colonel, who had also been paying his addresses to the young lady in question, but with less success, became his most deadly foe; he persecuted him in every possible way; made him the butt of his ridicule; caricatured him through all the army, so that his brother officers took the opportunity to treat him with insult. Mirabeau fled to Paris. By the kindness of his brotherin-law, he was conveyed back to the army, and was sentenced to a short imprisonment. Worked upon by his enemies, and by the woman with whom he was living, and further urged on by his own stern and unrelenting spirit, the Marquis caused him to be imprisoned in the isle of Rhe. To destroy him by confiuement, by ill-usage of every kind, was evidently the intention of his father, for we find the bailli, his uncle, whom he had never seen, urging these, and, if necessary, still more severe measures, in order that we may never behold him again on the horizon.' That Mirabeau deserved some punishment for the faults he had committed, we cannot but allow; but no one gifted with human passions will fail to confess, that the cruelty of the Marquis towards his son was unpardonable. The effect of such conduct was calculated to harden the determined spirit, already roused to a pitch of indomitable pride.

Friends, however, flocked round Mirabeau in his solitude. All interceded with his father, and at length it was decreed that he should be enrolled in some regiment destined for active service. No sooner is he free, than he embroils himself in a duel; goes to war against the Corsicans, assists in their subjugation, a step which he afterwards regrets; and then returns to Toulon, where he is strictly charged not to allow himself to be recognized by his comrades. He obtains, however, permission to have an interview with his uncle, the bailli, who thus writes of him :

:

I found him ugly but he has not a bad physiognomy; and he has, behind the ravages of the small pox, and features which are much changed, something graceful, intellectual, and noble. He appears to me to have a sensitive heart. As for wit, the devil has not so much. I repeat to you, either he is the most adroit and consummate humbug in the universe, or else he will be the best subject in Europe for a naval or military commander, for a minister, a chancellor, a pope; in short, any thing he will. You were something (to the marquis) at twenty-one, but not half what he is. I can swear to you that we have found in him a little vivacity and fire, but not one word which did not denote uprightness of heart, elevation of soul, power of genius,-all, perhaps, a little exuberant.'

After great solicitation and prayers, the bailli obtained him an interview with his father. In his journey he met with an

accident, which caused him to arrive ill and faint at Bignon, where he was received kindly and even tenderly.

For a short time, Mirabeau continued in high favour with his father, who experienced new sentiments of pride, when he beheld the successive triumphs of his son at the court of Versailles, whither he had gone to pass some time with the Marquis, in order to be initiated into the mysteries of fashion. But sunshine like this was soon obscured. The Marquis, instigated by Dame Pailly, suffered his stern feelings to overpower his better nature. Mirabeau was again dismissed the parental presence, and, almost immediately after, a marriage was determined upon for him with Marie Emile de Covet, daughter of the Marquis of Marignane, the richest of all the Provençal noblemen. 'She was eighteen years of age, diminutive in stature, of a brown complexion, and was, says Madame Montigny, vulgar-looking at first.'

To win a wife already sought by another suitor was now Mirabeau's task, a task most unwelcome to his spirit, since he foresaw in the impending union little congeniality of taste, thought, or feeling. A rejection of his suit was the consequence of his soulless endeavours to bring her to a favourable hearing; but the bitter sarcasm and reproach with which his father received the intelligence, sent him back, and, with the steady resolution of a mind roused to all its capabilities of exertion, he resolutely pursued the object, not of his affection, but of his father's wishes. The young couple were married amid profusion and luxury, which plunged Mirabeau into debts he was unable to liquidate, and in settling which his father refused to assist him, though he insisted that the lustre of the house of Mirabeau should not be lost sight of. With a small income, his expenditure was still profuse in the extreme. He repaired and drained his estate, while duns and creditors were clamouring at his door; and at length, these rumours reaching the Marquis at Bignon, another lettre de cachet was procured, and Mirabeau retired in poverty and ill health to an obscure town, in the vicinity of the castle where he now resided.

