a complaint to the late M. Gerardi, officer in the regiment Royal- Italian, who informed the Due de Nivernois." ^ From evidence such as this it is impossible to get at the truth of the affair. Mirabeau undoubtedly made a study of the island and its people, even if the motives for doing so were not those given by him in later years. It is not inherently impossible that he pro- cured material in the way indicated by his father, for it is in keeping with methods employed by him throughout his later life, but it would be unscientific to state as a fact a thing that rested on a scrap of third-hand evidence. The matter of first importance is, how- ever, the early development of the inquisitive spirit that never allowed him to rest ; that made a great questioner of him, a laborious stu- dent, and an untiring investigator. It was no accident that made Mirabeau a leader in the National Assembly ; he had prepared him- self for leadership by twenty-five years of severe mental effort such as few men are capable of To make the Corsican episode typical, not even a love-affair was lacking. From Vincennes he wrote of this early love to a woman whose name has become inseparably associated with his. " Yes, madame, yes," he wrote to Sophie de Monnier, "Maria Angela is a very pretty name ; and when I was jealous of some one (a thing that did not often happen, for I was very lukewarm) she addressed injurious remarks to him, or struck him, or as an honest Italian she gravely proposed to me to poniard him." We might have known more of this affair but for the well-meaning censorship of M. de Montigny. He declined to dwell upon Mirabeau's gallantries in the island, " of which, happily, he has made public only a brief and suc- cinct mention. Not that we have not had in our possession long details, written by himself, of a very spirituelle originality ; but we at first put them aside and afterward destroyed them, because, as we were determined to keep within the bounds of the respect which is due to our subject and our age, to the public, and to history, we would add nothing to the facts, and above all to the suppositions of this kind, which are already to too great an extent attached to the name of Mirabeau." ^ M. de Montigny undoubtedly had a right to destroy his property if he wished to ; moreover, the attitude of the historian toward his subject will always differ from that of a son toward his adopted father. The dictates of science are not always to be reconciled with the dictates of affection. 1 Lomenie, III. 38, note 2. ^ Menioires de Mirabeau, I. 312. The Youth of Mirabeau 68 1 Mirabeau was absent from France a little more than a year. During this time he is seldom mentioned in the correspondence be- tween the brothers. The marquis was arranging a marriage for his daughter Louise at the time of Mirabeau's departure, and hoped to carry the thing to a successful conclusion, "provided," he wrote to the bailli, " this unhappy fool in Corsica, who devours me, will let me get my breath." ' He sometimes regretted the loss of his first-born son, " If providence," he exclaimed, "had intended to grant me a period of repose at a reasonable age, it would have left me the son that it gave me twenty-five years ago. The one (Boni- face) who is now our only hope, is only fourteen and more of a child than one is at three." ^ The bailli had held numerous conversations with Grevin about his nephew and had reached conclusions that were not so pessimistic as those of his brother. " From what Grevin has said to me in several conversations about M. de Pierre-Buffiere," he wrote to the marquis, " I do not see that there is anything desperate yet about his case. Perhaps age and reason will straighten it all out. I do not hope that he will ever be a man worthy of you on the side of the heart, but an ordinary man. It is bad enough to place at that notch our denomination that has never been there, but what is to be done about it ? " ^ The marquis replied by criticizing " Grevin and all the superiors of this miserable fellow " for letting him have his own way.* He never doubted that the failure of his training was due to the inborn badness of his son or the incapacity of his teachers and superiors. As hopeless as the task seemed to be, he must do his duty that he might be without reproach. " As long as I shall live," he wrote in June, 1769, "it will be my duty to follow and to assure the lot of my children and of our house. If I can save this un- happy eldest, I have told you that I would part with the one who is after my own heart and I would give him to you. At fifty, you will have begun the profession of father of a family. . . But, finally, you will see Boniface ^ this autumn ; everything is as yet in the shell, he is nothing. It is necessary to finish his education. We must wait for the other, who would get away from the devil and who has a dozen of them in his body, must keep an eye on him and restrain ' Correspondance GSnerale, VI. 115. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, April 28, 1769. ''■Ibid., VI. 130. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, May 18, 1769. ^ Ibid., VI. The bailli to the marquis, Mirabeau, June 2, 1769. * Ibid., VI. 148. The marquis to the bailli, Paris, June 14, 1769. 5 Almost without exception he refers to the younger son as Boniface ; the older boy is never called by his name, but is always referred to as " the eldest," " that miserable being," " that unhappy fool," etc. 682 F. M. Fling him, and be sure that the people of this age have only cold praise for honesty in retirement. / zvas very much devoted to your father. I have received so much of that. A well-born child can get on without control, but a slippery subject is not held in check at a distance, when he fears only letters and disapprobation, and he cer- tainly has more people Hke himself in places of power and credit than his father has." ' The marquis had evidently found the youth that " could get away from the devil and had a dozen of them in his body " an ex- traordinary child, even if extraordinarily bad and exceedingly diffi- cult to control. The term " honesty in retirement" refers to the marquis, whose talents were not sufficiently appreciated by the government. The closing expressions of the letter would seem to indicate that the marquis already foresaw the part that public officials might take in the troubles between himself and his son. At Paris, at Saintes, and on the lie de Re, Mirabeau had given proof of a re- markable power of winning those with whom he came in contact. The fear that the marquis here expressed casts a curious light upon his attitude toward his son. The attitude is certainly not a fair one. The assumption always was that the boy never could amount to anything. In August of this year, while Mirabeau was in Corsica, the marquis represented that his son-in-law, Du Saillant, was plead- ing in behalf of the absent son. " He does not cease to beg of me," wrote the marquis, "that in case he [Mirabeau] is finally condemned where he is, I should leave him to him [Du Saillant] for a year before shutting him up for good." ^ At this time nothing had been heard from Corsica. In September the marquis had heard nothing later than the news that Viomenil had embarked, and as no news is good news, he was happy. " 1 never wake up a sleeping cat," ^ was his concluding observation.* Fred Morrow Fling. ' Ibid., VI. 155, 157. The marquis to the bailli, Fleury, June 19, 1769. 2 Ibid., VI. 178. The marquis to the bailli, Fleury, August 15, 1769. " Ibid., VI. 191. The marquis to the bailli, Fleury, September 5, 1769. ' The most complete accounts of this period of Mirabeau's life that have hitherto ap- peared are by Montigny, Menioires de Mirabeau (8 vols., Paris, 1834, 1835), I. 274- 317; Lomenie, Les Mirabeau (5 vols., Paris, 1879-1891), III. 20-38; and Guibal, Mirabeau et la Provence (2 vols., Paris, 1887-1901), I. (edition of 1901), 72-81. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 019 624 023 8