impossibility of effecting any good or coming to terms in any manner of
way of the revolutionary leaders with such a Court. That we also had long
suspected Mirabeau of being what he was now proved to have been--a man
who, imbued though he was with the spirit of revolutionary action and the
conviction of the rightfulness of demanding prodigious changes, yet who
would willingly have directed the monarch in a method of warding off the
terrible consequences of the storm, and who would, if the Court had
confided to his hands the task of conciliating the popular feelings, have
perhaps preserved the forms of monarchy while affording the requisite
concessions to the national demands. But the Court was so steeped in the
old sentiment of divine right, and moreover so distrustful of Mirabeau's
honour and sagacity (the more so as he was insatiable in his pecuniary
requisitions), that they would never place their cause frankly in his
hands, nor indeed in anyone else's who was capable of discerning their
best interests. Lafayette was regarded as an enemy almost (and was
'jaloused' by Mirabeau as being so popular) on account of his popular
sympathies. De Tocqueville said that so diffused was the spirit of
revolution at the period preceding the convocation of the États-généraux,
that the elder Mirabeau, who was a very clever and original-minded man,
though strongly tinctured with the old feudal prejudices, nevertheless
let the fact be seen in the clearest manner in his own writings. He wrote
many tracts on public topics, and De Tocqueville says that the tone in
which Mirabeau (_père_) handles these proves that he was perfectly
cognisant of the universal spread of revolutionary opinions, and even in
some degree influenced by them in his own person. Mirabeau (the son) was
so aware of the absolute necessity of proclaiming himself emancipated
from the old feudalities, that, among other extravagances of his conduct,
he started as a shopkeeper at Marseilles for some time, by way of
fraternizing with the _bourgeoisie; affichéing_ his liberalism. De
Tocqueville quoted Napoleon as saying in one of his conversations at St.