In the solitude of Manosque, Mirabeau had leisure to compose his second work, the Essay on Despotism,' and here a son was born to him. For two years, diversified with litigation against his father, and a little affaire de cœur of his wife, he seems to have resided in comparative quiet. His own impetuous temper, however, disturbed all. After having received an apology from the lover of his wife, who had only kept up a verbal correspondence with her, he reconciles him to his own fiancée, and in returning descries a horseman nearing him.

As they drew nearer, his features became plainer, and Mirabeau discovered that it was the Baron of Villeneuve-Moans, a person with whom he had languished for an interview. This Villeneuve-Moans. having a quarrel with the Marquis of Cabris (who had married Mirabeau's younger sister), could not find a manlier revenge, than publicly insulting the marchioness before a whole fashionable promenading assemblage. But though Villeneuve-Moans might insult women, he should have been aware of exasperated brothers, with Mirabeau blood in their veins. With rage, fast mounting to overboiling passion, Mirabeau stopped this courageous baron, and demanded instantaneous satisfaction. The baron refused this demand, haughtily: with insolence, with insult; and so, there being nothing left but that, Mirabeau, with a face whitehot, and set teeth, clutched the bold baron' by the collar, and horsewhipped him, till he considered himself avenged.

As ill-luck would have it, this spectacle was not quite private : several peasants witnessed the castigation, and the affair was soon the talk of the province; suggesting many questions, foremost of which is this. How came the Count Mirabeau, who was confined within Manosque, to be flogging Villeneuve-Moans, some twenty miles away from there? The answer to which question is, that on the 26th of June, as Mirabeau sat in his house, a house of tears, alas! for his son was dying, as they thought-tending his sick child; behold! myrmidons of the law entered, who, deaf to even his eloquence, amid the sobs of the heartbroken countess, and sick moans of the afflicted boy, dragged Mirabeau away from it,-from Manosque afterwards, and so by slow removes, from place to place, until, in the end, on the 23rd of August, they finally deposited him in the safe keeping of the Castle of If: to muse upon his strange destiny, and reflect upon his future prospects, if he chose to do so.'-Ib. 73.

The confinement of Mirabeau in the Castle of If was professedly for having violated his exile, and his attack upon Villeneuve-Moans was represented under the blackest colours to the governor, M. Dallegre, who was instructed to treat his prisoner with all possible severity, and completely debar him from all communication from without. The Chateau of If occupies a remarkable position. On a barren rock, standing far out from shore, and bathed by the blue waters of the Mediterranean, the prison has been built. In the cells below, the captives hear, unceasingly, the deep voice of the waves, as in their heavy roll over the boundless expanse of ocean, they sullenly break upon the rock. Regularly as the hours of the day, the waters come and go, the sound of their rush backward, after their rage has been expended, forms a sweet music, in the silent, echoless prison. From the narrow windows, the town of Marseilles, with its tall houses, and massive buildings, rises to meet the captive's eye. To that busy moving world, he is linked only by the sunbeams which fall upon the stony walls, the iron bars of the

prison, run along the ripples of the waves, and gleam proudly upon the old town. Here in this extreme seclusion, Mirabeau longed to have, at least, the society of his wife, to cheer the solitude of his apartments. She, however, refused, and proved that though she might bask in the light of his prosperity, she was incapable of infusing sunshine into the darkness of his adversity. Few, perhaps, can tell how deeply this neglect may have influenced the after life of Mirabeau. To her conduct, then, at that trying moment, may be traced much of his future reckless career. Had she been a woman of any nobleness of soul, she might have won over the stubborn spirit, by kindness, or at least, have preserved its allegiance to herself. Her love for the world, its gaieties, and its frivolities, surpassed the affection she entertained for her husband, and she therefore sent him a refusal of his request, and hastened to join in the festivities and brilliant enjoyments of society at Aix. Mirabeau stifled his sorrow under a mask of sternness, flew to literature as a relief to his mind, and wrote a history of his grandfather, to pass away some of the tediousness of his hours. But If soon became too gentle a punishment for him, those who governed the prison became his friends, and he was removed to Joux, a castle situated far up the Jura mountains, upon a tall cliff, so overhanging the valley that few visitors dared to ascend to it. Surrounded by perpetual snows, the prisoner has nought to relieve the picture, while from below, the fortress is hidden from view by the clouds which hang around. The governor of this prison was harsh in the extreme, yet after awhile, even he so far allowed his good feelings to overcome his discretion, as to permit Mirabeau to join in the festivities at Pontordlie, on the occasion of the coronation of Louis XVI.

