miraculous faculty of appropriating whatever he heard. He paid the
greatest attention to his dress, and wore an enormous quantity of hair
dressed in the fashion of the day. "When I shake my terrible locks,"
said he, "no one dares interrupt me." Though he received pensions, he
was too proud to be dishonest, in the ordinary sense. He received large
sums, but died insolvent. He had, like most Frenchmen, an inordinate
vanity, and loved incense from all ranks and conditions. Although he was
the first to support the Assembly against the King, he was essentially
in favor of monarchy, and maintained the necessity of the absolute veto.
He would have given a constitution to his country as nearly resembling
that of England as local circumstances would permit. Had he lived, the
destinies of France might have been different.

But his death gave courage to all the factions, and violence and crime
were consummated by the Reign of Terror. With the death of Mirabeau,
closed the first epoch of the Revolution. Thus far it had been earnest,
but unscrupulous in the violation of rights and in the destruction of
ancient abuses. Yet if inexperienced and rash, it was not marked by
deeds of blood. In this first form it was marked by enthusiasm and hope
and patriotic zeal; not, as afterwards, by fears and cruelty and
usurpations.

Henceforth, the Revolution took another turn. It was directed, not by
men of genius, not by reformers seeking to rule by wisdom, but by
demagogues and Jacobin clubs, and the mobs of the city of Paris. What
was called the "Left," in the meetings of the Assembly,--made up of
fanatics whom Mirabeau despised and detested,--gained a complete
ascendency and adopted the extremest measures. Under their guidance, the
destruction of the monarchy was complete. Feudalism and the Church
property had been swept away, and the royal authority now received its