Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

of the palace through which factious miscreants, uniting temporal interests with the most sacred interests of religion, had fired by the hand of a king of the French the fatal gun which was to be the signal of the massacre of the Huguenots!”

A deputation of the Assembly was preparing to wait upon the King to request the dismission of the troops, al ready three times refused. The indignant Mirabeau, unable to contain himself, addresses the Committee :—

"Say to the King-say to him, that the hordes of foreigners by whom we are invested, have received yesterday the visit of the princes, of the princesses, of the favorites, male and female, also their caresses, and their exhortations, and their presents! Say to him that the whole night, these foreign satellites, gorged with gold and wine, have been predicting in their impious songs the enslavement of France, and invoking with their brutal vows the destruction of the National Assembly! Say to him that in his very palace, the courtiers have led their dances to the sound of this barbarous music, and that such was the prelude of the SaintBartholomew !"

In his fine discourse on the "right of peace and war,” Mirabeau had arrived after some confusion of ideas, at a precise solution of the difficulty, by means of ministerial responsibility, and the refusal of the supplies on the part of the legislative power. But as soon as he had uttered these closing words: "Fear not that a rebel King, abdicating of himself his sceptre, will expose himself to the peril of running from victory to the scaffold," he was interrupted with violent murmurs. D'Espremenil moved that he be called to order, for having attacked the inviolability of the King! "You have all,” replied Mirabeau at the instant, “heard my supposition of a despotic and revolted King, who should come, with an army of Frenchmen, to conquer the position of tyrants. But a King in this position, is no longer a King."-General applause :-Mirabeau proceeds: "It is the tocsin of necessity alone which can give the signal, when the moment is come for fulfilling the imprescriptable

duty of resistance-a duty always imperative whenever the Constitution is violated, always triumphant when the resistance is just and truly national.”

Are not these words the prophetic and living picture of the Revolution of July.

In the same effusion and a little after, Mirabeau, in a celebrated adjuration, introduces on the stage the Abbe Sieyes. "I will not conceal," said he, "my deep regret that the man who has laid the foundations of the Constitution, that the man who has revealed to the world the true principles of representative government, who condemns himself to a silence which I deplore, which I think culpable, that the Abbe Sieyès-I ask his pardon for naming himdoes not come forward to insert, himself, in his constitution, one of the most important springs of the social order. This occasions me the more pain, that crushed beneath a weight of labor beyond my intellectual forces, unceasingly hurried off from self-collection and meditation, which are the principal sources of mental power, I had not myself turned attention to this question of the completion of my work, accustomed as I was to repose upon that great thinker. I have pressed him, conjured, implored in the name of the friendship with which he honors me, in the name of Patriotism that sentiment far more energetic and holy—to endow us with the treasure of his ideas, not to leave a blank in the Constitution. He has refused me, I denounce him to you! I conjure you, in my turn, to obtain his opinion which ought not to be a secret, to rescue in fine from discourage. ment a man whose silence and seclusion I regard as a public calamity."

I have remarked that what has raised Mirabeau incomparably beyond other orators, is the profundity and breadth of his thoughts, the solidity of his reasoning, the vehemence of his improvisations; but it is especially the unexampled felicity of his repartees. In fact, the auditors and princi pally the rival orators hold themselves on their guard against premeditated speeches. As they know that the orator has

spread in advance his toils to surprise them, they prepare accordingly in advance to elude him. They search for, they di vine, they discover, they dispose for themselves, with more or less of ability, the arguments which he must employ, his facts, his proofs, his insinuations, and sometimes even his fig ures and happiest movements. They have thus, all ready to meet him, their objections. They shut the air-and-eye holes of their helmet, they cover the weak points of their cuirass where his lance might penetrate; and when the orator crosses the barrier, and rushes impetuous to the conflict, he encounters before him an enemy armed cap-a-pie, who bars his way and disputes valiantly the victory.-But a happy oratorical retort astonishes and delights even your adversaries; it produces the effect of things unexpected. It is a startling counterplot, which cuts the gordian knots of the play and precipitates the catastrophe. It is the lightning flash amid the darkness of night. It is the arm which strikes in the buckler of the enemy, who draws it instantly and returns it to pierce the bosom of him who had launched it. The repartee shakes the irresolute and floating masses of an assembly. It comes upon you, as the eagle, concealed in the hollow of a rock, makes a stoop at its prey and carries it off all palpitating in its talons, before it even has emitted a cry. It arouses, by the stimulant of its novelty, the thickskulled, phlegmatic, and drowsy deputies who were falling asleep. It sends a sudden and softening thrill to the soul. It fires the audience to cry, To arms! to arms! It wrings from the bosom exclamations of wrath. It provokes laughter inextinguishable. It compels the adversary-officer or soldier-to go hide his shame in the ranks of his company, who open them to receive him but with pity and derision. It resolves with a word the question in a debate. It signifies an event. It reveals a character. It paints a situation. It absolves, it condemns, a party. It makes a reputation, or it unmakes it. It glorifies, it stigmatizes, it dejects, it cheers, it unbinds, it reattaches, it saves, it slays. It attracts, it suspends magically, as by a golden chain, an entire assem

