rtuis, from the
well-known Provencal family of Barras and who, a few years later,
acquired the title of Esquire.

In 1685, one hundred and fifteen years after the purchase above
mentioned, Honore Riquetti, lineal descendant of the Marseilles
merchant, obtained the title of Marquis de Mirabeau, and there was born
to this marquis a son, Jean Antoine Riquetti, who achieved a worthy
record as a soldier, but whose prominent place in history is due to the
fact that he was the grandfather of the great Mirabeau.

Victor Riquetti, son of this second Marquis de Mirabeau and father of
the great, the Count de Mirabeau, was in his early manhood an
indifferent soldier, but he afterward became distinguished as a writer
and leader in French politics. His wife (the mother of Count de
Mirabeau) was Marie Genevieve, daughter of M. de Vassan, a brigadier in
the French army, she being, also, the widow of the Marquis de
Saulyeboeuf. This union, entered into without a previous meeting between
the principals to the contract, and at a time when the Marquis de
Mirabeau was well started in his career as a politician, was not a happy
one. The new husband was more loyal to politics than to his wife, so
that, when their son, who was destined to achieve fame, was but thirteen
years old, there was a separation between the parents by mutual consent.

Thus, in outline, is indicated the ancestry of Mirabeau through a period
of nearly two centuries, and, meagre as the showing is, it is evident
that he was the scion of a long line of wealth and nobility, his
paternal ancestors having served with credit as soldiers, while his
father was eminent as a politician. There is a second group of facts
which bear interestingly upon the career under discussion. Mirabeau the
great was born at a time when more than two-thirds of France was in the
hands of privileged classes--the king, the nobility, and the clergy--and
at a time, too, when the structure founded upon years of feudalism and
absolutism was about to be shaken to its base by the magic of popular
public opinion.

Under such conditions, at such a time, and from such stock, occurred the
birth of Mirabeau the great; a coming into the world of a babe "scarce
half made up;" a child with a head so large that it was a dire
deformity, with one foot sadly twisted, and with a tongue that was tied;
in brief, an infant ogre born with teeth. So great was the chagrin of
the father that he made no effort to conceal his