he said, "to consecrate my life to their weal-it is sweet to end it in their service!"

Towards the evening of Wednesday, all his pains lessened, except the difficulty of breathing ; but at midnight he was visited by a return of the old symptoms. A delicate consideration, which formed one of his best traits, prevented him through the night's sufferings from disturbing Cabanis, who was asleep in another room, and who, descending some hours later, found his patient half suffocated, writhing in spasmodic agony, and showing all the phenomena which, while presaging a day of torture and peril, stamped in the visage the obvious and immovable impress of death's possessionship. A vigorous recourse to local depletion, with the use of musk in frequent doses for the spasms, caused, or at all events preceded, some mitigation of his symptoms, without, however, lessening his danger; and we are now brought to a new scene in the imposing tragedy.

itself to him as the happiness and immortality of a heaven, while the creed he confided in showed him in death at best but a grave. The conviction then, of his recovery, filled him with delight; and describing as sweet, doubly sweet, the feeling of owing life to a friend, he revelled in expressions of thankfulness and affection. They were, alas! of short duration; for on the Wednesday morning his paroxysms reäppeared with a violence which excluded more than the faintest hopes of recovery. Whatever the discussions of men, Mirabeau was felt by them all to be the soul of the revolution; and the report of his danger, spreading through Paris, carried concern, not to say consternation, to every house. After the worst news of Wednesday's relapse, a sort of common instinct filled the street with successive multitudes, who, barricading each end against vehicles, held it in almost military occupation till his death. They crowded the court of his house; filled the landingplace, and penetrated to the very antechamber, Mirabeau, who had consented to the rigid exmournful in their silence and respectful in their clusion of his friends, to give himself up more curiosity. Bulletins were each day frequently is- entirely to the resources of medicine, now had sued, seized by a thousand hands, and, with every them recalled, and, save for the occasional distracverbal announcement won in the intervals from tion of an illusive hope, addressed himself wholly visitors to the sick man's chamber, circulated as to the great business of dying, as he thought beby electricity through the capital. From every came his fame and position. The proximity of quarter, as by magic, sprung up ardent testimoni- death recalled him to his higher self, and with als of allegiance and affection, like those which that view clearly before it, his character stopped. posterity, in mingled accesses of ignorance and as it were, to draw about it all that it possessed gratitude, pay to the demigods of races, or the of elevated and imposing. To his older firmness founders of nations. Twelve hundred letters of a he added an exuberance of tenderness and affection varied sympathy passed into his house; and as an-to his former patience, a philosophical ease of indication of their affection, we are told, that one resignation and content. All his thoughts seemed of them pressed on the physician the then vaunted to be touched with the solemnity, if not the goodresource of transfusion, and offered, as a means, ness, of life's holiest epoch; and, as if even the blood "to the last drop," of the respecta- nature's great instinct for recovery gave way to ble writer. It became a law and bienseance for the absorbing effort of ambition's culminating all public bodies existing under the revolution, achievement, the whole energies of his being were formally to address their condolence or their in- concentrated in the work of resigning it with the quiries. The king sent twice a day, officially, composure, the courage, and the dignity of inteland more frequently in secret-the republicans lectual greatness. "It was a sublime spectacle," thanking God that he escaped the popularity of a says a spectator, "to witness the brilliant exercipersonal visit; and the Jacobins adopting the pop- tations of his commanding intellect, and the genular feeling they alone failed to share, in their eral equanimity of his deportment, the moment meeting of Wednesday, notwithstanding the op- after his severest paroxysms-he but assisted at position of Alexander Lameth and Petion, voted a his own dissolution!" It must be owned, howlarge deputation. Preceded by an immense mul- ever, that beneath the surface of his death-bed titude, the deputies, with Barnave at their head, greatness there was concealed an awful tribute to advanced from their celebrated hall to the house the weakness of all philosophy merely mortal. of their traitor chief. The vocabulary of patriotic Cabanis, the friend and physician, confesses that grief was exhausted in their messages, and as if he was pledged to expedite Mirabeau's death by there were reciprocal services in their relative sit- opium, the moment pain should become extreme, uations, Barnave, unexpectedly affectionate and and recovery lie beyond a hope. This secret obliging, was met with a greeting and emotion source of strength once touched, Mirabeau deequally warm from his illustrious rival. In the scends, as by magic, from his unchristian altitude. recalcitrant Jacobins, however, who courageously When the physician, alarmed at a responsibility declined to do honor to a hand they had seen to a which popular suspicion made fearful, timidly proroyalist conspiracy against the Assembly, the posed the admission of Drs. Jeanroi and Petit, the wounded vanity or alarmed susceptibilities of Mira- choler of the dying man became ungovernable. beau could discern no merit. "I know them for Reminding his friend of the pledge, he exclaimed, scoundrels," said he with bitterness; "but fools" Say or do what you like outside my room-I do I did not think them!" He found his consolation not hinder that-but they shall not enter here, if in the affection of the people-" "T was glorious," you would avoid receiving from me the last affront.

