nce would never make
war for conquest, or against freedom. After that, Spain had little to
hope for, and Pitt became defiant. Negotiations lasted till October.
The Assembly appointed a Committee on Foreign Affairs, in which
Mirabeau predominated, casting all his influence on the side of peace,
and earning the gratitude and the gold of England. At last, the
mutinous temper of the Brest fleet settled the question.

The great Bourbon alliance was dissolved, and Pitt owed a signal
triumph to the revolutionary spirit and the moderating influence of
Mirabeau. His defence of the prerogative deserved a reward, and he was
received in a secret audience by Marie Antoinette. The interview took
place at St. Cloud, July 3. The statesman did not trust his new
friends, and he instructed the nephew who drove him, in disguise, to
the back door, to fetch the police if he did not reappear in
three-quarters of an hour. The conversation was satisfactory, and
Mirabeau, as he kissed the queen's hand, declared with chivalrous
fervour that the monarchy was saved. He spoke sincerely. The comedian
and deceiver was not the wily and unscrupulous intriguer, but the
inexperienced daughter of the Empress-queen. She never believed in his
truth. When he continued to thunder against the Right, the king and
queen shook their heads, and repeated that he was incorrigible. The
last decision they came to in his lifetime was to reject his plans in
favour of that which brought them to Varennes. But as the year wore
on, they could not help seeing that the sophistical free-lance and
giver of despised advice was the most prodigious individual force in
the world, and that France had never seen his like. Everybody now
perceived it, for his talent and resource increased rapidly, since he
was steadied by a definite purpose, and a contract he could never
afford to break. The hostile press knew of his visit to St. Cloud
three days after it occurred, and pretended to know for how many
millions he had sold himself. They were too reckless to obtain belief,
but they were very near the truth; and the secret of his
correspondence was known or guessed by at least twenty persons.

With this sword hanging over him, with this rope round his neck, in
the autumn and winter of 1790, Mirabeau rose to an ascendancy in which
he outweighed all parties. He began his notes by an attempt to
undermine the two men who stood in his way. Lafayette was too strong
for him. On the first annivers