g fire of genius? It is
Gabriel Honore Riquetti de Mirabeau; man-ruling deputy of Aix! Yes, that
is the Type-Frenchman of this epoch; as Voltaire was of the last. He is
French in his aspirations, acquisitions, in his virtues and vices. Mark
him well. The National Assembly were all different without that one;
nay, he might say with old Despot,--The National Assembly? I am that.

"Now, if Mirabeau is the greatest of these six hundred, who may be the
meanest? Shall we say that anxious, slight, ineffectual-looking man,
under thirty, in spectacles, his eyes troubled, careful; with upturned
face, snuffing dimly the uncertain future time; complexion of a
multiplex atrabilious color, the final shade of which may be pale
sea-green? That greenish-colored individual is an advocate of Arras; his
name is Maximilien Robespierre.

"Between which extremes of grandest and meanest, so many grand and mean,
roll on towards their several destinies in that procession. There is
experienced Mounier, whose presidential parliamentary experience the
stream of things shall soon leave stranded. A Petion has left his gown
and briefs at Chartres for a stormier sort of pleading. A
Protestant-clerical St. Etienne, a slender young eloquent and vehement
Barnave, will help to regenerate France,

"And then there is worthy Doctor Guillotin, Bailly likewise,
time-honored historian of astronomy, and the Abbe Sieyes, cold, but
elastic, wiry, instinct with the pride of logic, passionless, or with
but one passion, that of self-conceit. This is the Sieyes who shall be
system-builder, constitutional-builder-general, and build constitutions
which shall unfortunately fall before we get the scaffolding away.

"Among the nobles are Liancourt, and La Rochefoucauld, and pious Lally,
and Lafayette, whom Mirabeau calls Grandison Cromwell, and the Viscount
Mirabeau, called Barrel Mirabeau, on account of his rotundity, and the
quantity of strong liquor he contains. Among the clergy is the Abbe
Maury, who does not want for audacity, and the Cure Gregoire who shall
be a bishop, and Talleyrand-Pericord, his reverence of Autun, with
sardonic grimness, a man living in falsehood, and on falsehood, yet not
wholly a false man.

"So, in stately procession, the elected of France pass on, some to
honor, others to dishonor; not a few towards massacre, confusion,
emigration, desperation."

For several weeks this famous States-General remain inactive, unable to
agree whether they