[ocr errors]

bly from the lips of a single man.

It concentrates at the same time its whole attention upon a single point, for a moment produces unanimity, and may decide of a sudden the loss or the gain of a parliamentary battle.

Never did Mirabeau shrink from an objection or an adversary. He drew himself up to his full height under the menace of his enemies, and burst by sledge-blows the nail which it was intended he should draw.-In the tribune he braved the prejudices, the dumb objurgations and muttering impatience of the Assembly. Immovable as a rock, he crossed his arms and awaited silence.-He retorted instantly, blow after blow, upon all opponents and on all subjects, with a rapidity of action and a nicety of pertinence really sur prising. He painted men and things with a manner and words entirely his own.-How energetically did he describe France, "an unconstituted aggregation of disunited people." -He used to say in his monarchical language: "The monarch is the perpetual representative of the people, and the deputies are the temporary representatives."-Member of the directory of Paris, he expressed himself thus before the King: "A tall tree covers with its shade a large surface. Its roots shoot wide and deep through the soil and entwine themselves around eternal rocks. To pull it down the earth itself must be uptorn. Such, Sire, is the image of constitu tional monarchy."-Assailed impertinently by M. de Faucigny, he words the reprimand in these terms: "The Assembly, satisfied with the repentance you testify, remits you, sir, the penalty which you have incurred."

What vivacity, what actuality, what nobleness in all these repartees! what keen and chivalrous irony! what vigor!

The pretensions of the republic of Genoa to the island of Corsica were occupying the deliberation of the house at unnecessary length.

Mirabeau :-"I do not think that a league between Ra gusa, Lucca, Saint-Maro, and some other powers equally formidable, ought to give you great inquietude; nor do I regard as very dangerous the republic of Genoa, whose armies

have been put to flight by twelve me: and twelve women on the sea-coast in Corsica. I move an extremely indefinite adjournment."

Cazales proposed, as a remedy for the public evils, the investment of the King during three months with unlimited executive power.-Mirabeau said: "M. de Cazalès is be side the question, for he discusses whether or not the King is to be accorded a dictatorship."-And as the Abbe Maury insisted upon the right of Cazalès to make this motion, Mirabeau replied: "I have pretended not that the preceding speaker had transgressed his right; I have said only that he was beside the question. He has demanded the dictatorship; the dictatorship over a nation of twenty-five millions of souls! The dictatorship to one man! in a country actually occupied in forming its Constitution, in a country whose representatives are assembled in council, the dictatorship to a single individual!"

To the optimists who slumbered in presence of the menacing state of affairs:-"We sleep; but do not people sleep at the foot of Vesuvius ?"

To the Abbe Maury, who taunted him with invoking the aid of the populace:-"I will not stoop to repel the charge. 'ust made upon me, unless the Assembly dignify it to my level, by ordering me to reply. In that case, I would deem it sufficient for my vindication and my glory to name my accuser and to name myself."

To a verbal dispute respecting the wording of a clause in the Constitution:-"I will observe that it would not be amiss that the National Assembly of France should speak French, and even indite in French the laws which it proposes."

To those who claimed the inalienability of the ancient foundations of the Clergy: "If all the men who have lived upon the earth had each had a separate tomb, it would have been indispensable, in order to find lands for cultivation, to pull down these monuments, and to plough the ashes of the dead for the sustenance of the living."

To a deputy who moved the adjournment of a motion

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »