Washington sentinel. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1853-1855, 1854-01-21
foreian MisteIlang.
LOVE AEFAIRs OF MIRABEAU.


de Monnier still retained him. Information Of
his residence at Pontarlier and of his inter
views with Sophie spread through the province.
The family of De Ruffey, to remove Madame
de Monnier from the place, summoned her to
Dion. Mirabeau followed her thither in secret.
Their intercourse being suspected, they were
watched and discovered. Mirabeau was ar
rested by the kings order, and shut up in the
castle of Dijon while Sophie returned to her
husband at Pontarlier
The irresistible seduction of Mirabeau was
exercised at Dion, as at Joux, and at the
Chateau DIFF on those who guarded him. M.
de Montherot, commandant of the Castle OF
Diion, could not prevent his military and COM
passionate heart from loving pitying, and SER
wing, the young man. He forwarded without
scraple the correspondence Of Mirabeau with
Madame de Monnier, his family, and the min
listers; he wrote himself 10 M. de Malesherbes
and to the minister of war, for the pardon of
his prisoner, and to solicit his liberation. He
even allowed him to go at liberty, on his parole,
in Dion. Mirabeau availed himself of this door,
which M. de Montherot Intentionally opened
for him, to fly into Switzerland. He drew nigh
to Sophie, concealing himself at Verriere, a
hamlet of the Swiss mountains, in the vicinity
Pontarlier.
On the news Of this fight, the families of De
Ruffey and Monnier kept Sophie in strict do
mestic captivity at Pontarlier, but despair and
love enabled her to find accomplices amongst
her servants to aid her in corresponding with
Mirabeau. She conjured him to permit her to
sacrifice everything to their reunion. During
the night she scaled the walls of NJ. De Mon
nier's garden and, in the dress of man,
guarded only BY a single guide, she clambered
over the mountains which separate Pontarlier
from Switzerland, crossed the frontiers, and
Joined Mirabeau at Verriere there they con-
cealed for q while their name and their fault
from the researches of their two families They
deluded themselves with solitude and with
dreams but, neither the one nor the other had
brought with them the necessary means OF ex-
istence.
Switzerland offered neither safety nor literary
labor for Mirabean, and indigence drove them
to Holland Mirabeau, as yet unknown to
fame, or only known by the scandal of his youth,
nobly sought work from the rich booksellers of
Holland, to whom the freedom of thinking
gave, at this period, a monopoly of political and
philosophical publications. Rebuffed in the
first instance, he persevered till he procured
the publications of his Essay on Despotism" !"
He iabored day and night upon all subjects to
preserve Sophie from want; he even prostituted
his pen to those licentious libels with which
the venal presses Of Holland at that time in
fected Europe. He earned his bread at the
price of his modesty, and contrived, by dint Of
his lucubrations and the servility of a hired
writer, to live in laborious mediocrity at Am
sterdam, under the name Of st. Matthew.
He was at length informed of the birth Of his
daughter in the prison of Mad. de Monnier,
but he was refused a sight of her. !" could
destroy everything he wrote through mys-
terious channel to his mother: ~ revolt against
the whole universe. could wish this moment
to make you holocaust Of everything that is
neither you nor me-; but very different from
Jephtha | should make an exception OF my
daughter" This fruit of despair did not sur
yiye. The first rigors of Mirabeau's prison
were at length softened, not by paternal indul-
gence but by the interest which his letters, full
of the despairing eloquence of the suppliant,
excited in M. Lenoir, the manager of the pri-
son, and in M. Bonchier the intermedium be-
tween the prisoner and the government. He
was allowed books, papers, study, and even
correspondence with Sophie, unknown to the
two families Their letters, which multiplied
with the hours as they flew, and were as inde-
fatigable as hope, as burning as memory, as
heartrending as the cry Of the victim on the
scaffold, nourished with delirium during two
wears of solitude the famished soul of the pri-
soner. This correspondence is the longest cry
of grief, of passion, and sometimes of genius,
that ever issued from the heart of man.
Wearied, broken down by solitude, he de-
scended to unworthy lapses of character to OBJ
tain his liberty. He wrote obscene books, to
purchase, by this infamous resource, some re-
lief to the misery and destitution of Sophie.
He lent his eloquence anonymously to his mo-
ther, in the judicial writings she published for
her defence against his father; q species of
mental parricide which no resentment could
excuse, and which he himself did not attempt
to paliate when his conscience regained its
proper tone. He debased himself to his father
by supplications and hollow adnlation that be-
lied his sentiments and his honor. He nego-
tiated, without her participation, for the aban-
donment and banishment of Sophie, who had
sacrificed herself for him at the price of her lib
erty. He Aattered the ikings and dislikings of
his father to redeem his favor at an unworthy
price, and by dint of these unworthy conces-
sions of feeling and character he at length OBJ
tanned his liberty.
Three years captivity had subdued him, but
had rather perverted than improved his dispo-
sition. He was scarcely out of prison when
he had to defend himself on the capital charge
for rape, brought against him by the Monnier
family, and to procure reversal of the penalty
Of death to which the parliament Of Basancon
lies of De Ruffey and De Monnier with the
fame of his name, the power of his talent, and
the scandal of his revelations; and he finally
obtained, by the force of his threats, compro-
mise, which saved his head, but left q stain on
his probity. He stipulated, however, before
everything, for the freedom and independent
existence of Sophie; but though still suffering
under the disgrace of his adulterous passion,
he endeavored by another lawsuit to constrain
his outraged wfe-so much did he covet her
fortune-to resume his name, and return to the
conjugal root. He went to Provence to plead
this cause himself; there, alternately hostile
and caressng, he confounded the family Of De
Marignan by his legal proceedings, and even
went the length of revealing to the world the
secrets Of his domestic intercourse, and of cast
ing the slur of dishonor upon his wife, The
court gave Judgment against him, and rescued
from him wife whom he himself had branded
with shame, even while he summoned her back
to his arms.