It is one of the great advantages of the long practice of free institutions, that it diffuses through the community a knowledge of character and a soundness of judgment which save it from the enormous mistakes that are almost always made by enslaved nations when suddenly called upon to choose their rulers. No fact shows so eminently the high intelligence of the men who managed the American Revolution as their selection of a leader whose qualities were so much more solid than brilliant, and who was so entirely free from all the characteristics of a demagogue. It was only slowly and very deliberately that Washington identified himself with the revolutionary cause.
No man had a deeper admiration for the British constitution, or a more sincere wish to preserve the connection and to put an end to the disputes between the two countries. In Virginia the revolutionary movement was preceded and prepared by a democratic movement of the yeomanry of the province, led by Patrick Henry, against the planter aristocracy, and Washington was a conspicuous member of the latter. In tastes, manners, instincts, and sympathies he might have been taken as an admirable specimen of the better type of English country gentleman, and he had a great deal of the strong conservative feeling which is natural to the class. From the first promulgation of the Stamp Act, however, he adopted a conviction that a recognition of the sole right of the colonies to tax themselves was essential to their freedom, and as soon as it became evident that Parliament was resolved at all hazards to assert and exercise its authority of taxing America, he no longer hesitated. An interesting letter to his wife, however, shows clearly that he accepted the proffered command of the American forces with extreme diffidence and reluctance, and solely because he believed that it was impossible for him honorably to refuse it. He declined to accept from Congress any emoluments for his service beyond the simple payment of his expenses, of which he was accustomed to draw up most exact and methodical accounts.
MIRABEAU.
By THOMAS CARLYLE.
[Count Gabriel Honoré Riquetti, born 1749, died 1791; distinguished as statesman and orator in the days preceding the French Revolution. The heir of a noble name, his early life was one of wild excess and eccentric adventure, but already marked by the intellectual daring and brilliancy which afterward made his name famous. In 1789 he was elected to the States-General from Aix as representative, however, of the Third Estate (the Commons), not of the nobility to which he belonged. Already strongly infected by liberal theories, his energy, intellectual power and eloquence soon made him the foremost figure in the great legislative body. At first antagonistic to royal pretension, he finally recognized the dangers of the coming revolution at an early stage, and attempted to stem the current. His efforts to reconcile clashing interests from 1789 to 1791 were characterized by the most splendid powers of the orator and statesman. His premature death removed the only barrier to the rising revolutionary tide. He was the idol of the populace, and it is believed by many historians that, had he lived, the French Revolution would have flowed in a different channel.]
Which of these six hundred individuals, in plain white cravat, that have come up to regenerate France, might one guess would become their king? For a king or leader they, as all bodies of men, must have; be their work what it may, there is one man there who, by character, faculty, position, is fittest of all to do it; that man, as future not yet elected king, walks there among the rest. He with the thick black locks, will it be? With the hure, as himself calls it, or black boar’s-head, fit to be “shaken” as a senatorial portent? Through whose shaggy beetle-brows, and rough-hewed, seamed, carbuncled face, there look natural ugliness, small-pox, incontinence, bankruptcy—and burning fire of genius; like comet-fire glaring fuliginous through murkiest confusions? It is Gabriel Honoré Riquetti Mirabeau, the world-compeller; man-ruling deputy of Aix! According to the Baroness de Staël, he steps proudly along, though looked at askance here; and shakes his black chevelure, or lion’s-mane, as if prophetic of great deeds.
Yes, reader, that is the type-Frenchman of this epoch; as Voltaire was of the last. He is French in his aspirations, acquisitions, in his virtues, in his vices; perhaps more French than any other man—and intrinsically such a mass of manhood too. Mark him well. The National Assembly were all different without that one; nay, he might say with the old despot: “The National Assembly? I am that.”
Of a southern climate, of wild southern blood; for the Riquettis, or Arrighettis, had to fly from Florence and the Guelfs, long centuries ago, and settled in Provence, where from generation to generation they have ever approved themselves a peculiar kindred; irascible, indomitable, sharp-cutting, true, like the steel they wore; of an intensity and activity that sometimes verged toward madness, yet did not reach it. One ancient Riquetti, in mad fulfillment of a mad vow, chains two mountains together; and the chain, with its “iron star of five rays,” is still to be seen. May not a modern Riquetti unchain so much, and set it drifting—which also shall be seen?
Destiny has work for that swart burly-headed Mirabeau; Destiny has watched over him, prepared him from afar. Did not his grandfather, stout Col-d’Argent (Silver-Stock, so they named him), shattered and slashed by seven-and-twenty wounds in one fell day, lie sunk together on the bridge at Casano; while Prince Eugene’s cavalry galloped and regalloped over him—only the flying sergeant had thrown a camp-kettle over that loved head; and Vendôme, dropping his spy-glass, moaned out, “Mirabeau is dead, then!” Nevertheless he was not dead: he awoke to breath, and miraculous surgery—for Gabriel was yet to be. With his silver-stock he kept his scarred head erect, through long years; and wedded; and produced tough Marquis Victor, the Friend of Men. Whereby at last in the appointed year, 1749, this long-expected rough-hewed Gabriel Honoré did likewise see the light; roughest lion’s whelp ever littered of that rough breed. How the old lion (for our old marquis too was lion-like, most unconquerable, kingly-genial, most perverse) gazed wondering on his offspring; and determined to train him as no lion had yet been! It is in vain, oh Marquis! This cub, though thou slay him and flay him, will not learn to draw in dogcart of political economy, and be a Friend of Men; he will not be thou, but must and will be himself, another than thou. Divorce lawsuits, “whole family save one in prison, and three-score Lettres-de-Cachet” for thy own sole use, do but astonish the world.
Our luckless Gabriel, sinned against and sinning, has been in the Isle of Rhé and heard the Atlantic from his tower; in the castle of If, and heard the Mediterranean at Marseilles. He has been in the fortress of Joux, and forty-two months, with hardly clothing to his back, in the dungeon of Vincennes—all by Lettre-de-Cachet from his lion father. He has been in Pontarlier jails (self-constituted prisoner); was noticed fording estuaries of the sea (at low water), in flight from the face of men. He has pleaded before Aix parliaments (to get back his wife); the public gathering on roofs, to see since they could not hear; “the clatter-teeth (claque-dents)!” snarls singular old Mirabeau, discerning in such admired forensic eloquence nothing but two clattering jaw-bones, and a head vacant, sonorous, of the drum species.
But as for Gabriel Honoré, in these strange wayfarings, what has he not seen and tried! From drill-sergeants to prime-ministers, to foreign and domestic booksellers, all manner of men he has seen. All manner of men he has gained; for, at bottom, it is a social, loving heart, that wild, unconquerable one—more especially all manner of women. From the archer’s daughter at Saintes to that fair young Sophie Madame Monnier, whom he could not but “steal,” and be beheaded for—in effigy! For, indeed, hardly since the Arabian prophet lay dead to Ali’s admiration was there seen such a love-hero, with the strength of thirty men. In war, again, he has helped to conquer Corsica; fought duels, irregular brawls; horsewhipped calumnious barons. In literature, he has written on “Despotism,” on “Lettres-de-Cachet”; Erotics Sapphic-Werterean, Obscenities, Profanities; books on the “Prussian Monarchy,” on “Cagliostro,” on “Calonne,” on “The Water-Companies of Paris”—each book comparable, we will say, to a bituminous alarm-fire; huge, smoky, sudden! The fire-pan, the kindling, the bitumen were his own; but the lumber, of rags, old wood and nameless combustible rubbish (for all is fuel to him), was gathered from hucksters and ass-panniers of every description under heaven. Whereby, indeed, hucksters enough have been heard to exclaim: Out upon it, the fire is mine!