The Count de La Marck, a Belgian, better known by his subsequent title of Prince of Aremberg, had been the negotiator between Mirabeau and the court, and now assiduously watched for it

I wish to see nobody; and if I am to recover, you ments should be believed on his word, without shall have the glory, as you have had the incon- examination." He desired to be buried in the veniencies!" Vain was the affliction of Cabanis garden of his country-house, by the side of his -there was no escape-the patient was inflexi- father, and left M. de La Marck and M. Frochot ble. Two hours later Dr. Petit presented him- the executors of his will. self at the door, but was compelled to hold his consultation outside. Approving of all that had been done by Cabanis, he treated the disease with bark, as one of intermittent fever, with, of course, little advantage. On the next morning the pa--the great scene ir which the death of the tient, importuned into submission, admitted Dr. monarchy was enacting. With him was TalleyPetit, whom he addressed in words preserved for rand, who, as a joint supporter of the minister, us by Cabanis—“I am about to speak with frank- Calonne, in his day of power, was generally supness to the man who passes as most loving this posed to have separated from Mirabeau, on the tone. I always thought that a man should never furtive publication of the Berlin Correspondence, elect for physician any one but a friend. There but who, though in diplomatic alienation from is my physician-there my friend," (pointing to him in the Constituent Assembly, seems to have Cabanis ;)"but he is full of esteem for your in- preserved all through a mysterious identity of formation, and of respect for your moral character. political action. With the death-bed, however, He has cited to me expressions of yours, which dissolved all coldness, real or simulated, and the contain, in some sort, the whole revolution and invited Talleyrand, seizing his friend's hand, with circumstances which prove that, notwithstanding the characteristic assurance, "While one half of the uncommon cultivation of your intellect, you Paris are at your door en permanance, I have been have still remained the man of nature. I have, there thrice a-day with the other half, to offer my therefore, thought that such a man would have sympathies," met a cordial welcome from the become my friend, if I had had the happiness to dying statesman, who, presenting him a discourse have encountered him. Hence, sir, my determi-on wills, drawn up for him by a literary acquaintnation to see you!" ance, (Reybaz,) under his own instructions, we may suppose, said

The result of the consultation was not encouraging. Appealed to by the unexpired hope of the patient

"These are the last thoughts the world will receive from me! I make you the depository of "It is possible," replied the physician, "that this paper-you will read it when I shall be no we may save you; but I will not answer for it."more-it is my last legacy to the Assembly-it There was, indeed, no chance; for the pulse will be curious to hear a man who is no more was gone-death had already entered the icy declaring against wills, after just making his own." hands and arms, and Mirabeau, veiling under the Towards evening the report of cannon awoke guise of submission the curiosity Petit had not him from a doze. wholly extinguished, remarked interrogatively to Cabanis

"The doctor is severe, but I understand it." Turning to Petit, he continued, "Behold those who surround me-friends, they attend me like servants-he may well love and regret life who leaves behind him such riches."

"What!" cried he, starting up in his bed, "have they already commenced the funeral of Achilles?"

His valet supported his head, weary with watching and pain.

"Alas!" said the master, "t is the strongest

in France."

The rector of the parish offered his ministrations.

"Your superior, the Bishop of Autun, has been before you," was the reply; "he reserves to himself the honor of my conversion."

He now addressed himself to his will, a work which, on more than one account, was interesting to him. If about him were those he loved, there were others it was necessary for the king's repute, as well as his own, to serve; and as his debts were large, his immediate assets small, and the His stomach refused food. greater portion of his pecuniary claims on the "When the first functionary becomes worthless, king depended on contingencies which his death the business must soon end. You are a great annihilated, it was not till the Count de La Marck physician," continued he, to Cabanis, "but there had pledged the court to fulfil his testamentary is a greater than you the author of the wind, intentions, should his own property not suffice, that overthrows-of the water, that penetrates and that he entered on the details of the will. His fecundates all-of the fire, that vivifies and decomprincipal legatees were Madame Le Jay, the adul- poses all!" terous partner of his pleasures and literary speculations; the children of his sister, Madame de Saillant, and his confidential secretary, Comps, to whom he left 20,000 francs, with the singular codicil, "I wish that there should be no inquiry addressed to him as to the money he has received on all sides by a thousand importunities, to try or spent for me; my wish being, that his state- new empirical remedies.

