Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-09-17


auaintance and Subsequent Intimacy.
A contributor to the New York Ildepend-
ent gives this account of recent visit to
the Fort de Joux, and of Sophie and Mira
beau:
Mirabeau arrived at Fort Joux on the 25th
of May, 1775, from the Chateau DIFF where
he had been detained, upon the application
of his father, ten months. He was already
twenty-six wears old, and for the ten pre-
vious years had been the victim of astrange
unrelenting persecution from the samequar-
ter. He seems to have been a frequent
guest at the apartment of M. st. Mauris, the
commandant of the fort, and at the more
aristocratic houses in the town. He was
not long in forming tender relations of
one sort and another in the neighbOrhood,
but the most serious in all its consequences
had its origin within the chateau, and at the
table of the commandant himself Among
the guests whom he met there one day at
dinner, was Madame de Monnier, daughter
of the President of Accounts of Burgundy,
who had been sacrifced-her parents called
it marriage-in her seventeenth year to the
Marquis de Monnier, First President
of the Chamber of Accounts of Dole,
and more than sixty years ofage. Buff
fon, the famous naturalist, had been
a suitor for the hand of this lady when
she was Mile. de Ruffy but she did not en-
tertain his proposals. He was forty-seYen
years her senior, and when he addressed her
was rapidly attaining that eminence which
enabled him to place his wife on q level
socially with the FIRST ladies in Europe. She
went farther, however, as the world would
say, and Jared worse.
When she met Mirabeau at this dinner at
the chateau, she was but twenty-one. She
was wearied to death with her husband, who
had married her more to pique daughter
| who had taken husband against her will,
| than from need of wife, or from affection
| for his bride. She was not likely, there
fore, to be Indifferent to the attentions of O
young man of noble family, and so subduing
in all his ways as Mirabeau. Nor was the
prisoner himself any less susceptible. The
| man who came out of the prison at Vim.
cennes more feshy and taller after forty-twC
months imprisonment than when he entered
it, whose hair was SO charged with cleo
tricity that his physicician consulted it a:
he would tho pulse of an ordinary person
and whose notions of duty, like his politics
| were revolutionary, was not long in finding
| where, at the commandants table on thai
occasion, his attentions were likely to bt
best rewarded. Madame de Monnier charm
are conceded to have been of no ordinar,
character. According to her lovers state
ment,! she had the nose of Roxelana
slightly retTousSe, without, however, an
acerbity of expression. Her eyes were sof
fascinating, and modest. She had blacl
hair. Tenderness and sweetness Breathe
through every thing she did, with an air o
ingenousness. She was naive, gay, and sen
sble; frolicsome as child. But whe
touched with passion, she acquired tn
courage, resolution, and fortitude of
heroine. "If had not found in her
Venus" Mirabeau wrote on one occasion, q
should have taken her for a juno"
The acquaintance thus commenced SCENE
I to have progressed so rapidly before the dir
ner was over as to alarm st. Mauris, who
though nearly as old and ugly as de Nor
nier, was himself not without some prefer
) sions to the unoccupied heart of the Ma
chioness, and the consequence was that !
, refused her personal application made on I'll
spot, to permit Mirabeau to go to Pontarlit
.. the following day. Not long after, howeve
: they encountered each other in the street
, | Pontarlier, and made an appointment
! meet at .fete chdmpetre, to be given coup
! of miles distant the next day, at which
had permission to assist. The decided pr
! ference shown for his prisoner on this occ
sion by Sophie" for that is the name
. which she is known to history, led the cor
: mandant to put restrictions upon MirabeaT
! visits to the town, but the .fetes for the CO
: secration of Louis XVI were at hand, al
e the commandant, for the qualification of b
u vanity, wanted Mirabeau to be the witne
e and historiograpker of the occasion. I'll
l. brought the lovers together for the four
J time. Mirabeau was witness of the col
y mandant's glory, and wrote pamphl
!, about it, which is still in existence sol
Il where.
% 70 The acquaintance for the next six or eig
months grew more and more intimate, un
finally St. Mauris gave orders again for
10 prisoners close confinement, upon the pl
text that he had been contracting new deb
,e one of the pretended causes of his origin
; | imprisonment, .E.