He doubted the

to purge the contumacy, and renew the cause. event; and before he went into court, asked Sophie for a ringlet of her hair, shared with her a rapid poison, and fastened both one and the other in a little bag upon his heart. He defended himself with such unexpected energy, and with such seductive eloquence, that he intimidated his antagonists, softened his audience, and interested his judges; and in the end compelled his enemies to enter into a humiliating compromise with him; the terms of which were, that the prosecution should be quashed, Mirabeau and Sophie be free and secure, and M. le Marquis de Monnier pay all the costs, charges, and expenses of lawyer's bills and lettres-de-cachet.

Success begets confidence; the triumphant lover of Sophie, from motives of pique and revenge rather than of conjugal affection, demanded the person and society of his wife, who resided with M. de Marignane, her father. Madame de Mirabeau refused to accede to any project of re-union, and not long afterwards instituted a suit before the sénéchaussée of Aix, for a final separation from her notorious husband. Mirabeau conducted the defence with such force of argument, such appearance of feeling, and such finished rhetoric, that the Court rejected the suit for separation; but upon an appeal to the parliament of the province, and proof that Mirabeau had publicly accused his wife of incontinence, it was ultimately decreed on the 3d of July, 1783.

There are three acts in the drama of Mirabeau's life: the first, which terminates here, presents nothing but crime, exile, and dungeons; in the second, he travelled, became conversant with foreign politics, studied the situation of Europe, exposed the secrets of cabinets, speculated on finance, attacked the system of his own country, denounced the iniquities of the executive government, and laid the foundations of a reputation which even then excited the jealousy of the Court; the third, and last, was one burst of unrivalled glory, power, and popularity, which surrounded his tomb, and will survive to his posterity. The Revolution was now advancing with the strides of a giant; the philosophy of Montesquieu, of Voltaire, of Mably, and of Rousseau, had for many years been silently insinuating itself into the houses of the affluent and educated classes; it had begun to penetrate the crevices, and to agitate the mass, of society; it became more and more simple as it descended lower; the principle arrived substantially entire at the end of its long journey from the summit of literary speculation to the plains of ignorance and credulity; but it generally contrived to lose the company of certain collateral restrictions and qualifications, which were found to impede its expedition. A public spirit arose, like an exhalation from the bosom of the earth, at the echo of the voices of deceased enVOL. III.-Part I.

F

chanters in Paris, and in the other great cities and towns of France, a mixed audience was insensibly created for the reception of the lectures of an excited press; the maxims inculcated were for the most part true, and the consequences deduced from them logi, cally correct. The application of these reasonings to the existing system of things was obvious; the abuses in the administration of the internal police of the country were so palpable and so grievous that they provoked attack, and the facilities were great, and the temptations irresistible, of marching on from the defeat of executive tyranny to the assault of the primitive principles which gave it birth. The practice of granting lettres-de-cachet had been carried to such an inconceivable excess, that there hardly existed a noble family in France which did not count among its members some victim to ministerial or paternal despotism; the mere ex-parte statement of the irregularities of a young man's conduct were ground enough for the police to bury him in a prison, and leave him there to waste away sine die, or to supplicate the tender mercies of a guardian or a father, who, by having the disposition of the prisoner's property in the interval, had a direct interest in prolonging the period of his detention. Origi nally the lettre-de-câchet was manuscript, and signed by the king; it contained the name, the title, the crime, the destined prison of the object of it; it was confined to persons guilty, or suspected of being guilty, of offences against the state, or at least implicated in some high misdemeanors; but under the ministries of Lavrillière, of Sartine, of Vergennes, and Lenoir, they became so numerous, that writing them was considered too troublesome; they were actually printed and distributed by hundreds to the commanders of forts, governors of castles, intendants of provinces, satellites of the Court and their prostitute mistresses; blanks were left for the name and the offence of the miserable victims of personal malignity, and the sign manual of the king was forged with impunity. But if the members of the noblesse were the principal sufferers under this engine of tyranny, the middle and the lower classes of the nation had as good, if not a better right to complain of the legal despotism of the noblesse itself. It is true, their conduct differed very much in different parts of the kingdom; the heroic fidelity of the Vendeans sufficiently proves it; but it is equally certain, that the old age of the feudal system, if it had mitigated any thing of the ferocity, had not resigned one of the pretensions of its barbarous youth; there was ample room left for possible oppression; and if a tribunal for redress had existed, the least difficulty would have lain in the selection of instances of its atrocious infliction. But the nobility were not only authorized by the laws to dispose, almost at their pleasure, of their vassals and tenants; they were also exempted by

privilege from contributing towards the common and indispensable revenue of their country. More than 50,000 persons, possessing at least three-fifths of the land of the kingdom, paid no taxes; the commercial classes were ground to pieces by imposts and excise; and the nation was burdened with a heavy debt, which, under such a system of imperfect taxation, must increase with portentous rapidity, and the interest of which, the annual revenue paid into the treasury, after answering the necessary expenses of the state, was barely sufficient to satisfy. This was no new situation of things. The triumphs of Louis XIV. had exhausted, as much as his misfortunes had depressed and agitated, France; the absolute sceptre, which he had bequeathed, was too heavy for the feeble and unskilful hands of his successor; the administration was violent without vigour; the ancient institutions were undermined and falling to pieces, whilst every propo sition of reform was obstinately rejected; the disorder was such, the corruption so dreadful, the remedies so uncertain, that Louis XV. himself was struck with terror at the sight, and is said to have cried, with a melancholy voice," that in the state in which he beheld France, he would not guarantee the crown upou the head of his grandson." If Louis XV. was a bad king, he proved himself at least no indifferent prophet.