Lamarck broke into tears.

"It is a touching spectacle," remarked Mirabeau, "to see a calm and unimpassioned man struggling with a sorrow he can no longer conceal !"' Cabanis related to him that he had been besieged

"Well, my poor Teisch," asked the master, seated—you here, and you there" (pointing to the "how is it with you to-day?"

He was assured that the most urgent instruc- thought himself poisoned, and, awakening in the tions had been sent to the doctors.

morning, found wounds about which he knew "Ah! the doctors!-the doctors!" he ex- nothing. He appealed for his character to the claimed in agony; and turning to Cabanis, confidence of Mirabeau, who "allowed him to "Were you not my doctor and my friend? and possess valuable secrets, which people feared he did you not promise to spare me the pains of would one day divulge.' At a second interrogasuch a death? Must I carry with me the regret tory, he pretended that his head had been turned of having confided in you?" from a number of domestic circumstances, which, Dr. Petit entered, and Mirabeau became addi-inducing him to fancy that he and his master tionally anxious about the opium.

"Swear to me," said he eagerly to Cabanis, "that you will not tell Petit what you are preparing for me!" These were the last words of the great orator.

The draught painfully expected came at last. He snatched the vessel, and drinking it off, turned on his right side with a convulsive movement, raised his eyes towards heaven, and died!

It was Saturday, January 2, 1791, about halfpast eight, A. M., in the forty-second year of his

age.

were poisoned, made him adopt the idea of suicide. Fourteen days later, he recalled all he had previously affirmed, especially his insinuations against the friends of his master, and took the nobler ground, that he stabbed himself in affliction for the death of so exalted a master.

Three facts remain, which offer the only additional clue out of the labyrinth. First, Comps, at the time of the decease, had in his possession thirty-eight thousand francs, money confided to him by the court for his master. Secondly, Petion and Camille Demoulins, the Jacobin leaders, had seen in the handwriting of Mirabeau his elaborate plan for annihilating the National Assembly. Thirdly, it seems not very unlikely that

While the dying man was thus vainly wrestling to be even with the high business he had on hand, there was enacting in the other parts of his house a curious and agitating scene, almost realiz-though there were natural causes to produce death, ing those figments of assassination that had occupied his morning dream. The valet, sent, as we have seen, for the collection of Mirabeau's secret papers, was refused admittance to the room of the secretary, who, locking himself in, asseverated that the key of the secretaire was not there, and that the valet should not be admitted. On a threat of bursting open the door, Comps was heard to fall heavily on the floor, and on forcing a way into the room, he was seen covered with blood flowing from some small wounds in the breast and throat-by his side lying the cause-a penknife, smeared with blood. To the questions of the affrighted household, Comps answered nothing, save that, "for one crime more it was hardly worth while!" Persisting still not to give up the key, he at first pretended that it was locked in his own secretaire, the key of which he had oroken, but when told that a locksmith should be sent for, he recollected that, although he had the key, he could not give it up till De La Marck's arrival, before which, however, it was found hidden under the ashes in his grate.

that Mirabeau had yet not escaped poison. Are
we, then, to infer, that Comps, with the posses-
sion of his master's money and political secrets,
communicated with the all-active Jacobins?-that
his cupidity was excited by the possession of
treasures, or his perfidy compromised by the
retention of documents?-if not, where is the
explanation of his vague charges of poison, his
pretences at madness, and his preference of all
expedients, even to suicide, to the exposure of the
secretaire? We know of none, save in the
hypothesis that the secretary, bewildered, was
obeying the private orders of De La Marck, who
anxiously secured Mirabeau's papers for the court
the very instant he had died.
And that same
instant the news passed from the dead man's room
to the multitude, and thence through Paris.
Forthwith the shops were shut, the theatres
closed, commerce stood still, the business of life
stagnated in every channel, and a cloud of mingled
incertitude and consternation settled in every face,
as if the spirit of the coming carnage, born out
of the very dissolution of genius, had already
thrown its mighty shadow athwart the soul of
society.

