his
private life, and his ungovernable passions, made him distrusted by the
Court and the Government. He was both hated and admired.

Mirabeau belonged to a noble family of very high rank in Provence, of
Italian descent. His father, Marquis Mirabeau, was a man of liberal
sentiments,--not unknown to literary fame by his treatises on political
economy,'--but was eccentric and violent. Although his oldest son, Count
Mirabeau, the subject of this lecture, was precocious intellectually,
and very bright, so that the father was proud of him, he was yet so
ungovernable and violent in his temper, and got into so many disgraceful
scrapes, that the Marquis was compelled to discipline him severely,--all
to no purpose, inasmuch as he was injudicious in his treatment, and
ultimately cruel. He procured _lettres de cachet_ from the King, and
shut up his disobedient and debauched son in various state-prisons. But
the Count generally contrived to escape, only to get into fresh
difficulties; so that he became a wanderer and an exile, compelled to
support himself by his pen.

Mirabeau was in Berlin, in a sort of semi-diplomatic position, when the
Assembly of Notables was convened. His keen prescience and profound
sagacity induced him to return to his distracted country, where he knew
his services would soon be required. Though debauched, extravagant, and
unscrupulous, he was not unpatriotic. He had an intense hatred of
feudalism, and saw in its varied inequalities the chief source of the
national calamities. His detestation of feudal injustices was
intensified by his personal sufferings in the various castles where he
had been confined by arbitrary power. At this period, the whole tendency
of his writings was towards the destruction of the _ancien regime_, He
breathed defiance, scorn, and hatred against the very class to which he
belonged. He was a Catiline,--an aristocratic demagogue, revolutionary
in his spirit and aims; so that he was mistrusted, feared, and detested
by the ruling powers, and by the aristocracy generally, while he was
admired and flattered by the people, who were tolerant of his vices and
imperious temper.

On the wretched failure of the Assembly of the Notables, the prime
minister, Necker, advised the King to assemble the States-General,--the
three orders of the State: the nobles, the clergy, and a representation
of the people. It seemed to the Government impossible to proceed longer,
amid universal distress and hop