Honoré Mirabeau

Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, (often referred to simply as Mirabeau) (March 9, 1749 - April 2, 1791) was a French writer, popular orator and statesman. During the French Revolution, he was a moderate, favored a constitutional monarchy built on the model of Great Britain, and conducted secret negotiations with the king in order to reconcile the monarchy and the revolution--an effort that failed.

Collaborators

His first literary work, except the bombastic but eloquent Essai sur le despotisme (Neufchâtel, 1775), was a translation of Robert Watson's Philip II, done in Holland with the help of Durival; his Considerations sur l'ordre de Cincinnatus (London, 1788) was based on a pamphlet by Aedanus Burke (1743-1802), of South Carolina, who opposed the aristocratic tendencies of the Society of the Cincinnati, and the notes to it were by Target; his financial writings were suggested by the Genevese exile, Clavière.

Related Topics:
Aedanus Burke - South Carolina - Clavière

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During the Revolution he received yet more help; men were proud to labour for him, and did not murmur because he absorbed all the credit and fame. Étienne Dumont, Clavière, Antoine Adrien Lamourette and Étienne Salonion Reybaz were but a few of the most distinguished of his collaborators. Dumont was a Genevese exile, and an old friend of Romilly's, who willingly prepared for him those famous addresses which Mirabeau used to make the Assembly, pass by sudden bursts of eloquent declamation; Clavière helped him in finance, and not only worked out his figures, but even wrote his financial discourses; Lamourette wrote the speeches, on the Civil Constitution of the Clergy; Reybaz not only wrote for him his famous speeches on the assignats, the organization of the national guard, and others, which Mirabeau read word for word at the tribune, but even the posthumous speech on succession to the estates of intestates, which Talleyrand read in the Assembly as the last work of his dead friend.

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As an orator his eloquence has been likened to that of both Bossuet and Vergniaud, but it had neither the polish of the old 17th century bishop nor the flashes of genius of the young Girondin. It was rather parliamentary oratory in which he excelled, and his true compeers are Edmund Burke and Guy Fox rather than any French speakers. Personally he had that which is the truest mark of nobility of mind, a power of attracting love and winning faithful friends.

Related Topics:
Bossuet - Edmund Burke - Guy Fox

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