Some biographers ascribe the phrase to the viscount, comparing himself humbly with the other members of the family.
The ground-work of Mirabeau's opinions was monarchical; he once uttered these fine words:
"I have tried to cure the French of the superstition of monarchy and to substitute its cult."
In a letter intended to be laid before Louis XVI. he wrote:
"I should not like to have worked only for a vast destruction." This, nevertheless, is what happened to him: Heaven, to punish us for making a bad use of our talents, gives us occasion to repent of our successes.
Mirabeau's power.
Mirabeau moved public opinion with two levers: on the one side, he placed his fulcrum in the masses, of whom he had constituted himself the defender, while despising them; on the other, although he was a traitor to his order, he retained its sympathy through caste affinity and common interest. This would not happen to a plebeian who should become the champion of the privileged classes: he would be abandoned by his own party, without winning over the aristocracy, which is naturally ungrateful and not to be won by those not born within its ranks. The aristocracy, moreover, is not able to make a noble without notice, since nobility is the daughter of time.
Mirabeau created a school. Men imagined that by shaking off the moral shackles they were turning themselves into statesmen. These imitations produced only petty miscreants: this one who flatters himself that he is corrupt and a robber is only debauched and a cheat; that other who thinks himself vicious is only vile; a third who boasts of being a criminal is merely infamous.