The Assembly was truly in a dilemma. They could not prohibit emigration without grossly violating that declaration of rights which they had just adopted with solemnities which had arrested the attention of the world. They could not permit this flood of emigration without exposing France to ruin; for it was well known that the nobles, with all the wealth they could accumulate, were crossing the frontiers merely to organize themselves into armies for the invasion of France.
Mirabeau never displayed more power than on this occasion, in overawing and commanding the Assembly. He succeeded in arresting the measure. This, however, was his last triumph. Disease was making rapid ravages, his frame was exhausted, and death approached. A sudden attack of colic confined him to his chamber, and soon all hope of recovery was relinquished. He was still the idol of the people, and crowds, in breathless silence, thronged around his abode, anxious to receive bulletins of his health. The king and the people alike mourned, for both were leaning upon that vigorous arm.
He could not repress an expression of satisfaction in view of his labors and his accomplishments. To his servants he said, "Support this head, the greatest in France." "William Pitt," he remarked, "is the minister of preparations. He governs with threats. I would give him some trouble if I should live."[266] On the morning of his death he said to an attendant,
"Open the window. I shall die to-day. All that can now be done is to envelop one's self in perfumes, to crown one's self with flowers, to surround one's self with music, that one may sink quietly into everlasting sleep."
Soon, in a paroxysm of extreme agony, he called for opium, saying, "You promised to save me from needless suffering."
To quiet him a cup was presented, and he was deceived with the assurance that it contained the desired fatal opiate. He swallowed the draught, and in a moment expired, in the forty-second year of his age. It was the 2d of April, 1791. His death caused profound grief. All parties vied alike in conferring honor upon his remains. The nation went into mourning, a magnificent funeral was arranged, and the body was deposited in the tomb with pomp surpassing that which had accompanied the burial of the ancient kings of France. Suspicions are still cherished that Mirabeau died the victim of poison.[267]
The funeral of Mirabeau was the most imposing, popular, and extensive of any recorded in history, always excepting that unparalleled display of a nation's gratitude and grief which accompanied the transfer of the remains of Napoleon from St. Helena to the Invalides. It is estimated that four hundred thousand men took a part in the funeral pageant of Mirabeau. The streets were draped in mourning, and pavements, windows, balconies, and house-tops were thronged with sad and silent spectators.
La Fayette headed the immense procession, and was followed by the whole Constituent Assembly, and by the whole club of Jacobins, who, in a dense mass, assumed to be chief mourners on the occasion, though Mirabeau had for some time held himself aloof from their tumultuous meetings. It was eight o'clock in the evening before the procession arrived at the Church of Saint Eustache, where a funeral oration was pronounced by Cérutti. The arms of twenty thousand of the National Guard were then discharged at once. The crash caused the very walls of the church to rock, shivering to atoms every pane of glass.
It was now night, and, by the light of a hundred thousand torches, the procession resumed its course. New instruments of music had been invented, which were then heard for the first time—the trombone and the tamtam. As the vast procession traversed the streets through the gloomy shades of night, illumined by the glare of flickering torches, with the tolling of bells, blending, now with the wail of the chant and now with the pealing requiems of martial bands, all the elements of sublimity seemed combined to affect the heart and overawe the soul. It was near midnight when the sarcophagus was deposited in its tomb at the Church of Saint Geneviève, over whose portal was inscribed these words,
"AUX GRANDS HOMMES LA PATRIE RECONNAISSANTE."