Man. They were
governed mainly by two ideas. They distrusted the king as a
malefactor, convicted of the unpardonable sin of absolutism, whom it
was impossible to subject to too much limitation and control; and they
were persuaded that the securities for individual freedom which are
requisite under a personal government are superfluous in a popular
community conducting its affairs by discussion and compromise and
adjustment, in which the only force is public opinion. The two views
tended to the same practical result--to strengthen the legislative
power, which is the nation, and weaken the executive power, which is
the king. To arrest this tendency was the last effort that consumed
the life of Mirabeau. The danger that he dreaded was no longer the
power of the king, but the weakness of the king.

The old order of things had fallen, and the customary ways and forces
were abolished. The country was about to be governed by new
principles, new forms, and new men. All the assistance that order
derives from habit and tradition, from local connection and personal
credit, was lost. Society had to pass through a dangerous and chaotic
interval, during which the supreme need was a vigorous administration.
That is the statesmanlike idea which held possession of Mirabeau, and
guided him consistently through the very tortuous and adventurous
course of his last days. He had no jealousy of the Executive.
Ministers ought to be chosen in the Assembly, ought to lead the
Assembly, and to be controlled by it; and then there would be no
motive to fear them and to restrict their action. That was an idea not
to be learnt from Montesquieu, and generally repudiated by theorists
of the separation of powers. It was familiar to Mirabeau from his
experience of England, where, in 1784, he had seen the country come to
the support of the king against the parliament. Thence he gathered the
conception of a patriot king, of a king the true delegate and
mandatory of the nation, in fact of an incipient Emperor. If his
schemes had come to anything, it is likely that his democratic monarch
might have become as dangerous as any arbitrary potentate could be,
and that his administration would have proved as great an obstacle to
parliamentary government as French administration has always been
since Napoleon. But his purpose at the time was sincerely politic and
legitimate, and he undertook alone the defence of constitutional
principles. During the month of Septe