Here he formed an acquaintance with the woman, Sophie de Monnier, about whom our biographer makes so much unnecessary digression. There was nothing romantic in the connection -nothing excusable. Both were married, neither were young and thoughtless, and the plain fact of the matter is, that Mirabeau acted like a profligate, and she possessed, simply, no regard to virtue. Again Mirabeau writes to his wife, and beseeches her to join him; she replies with scorn, and because she acts thus, he forfeits his honour and Sophie her marriage-vows. All this did not pass without notice; her husband being an old man of seventy was, it seems, easily persuaded to believe any version of the story, but irritated by jealousy, the governor of the prison caused the Marquis to send him severer instructions than ever. Mirabeau refused compliance, and escaped from Pontordlie into Switzerland. But he could not consent to be long absent from Sophie; he returned incognito to the town. Sophie fled from

her husband, and sought shelter with her parents, who treated her with the rigour of a convent. M. de Monnier wrote to her, and promised to overlook her fault if she would return, which she agreed to do. Meanwhile, Mirabeau followed her to Dijon, and was immediately arrested and conveyed to prison. With the assistance of Malhertes, he contrived to escape to Vevières in Switzerland, and thence pursued and hunted down by the myrmidons of the law, on to Geneva and Lyons, where he concealed himself, with his sister, and the person with whom she had also taken flight, with her husband. From Lyons to Avignon, from Avignon to Nice, from thence to Turin, on he fled, corresponding daily with Sophie, who, tired of the life she was leading, begged him to come to Pontordlie, to meet her. He did so. They fled together to Rotterdam, and here, in some poverty they struggled on, as happy as their crime and imprudence would allow them to be. He studied by her side, and composed several works. But he was well known as the author of the Essay on Despotism,' and at such a time, a work like that could not be suffered to pass unheeded. M. de Monnier commenced proceedings against his wife, and, at length, the fugitives were taken, and Mirabeau lodged at Vincennes, and Sophie conveyed to a house of correction for ladies in Paris. The lovers parted, never to meet again under the same auspices. They corresponded, after, however, for some time. Mirabeau made many appeals to authority, and to his father, to procure his release. He wrote letter after letter, fiery and humble by turns, but all in vain. In a kind of despair, he then turned his attention to literary labours. In the midst of this improvement, a daughter was born to Sophie, and Mirabeau's son, the heir of the house, died. The Marquis imagined that he should assuredly crush the spirit of his son by this imprisonment, for he refused to listen to any appeals. He was not only cruel to Mirabeau, but to every one of his family, over whom he had any controul. He carried on a fifteen years' lawsuit with his wife, but as our limits will not permit us to dwell upon the affairs of the whole family, we must content ourselves with giving the following brief illustration of his conduct::

Writing to his brother, the bailli, he says:

Four days ago, I met Montpezat, whom I have not seen for twenty years, and who, like an ass, drew on himself a regular set down.

And where is she?' In a convent!'

And

Is your action with madame la marquise finished?' said he. 'I have gained it,' I replied. your son, where is he?' venge?' In a convent.'

In a convent.' And your daughter in Pro

·

Have you then contracted to people con

vents?' 'Yes, sir, and had you been my son, you should have been in one, long enough since.' '-Ib. p. 126.