History of the Girondists, Volume I | Page 7

print themselves as they fall on a man.
Mirabeau the less, and then M. de La Fayette appeared the greater, and
it was the same with all the orators of the Assembly. There was no
longer any rival, but there were many envious. His eloquence, though
popular in its style, was that of a patrician. His democracy was
delivered from a lofty position, and comprised none of that
covetousness and hate which excite the vilest passions of the human
heart, and which see in the good done for the people nothing but an

insult to the nobility. His popular sentiments were in some sort but the
liberality of his genius. The vast expansiveness of his mighty soul had
no resemblance with the paltry impulses of demagogues. In acquiring
rights for the people he seemed as though he bestowed them. He was a
volunteer of democracy. He recalled by his part, and his bearing, to
those democrats behind him, that from the time of the Gracchi to his
own, the tribunes who most served the people had sprung from the
ranks of the patricians. His talent, unequalled for philosophy of thought,
for depth of reflection, and loftiness of expression, was another kind of
aristocracy, which could never be pardoned him. Nature placed him in
the foremost rank; and death only created a space around him for
secondary minds. They all endeavoured to acquire his position, and all
endeavoured in vain. The tears they shed upon his coffin were
hypocritical. The people only wept in all sincerity, because the people
were too strong to be jealous, and they, far from reproaching Mirabeau
with his birth, loved in him that nobility as though it were a spoil they
had carried off from the aristocracy. Moreover, the nation, disturbed at
seeing its institutions crumbling away one by one, and dreading a total
destruction, felt instinctively that the genius of a great man was the last
stronghold left to them. This genius quenched, it saw only darkness and
precipices before the monarchy. The Jacobins alone rejoiced loudly, for
it was only he who could outweigh them.
It was on the 6th of April, 1791, that the National Assembly resumed
its sittings. Mirabeau's place, left vacant, reminded each gazer of the
impossibility of again filling it; consternation was impressed on every
countenance in the tribunes, and a profound silence pervaded the
meeting. M. de Talleyrand announced to the Assembly a posthumous
address of Mirabeau. They would hear him though dead. The weakened
echo of his voice seemed to return to his country from the depths of the
vaults of the Pantheon. The reading was mournful. Parties were burning
to measure their strength free from any counterpoise. Impatience and
anxiety were paramount, and the struggle was imminent. The arbitrator
who controlled them was no more.
V.

Before we depict the state of these parties, let us throw a rapid glance
over the commencement of the Revolution, the progress it had made,
and the principal leaders who were about to attempt directing it in the
way they desired to see it advance.
It was hardly two years since opinion had opened the breaches against
the monarchy, yet it had already accomplished immense results. The
weak and vacillating spirit of the government had convoked the
Assembly of Notables, whilst public spirit had placed its grasp on
power and convoked the States General. The States General being
established, the nation had felt its omnipotence, and from this feeling to
a legal insurrection there was but a word; that word Mirabeau had
uttered. The National Assembly had constituted itself in front of, and
higher than, the throne itself. The prodigious popularity of M. Necker
was exhausted by concessions, and utterly vanished when he no longer
had any of the spoils of monarchy to cast before the people. Minister of
a monarch in retirement, his own had been utter defeat. His last step
conducted him out of the kingdom. The disarmed king had remained
the hostage of the ancient régime in the hands of the nation. The
declaration of the rights of man and citizen, the sole metaphysical act of
the Revolution to this time, had given it a social and universal
signification. This declaration had been much jeered; it certainly
contained some errors, and confused in terms the state of nature and the
state of society; but it was, notwithstanding, the very essence of the
new dogma.
VI
There are objects in nature, the forms of which can only be accurately
ascertained when contemplated afar off. Too near, as well as too far off,
prevents a correct view. Thus it is with great events. The hand of God
is visible in human things, but this hand itself has a shadow which
conceals what it accomplishes. All that could then be seen of the