A STENTOR OF POLITICS

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22135, 3 July 1937, Page 17

A STENTOR OF POLITICS

SOME OF THE LIFE OF MIRABEAU

Mirabcau, Lover and Statesman. By Pierre Nezelof. Robert Hale. SaS pp. (123 6d net.)

There is much more love than statesmanship in this biography, as indeed there was in the life of its subject. It is not a good biography. despite the detailed knowledge of its writer, his zeal, and his thoroughness. Faults of emphasis make it hard to form any conception of Mirabeau's real character. For instance, the episode of Mirabeau .s mission to Berlin is very scantily reported, and little stress is given to the effect on his political enthusiasm of the exile imposed upon him after he had published the private reports of his researches in Prus. ia. Similarly, there is but a scanty account of Mirabeau's literary life in Holland, where he was trying to escape justice. Somewhat clearer information is given about his residence in England, and the effect upon him of his studies in the land of the free Here Mirabeau realised with amazed conviction that it was possible for government to allow subjects more freedom to speak and write thenthoughts than he had known. Gcnerallv, however, M. Nezelof's biography does not make plain or even plausible any reason why, after 40 years of licence and dissipation (Mirabeau's waywardness began in 'the cradle), this roistering wild man should first have had the impulse to serve the people, and then the persistence to become th? "Hercules of Revolution," and to win such affection that when he fell i 1 the theatres of Paris were closed and Talleyrand could tell him that half Paris was encamped outside his house and that the other half came to inquire about him three times a day. So disturbing was his death that at the post-mortem (which wa.-. not necessary) 54 physicians and surgeons took part in the operation to prove that death was natural. Mirabeau, it seems, became a popular leader almost by chance. MNezelof does not stress the chain of events. No human being had greater reason to resent and try to abolish the system of lettres de cachet. For 15 years his father kept him in and out of prison or in exile by procuring these warrants of arrest. Mirabeau may easily have determined, for reasons of self and of principle, to attack a system which used lettres de cachet. Then at the famous trial of Aix, he learnt the power of his oratory. Before this he had used his impressive voice and persuasive words to save himself trouble or to win a mistress; but at Aix he discovered that he could sway a multitude. The chance soon came.

Chance indeed it was, for when the States-General were convened. Mirabeau was rejected as a representative of the nobility and was promptly elected as people's deputy for Aix. He knew his power.,-. On his deathbed he said that if he had lived, he thought that he could have given Pitt some troub'e. But in xvie bare two years oi political life he left a name at which his own world was*beginning to turn pale. It is said that, if he had lived, he might have averted the Reign of Terror. This seems unlikely. Mirabeau had neither the passion nor the persistence of Robespierre, he was never really tested by the sternest events as Robespierre was. and even if his power of the people of Paris had proved to be greater than Robespierre's, the forces that frustrated Robespierre and dragged him down would have made short work of the impetuous Mirabeau. Certainly Mirabeau wou'd have tried to restrain extremists; he tried to hold the balance even between the people and the Court, he wished to remodel the monarchy on English lines, and his robust and hearty character would always have reduced bitterness.

This political narrative is disappointingly presented by M. Nezelof. His aim appears to have been to write a sensational, exciting, and romantic, story. He has succeeded; but the full account of each of Mirabeau's love affairs becomes wearisome, and the story of his extravagances and frolics needs no such elaboration as it receives here. Described in this way, Mirabeau is like a hero of a novel by Restif de la Bretonne. Of this picaresaue biography, the most interesting portion describes Mirabeau's imprisonment at Vincennes, where he spent three years in reasonable comfort but in more or less dubious pastimes. His encounter with the Marquis de Sade in the was, considering the proclivities of the two eminent men, one of the strangest conjunctures of eccentricity ever recorded. Those who like their biography highly seasoned and abounding in graphic reconstructions may enjoy this life; those who know little of Mirabeau will find this life almost incomprehensible: the academically minded will deplore it. Here and there it is good fun.

RUNAWAY

Royals Free. 'By Eleanor Mordaunt. Michael Joseph Ltd. 3G6 pp. Through Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd.

In simple outline, (his is the story of a bold-hearted boy who ran away from a gloomy home to sea and of his adventures and maturing along the ways of the ocean. When Jimmy came to marry—and looked vainly through old Captain Burton's New Testament for the marriage service —and then to instruct his son, he handed on his doctrine: "Carry on. son, all sail set—royals free, royals free, studding sails cloft by, royals free." The spirit of it invigorates Mrs Mordaunt's book, which was the "Daily Mail" choice for March.