ice in the National Assembly;--doubtless with an eye to being
Minister himself! Whereupon the National Assembly decides, what is very
momentous, that no Deputy shall be Minister; he, in his haughty stormful
manner, advising us to make it, 'no Deputy called Mirabeau.' (Moniteur,
Nos. 65, 86 (29th September, 7th November, 1789).) A man of perhaps
inveterate Feudalisms; of stratagems; too often visible leanings towards
the Royalist side: a man suspect; whom Patriotism will unmask! Thus, in
these June days, when the question Who shall have right to declare war?
comes on, you hear hoarse Hawkers sound dolefully through the streets,
"Grand Treason of Count Mirabeau, price only one sou;"--because he
pleads that it shall be not the Assembly but the King! Pleads; nay
prevails: for in spite of the hoarse Hawkers, and an endless Populace
raised by them to the pitch even of 'Lanterne,' he mounts the Tribune
next day; grim-resolute; murmuring aside to his friends that speak of
danger: "I know it: I must come hence either in triumph, or else torn in
fragments;" and it was in triumph that he came.

A man of stout heart; whose popularity is not of the populace, 'pas
populaciere;' whom no clamour of unwashed mobs without doors, or of
washed mobs within, can scarce from his way! Dumont remembers hearing
him deliver a Report on Marseilles; 'every word was interrupted on the
part of the Cote Droit by abusive epithets; calumniator, liar, assassin,
scoundrel (scelerat): Mirabeau pauses a moment, and, in a honeyed
tone, addressing the most furious, says: "I wait, Messieurs, till these
amenities be exhausted."' (Dumont, Souvenirs, p. 278.) A man enigmatic,
difficult to unmask! For example, whence comes his money? Can the profit
of a Newspaper, sorely eaten into by Dame Le Jay; can this, and the
eighteen francs a-day your National Deputy has, be supposed equal
to this expenditure? House in the Chaussee d'Antin; Country-house at
Argenteuil; splendours, sumptuosities, orgies;--living as if he had a
mint! All saloons barred against Adventurer Mirabeau, are flung wide
open to King Mirabeau, the cynosure of Europe, whom female France
flutters to behold,--though the Man Mirabeau is one and the same. As for
money, one may conjecture that Royalism furnishes it; which if Royalism
do, will not the same be welcome, as money always is to him?

'Sold,' whatever Patriotism thinks, he cannot readily be: the spiritual
fire which is in that man; which shining t