nforeseen, unknown, emerging abruptly from the
obscurity, who terrified, and who fascinated. A dreadful disease had
given him a kind of tiger's head; every degree of ugliness seemed to
have been imprinted upon that mask by every possible vice. Like the
bourgeoisie, he was dressed in black, that is to say, in mourning. His
bloodshot eye cast upon the assembly a dazzling glance; it resembled
menace and reproach--all looked upon him with a degree of curiosity in
which was mingled horror. He raised his hand, and there was silence.

Then were heard to issue from this hideous face sublime words. It was
the voice of the new world speaking through the mouth of the old world;
it was '89 that had risen, and was questioning, and accusing and
denouncing to God and man all the fatal dates of the monarchy; it was
the past,--an august spectacle,--the past, bruised with chains, branded
on the shoulder, ex-slave, ex-convict,--the unfortunate past, calling
aloud upon the future, the emancipating future! that is what that
stranger was, that is what he did on that platform! At his word, which
at certain moments was as the thunder, prejudices, fictions, abuses,
superstitions, fallacies, intolerance, ignorance, fiscal infamies,
barbarous punishments, outworn authorities, worm-eaten magistracy,
discrepit codes, rotten laws, everything that was doomed to perish,
trembled, and the downfall of those things began. That formidable
apparition has left a name in the memory of men; he should be called
Revolution,--his name is Mirabeau!

III

THE TRIBUNE

From the moment that that man put his foot upon that platform, that
platform was transformed. The French tribune was founded.

The French tribune! A volume would be necessary to tell all that that
word contains. The French tribune has been, these sixty years, the open
mouth of human intelligence. Of human intelligence, saying everything,
combining everything, blending everything, fertilizing everything: the
good, the bad, the true, the false, the just, the unjust, the high, the
low, the horrible, the beautiful, dreams, facts, passion, reason, love,
hate, the material, the ideal; but, in a word--for that is the essence
of its sublime and eternal mission--making darkness in order to draw
from it light, making chaos to draw from it life, making the revolution
to draw from it the republic.

What has taken place upon that tribune, what it has seen, what it has
done, what tempests have raged