At the accession of Louis XVI. in 1774, the revolution was virtually effected; an impression had been given to the public mind of the nation which nothing could efface. An edict against speculations was brutum fulmen. But, though the sources of thought were opened, and it was impossible to stop the stream from flowing, yet it was still within the power of human wisdom to direct its course and to oberce its fury. There was a glorious theatre prepared, and a glorious part to play; the executive government might have initiated a salutary reform; it might have given to the people as the sacrifices of royal patriotism what in a few years the same people would infallibly seize as the appurtenances of national property; it might have led the march in triumph instead of waiting to be dragged along the road in chains; it might have preserved the monarchy by a timely regeneration, instead of proceeding to enlarge the measure of its iniquities, and to accelerate the advent of that fearful day in which the sceptre and the throne, the good and the bad, should be swept away in one undistinguishing torrent of destruction. It is but justice to say, that Louis XVI. did to a certain extent perceive the signs of the times, and was willing to do that which became him; he called Turgot and Malesherbes to the helm of affairs; they addressed themselves to the privileged classes, and demanded the concession of their monstrous prerogatives; in vain-the privileged classes, as unwise as unpatriotic, combined together upon the principles of pride and

interest, and crushed their virtuous antagonists; and the nation learnt with sorrow that Louis, however generous his motives, however pure his intentions, was utterly destitute of that depth of prudence, of that manly firmness of character, without which it was obviously idle to expect to produce any beneficial result.

The American war broke out, and France assisted the insurgents with men and money. Necker entertained the same opinions as his predecessors, but did not possess their disinterestedness; he maintained the war by loans without increasing the taxes, and purchased an undue popularity at the price of trebling the debt of an already exhausted country. But this was not all; for some years the cause of the English colonies had excited a deep interest in France; the public policy was associated with their struggle; resistance to government was justified even by the measures of the Court; and many of the most ardent spirits of all classes had personally mixed in the contest itself, shared in its dangers, contributed to its success, and exulted in its triumphs. The peace in 1782 sent these men back to their own country; they imported with them ideas of liberty and republican equality, which they seemed to have appropriated to themselves, and almost claimed an exclusive right to promulgate. They were listened to with enthusiasm and delight, and what was at first history to some, and adventure to others, became ultimately advice and exhortation to all.

Calonne succeeded; ingenious, bold, unscrupulous, he relied on the powerful patronage of the Comte d'Artois for overcoming all difficulties. He commenced with a loan, which the parliament, his bitter enemy, refused to register. Calonne was imperious, and long accustomed to cut the gordian knots of politics, by what the French call coups d'etat. The King commanded the registration, and was obeyed; but the minister, irritated by the opposition with which he had met, was determined to crush it. He cast his eyes on the privileged classes, revived the plans of Turgot, proposed them to the King, over whose mind he had acquired an absolute sway through the medium of his colleague Vergennes, and insisted on the necessity of taking from the parliament the right of controlling or suspending the operations of finance. In order to invest with an air of legality that which he intended should be in substance an act of despotic power, Calonne convoked an assembly of the Notables at Versailles in 1787. He announced his plans to them, which contained the abolition of privileges, the establishment of a general land-tax, the relief of commerce, the introduction of a stamp duty, and the creation of provincial assemblies throughout the kingdom. The most furious opposition arose; the clergy and the noblesse defended their privileges with pertinacity, and the nation itself had so ill an opinion of the principles and integrity of the minister, that it looked on almost with indifference

as to the fate of a measure which so nearly concerned the common welfare. In vain did Calonne oppose the name and the influence of the Comte d'Artois as a shield between him and his enemies ; Monsieur, himself the partisan of reform, ranged himself in the opposition, and the Duke of Orleans stood aloof in an affected neutrality, and waited quietly for the result of the inextricable embarrassments, in which the King was engaged. Louis XVI. had not firmness to maintain his resolution by an act of authority. Once more and for the last time the privileged classes triumphed, and Calonne, like Turgot, was sacrificed to their implacable hatred.

The death struggles of the ancien regime had commenced; the measures of the Court were violent, intermittent, convulsive. Brienne, Lamoignon, and Fourqueux had succeeded to Calonne. They determined to revert to the old sheer despotism; and in this spirit two edicts for creating a land-tax and a stamp duty were presented to the parliament. The most passionate opposition was excited, and the fact of the American resistance to the introduction of the English stamp duty was seized and dwelt upon with fury. It is said that the idea of convoking the States-General arose from a pun in one of those debates in the parliament; some one moved that the ministers should produce divers états de finance; "vous demander des états de finance,” replied one of the council, 66 comme pour faire partie de l' opposition; ce sont des états-generaux qu'il faut demander." The ministers indignant at an opposition which, since the time of Richelieu, was looked upon as a kind of petty treason, summoned the parliament to Versailles, and determined to enforce the registration of the two edicts in a lit de justice. The pomp of despotism was displayed; the King expressed his discontent with the parliament, and did not spare his reproaches: the minister reminded the assembly of all the gracious communications which the monarch had made to the nation through the medium of the Notables; new demands and new discussions upon the same subject were useless to the public; they only tended to impede the motions of the government, and to circumscribe the power of the King; that power was unlimited; it recognised no rights which were opposed to its own; the King was the sole administrator of his kingdom, and it was his first duty to transmit unimpaired to his descendants that authority which he had received from his ancestors; the urgent necessities of the state would not endure the pernicious delays which were sought to be introduced in the verification of the royal edicts; and the King, who in his extreme kindness had condescended to draw back for a season the veil which covered the administration of the kingdom, was not justified in departing any farther from the ordinary rules of his royal wisdom; above all, he would not permit the unusual and spontaneous marks of his goodness in conferring with the Notables to be made an ar