Honoré-Gabriel Riquetti, Count of Mirabeau , is a writer and a political figure of the beginning of the French Revolution. After a tumultuous youth marked by amorous escapades, he was elected, although noble, as a deputy of the Third Estate in 1789. He radically imposed himself by his eloquence and will try to impose the principle of a constitutional monarchy on the English model , with a division of powers between the king and the Assembly. Arousing the mistrust of the deputies, he nevertheless became president of the Constituent Assembly, but was hardly listened to by King Louis XVI, who nevertheless paid handsomely for his advice.
The tumultuous youth of Mirabeau
Born in the Gâtinais at the Château de Bignon, the future Comte de Mirabeau was the fifth child and second son of Victor Riqueti, Marquis de Mirabeau, and Marie Geneviève de Vassan. Heir to the name by the death of his older brother, he was born with a twisted foot and two molar teeth. At the age of three, he was stricken with confluent smallpox which, following the imprudent application of eye drops, left deep scars on his face and further increased his natural ugliness. He is a turbulent child, unruly, but very intelligent and endowed with a prodigious memory. His father recognizes his abilities, but claims that his mind is inclined to evil. In 1767, he had him incorporated into the army, but refused to buy him a post.
In July 1768, Mirabeau secretly left his garrison and took refuge in Paris. This runaway earned him his first incarceration in the citadel of the Ile de Ré. He is released when he asks to be part of the Corsica expedition where he distinguishes himself. On his return, he was reconciled with his father (October 1770) and, in 1771, was received at Court. A new estrangement opposes him to his father who intends to force him to work. It was then that he married a rich heiress, Émilie de Marignane (1772), without receiving a penny of dowry. Harassed by creditors, he is imprisoned in the Château d'If. In May 1775, Honoré was transferred to Fort de Joux where the surveillance, much less severe, allowed him to go to town.
He was thus received by the Marquis de Monnier, married to Marie-Thérèse Richard de Ruffey, daughter of a president of the Burgundy Chamber of Auditors. So begin the loves of Mirabeau with the one he immortalized under the name of Sophie. Mirabeau fled to Switzerland, then to Holland with Madame de Monnier who was able to join him. The respite is short-lived. They were arrested in Amsterdam in May 1776. Transferred to France then imprisoned in the Château de Vincennes in June 1777, Mirabeau wrote two famous books there:Les lettres à Sophie and Letters of cachet .
Mirabeau will be released in 1780 after three and a half years of detention. His wife Emilie obtained legal separation and in 1786 Mirabeau returned to Berlin on a secret mission.
Mirabeau, tribune of the Revolution
As soon as the convocation of the Estates General was announced, Mirabeau began a fierce struggle in Provence against the privileges of the aristocracy and, although a nobleman, was triumphantly elected as a representative of the Tiers for the Seneschal of Aix. Linked to the Duke of Orléans, he imposed himself on the Estates General with his exceptional talent as an orator, which made people forget his "grandiose and dazzling ugliness". Having proclaimed themselves the National Assembly on June 17, 1789, the deputies of the Third Estate met in the Jeu de Paume room and swore to provide the country with a constitution. On June 23, 1789, he would have pronounced the famous formula:“we are here by the will of the people and we will only get out by the force of bayonets”, refusing the king’s order to dissolve the new assembly. He then managed to have the principle of the inviolability of deputies adopted.
Become the idol of the crowds, he maintained the agitation by an army of publicists and played a major role during of the elaboration of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Mirabeau had a new tax passed:the patriotic contribution of a quarter of the income, as well as the provision of the property of the clergy. Mirabeau then appears as the man capable of carrying out the policy of reconciliation between the king, the aristocracy and the Revolution desired by La Fayette. But if he captivated the Assembly with his eloquence, he also scandalized it with his private life and worried it with his political ambitions.
Duplicity and the death of Mirabeau
Worried by the excesses of the Revolution, Mirabeau approaches the Court and Louis XVI. His first memoir to the king, dated May 10, 1790, ends with his words:"I promise the king loyalty, zeal, energy activity and a courage of which perhaps we are far from having an idea". Now a supporter of a constitutional monarchy, Mirabeau tried to reconcile this idea with revolutionary principles. He defends the absolute right of veto of the king, against the majority of the National Constituent Assembly which decides a suspensive veto. Mirabeau plans to occupy a post of minister in charge of relations between the National Assembly and the king. But, in November 1789, the Assembly cut short its ambitions by decreeing that no member of the Constituent Assembly could become a minister.
Through the Comte de La Mark, Mirabeau sends Louis XVI notes on the organization of the counter-revolution and endeavors with La Fayette, that nevertheless he hates to have the king granted the right of war and peace in the new constitution. His proposals to the sovereign to stay on the throne and put an end to the Revolution were never really listened to by the king, however, who had no more confidence in him than in La Fayette, the commander of the National Guard. His double game does not escape some revolutionaries either, who denounce his corruption.
Despite this dual situation and some animosities within the hemicycle, Mirabeau regained his popularity, became a member of the directory of the department of Paris and was elected president of the Constituent Assembly on 30 January 1791. Exhausted by a life of excess and work, he died suddenly on April 2, 1791. His remains were deposited in the Pantheon, but were removed after the discovery of the iron cabinet containing his correspondence with the king. With him disappears from the revolutionary scene one of its principal actors and its most powerful orator. After his death, his oratorical works will be published. and the Correspondence between the Comte de Mirabeau and the Comte de La Marck .
Bibliography
- Mirabeau, by Jean-Paul Destrat. Perrin, 2008.
- Mirabeau, by Charles Zorgbibe. De fallois, 2008.
- The great parliamentary speeches of the Revolution:From Mirabeau to Robespierre (1789-1795), by Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret. Armand Colin, 2005.