consent was indispensable, and this was sternly refused. Mirabeau,
harassed by creditors, was dragged into lawsuits, and his embarrassments
only set his father entirely against him. The marquis actually procured
a _lettre de cachet_, obliging his son to leave the home he had set up,
and to confine himself to the little town of Manosque.

Here domestic sorrow and the most painful circumstances assailed the
young exile. But these did not prevent him from pursuing serious studies
and composing his first work, the "Essay on Despotism." Misfortunes
accumulated. Chastising with a horsewhip a baron who grossly insulted
him, the count was again imprisoned, this time in the Chateau d'If, a
gloomy citadel on a barren rock near Marseilles.

On May 25, 1770, Mirabeau was transferred to the Castle of Joux, near
Pontarlier, where, on June 11, 1775, festivities were held, as at other
places, to honour the coronation of Louis XVI. Here Mirabeau enjoyed a
sort of half freedom, being allowed to visit in Pontarlier, and the
event ensued which, it must sorrowfully be owned, tarnished his name. In
a word, we see Mirabeau "ruin himself," by a fatal intimacy with the
young wife of the aged Marquis of Monnier. The two fled to Dijon, where
Mirabeau surrendered himself at the castle.

He was released after a short time and went on to Geneva, nearly
perishing in a storm on the lake. Returning to Pontarlier, he was joined
by Sophie Monnier, and the two left for Holland, and arrived at
Amsterdam on October 7, 1776. Mirabeau was naturally obliged to draw his
principal means of subsistence from his literary labours, and this,
perhaps, had been his motive for choosing Holland as his residence, for
at that period the Dutch booksellers entered largely into literary
speculations.

Mirabeau and Sophie Monnier were arrested at Amsterdam on May 14, 1777.
Both were brought to France. She was placed in a convent at
Monilmontant, and Mirabeau was deposited on June 7 in the donjon of
Vincennes, and was subjected to every sort of privation, remaining in
confinement for forty-two months. His release marked the end of his
private life; his public and political life was about to begin.

_II.--Into Political Life_

The "Essay on Despotism" had been the first sign of Mirabeau's political
vocation, and the most singular instance, perhaps, of a war audaciously
declared against despotism by a young man bearing its yoke. The keynote
is that though the _natural_