acy of the nobility
and bishops.

All that had been built by antiquity and cemented by ages fell in a
few months. Mirabeau alone preserved his presence of mind in the midst
of ruin. His character of tribune then ceased, that of the statesman
began, and in this part he was even greater than in the other. There,
when all else crept and crawled, he acted with firmness, advancing
boldly. The Revolution in his brain was no longer a momentary idea--it
became a settled plan. The philosophy of the eighteenth century,
moderated by the prudence of policy, flowed easily from his lips. His
eloquence, imperative as the law, was now a talent for giving force to
reason. His language lighted and inspired everything; and tho almost
alone at this moment, he had the courage to remain alone. He braved
envy, hatred, murmurs, supported as he was by a strong feeling of his
superiority. He dismissed with disdain the passions which had hitherto
beset him. He would no longer serve them when his cause no longer
needed them. He spoke to men now only in the name of his genius, a
title which was enough to cause obedience to him....

The characteristic of his genius, so well defined, so ill understood,
was less audacity than justness. Beneath the grandeur of his
expression was always to be found unfailing good sense. His very vices
could not repress the clearness, the sincerity of his understanding.
At the foot of the tribune, he was a man devoid of shame or virtue: in
the tribune, he was an honest man. Abandoned to private debauchery,
bought over by foreign powers, sold to the court in order to satisfy
his lavish expenditures, he preserved, amidst all this infamous
traffic of his powers, the incorruptibility of his genius. Of all the
qualities of being the great man of an age, Mirabeau was wanting only
in honesty. The people were not his devotees, but his instruments. His
faith was in posterity. His conscience existed only in his thought.
The fanaticism of his ideas was quite human. The chilling materialism
of his age had crusht in his heart all expansive force, and craving
for imperishable things. His dying words were: "Sprinkle me with
perfumes, crown me with flowers, that I may thus enter upon eternal
sleep." He was especially of his time, and his course bears no impress
of infinity. Neither his character, his acts, nor his thoughts have
the brand of immortality. If he had believed, in God, he might have
died a martyr.

LOUIS ADOLPHE TH