There was here a mystery nobody could fathom. Comps had been for years in the service of Mirabeau; and no small part of his recommendation The Jacobin Club, early mirroring the movewas the supposed attachment which, already evi- ment its leaders could not control, at once decreed denced by two duels, made him ever ready to risk to attend the funeral, to mourn eight days, to his life in the defence of his master. Had he honor the anniversary, and to have his bust. The sold some valuable documents of Mirabeau? representatives of the nation, in their early sitThis was the opinion of De La Marck and the ting, heard the event with the incredulity of its court. Had he compromised himself in some greatness, and cries often repeated, "Ah, he is attempt against his master's health? This was dead!" Barrere, ascending the tribune, in a the suspicion of the public. Inquiry was de- brief speech, in which oratory was lost in emomanded, and the rumor spreading to the surround- tion, moved the solemn register of their regret, ing crowd, the officers of justice entered on an and proposed their attendance by deputation at the inquiry shortly after the break of day. The evi- ! funeral. The deputies, anticipating the sentidence of Comps only added by its contradictions ment, received it with the universal cry, "We and falsehoods to the imbroglio. At first, he had will all go!" The next day they received the

sectional authorities of Paris, proposing the en- brought in sight Lafayette, the commander-intombment of Mirabeau under the altar of the chief of the National Guards, surrounded and country, in the Champs de Mars; and after them followed by a brilliant staff. After these came a numerous deputation of the administrators of the the fine corps of Swiss soldiers and Prevotal department, who, through their president, the Guards; and then, in solemn order, the imposing well-known Pastoret, urged the more welcome procession of the clergy, distinguished by their proposition, that the new church of St. Genevieve time-honored canonicals, and heralding the corpse, should, in honor of Mirabeau, be converted into crowned by the flags of the nation and borne by a Pantheon. The suggestion was classical; as the brothers-in-arms of the illustrious deceased. much in harmony with the opinions of the time, Following the coffin and its magnificent catafalque, as with the emotions of the hour; it was hailed by acclamation, and even the envious Robespierre was for it, "if constitutional, with all his power, or rather with all his sensibility !"

marched the thousand representatives of the nation, escorted by contrasting battalions of military students and armed veterans, followed in compact and serried masses by the numerous body While national gratitude was thus energetic, of Parisian electors, the deputies of the forty-eight popular suspicion was gratified by a public sections, the municipal officers of the metropolis autopsy, which, scarcely satisfactory then, has and neighboring towns, the ministers of the king, become less so since. The doctors found traces the members of the clubs and patriotic associaof inflammation in the stomach, whose lining tions, closed up by interminable masses of infantry membrane showed distinct excoriation in the duo- and cavalry in one word, two hundred thousand denum, a great part of the liver, the right kidney, persons in movement, in the congenial gloom of the diaphragm, and, finally, in the pericardium, advancing night, and amid a silence broken at which also contained a considerable quantity of a intervals by the sad knell of the ancient belfries, thick, yellowish, opaque matter. In the cavity the dismal thunder of the minute guns, and luguof the chest was found some watery fluid, and brious dirges of military bands, to which the innearly the whole external surface of the heart ventions of French musical genius had lent for was covered with coagulated lymph. It was the hour a potent melancholy in painful keeping thence officially inferred, under the attestation of with the national sense of bereavement. ninety signatures, (and science recognizes its justice,) that there was sufficient cause for death in the phenomena observed in the heart, pericardium, and diaphragm. Vicq D'Azyr, the queen's physician, who was present at the examination, expressed to the court his opinion, that the symptoms were compatible with the agency either of poison or violent remedies, a judgment which the ineffective character of the treatment makes suggestive of suspicion. The temper of the people, however, made the proof of poison, if unspecific to the criminal, dangerous to many. There was unfortunately no chemical analysis, and hence some countenance is lent to the statements of an authority on other occasions certainly doubtful,* that several persons,. some of them physicians, who were present at the autopsy, saw and suppressed through policy palpable proofs of the action of poison.

Such was the imposing spectacle, beyond all Greek or Roman precedent, which, after three hours' duration, witnessed the transferral of all that remained of Mirabeau to the solemn offices of a church which, consummating its degrading fall, now lent. its crowning sanction to the apotheosis of its great antagonist. The prostitution of the mass ended, and the decent impieties of the funeral oration, more than thirty thousand muskets echoed and reëchoed through the vaulted pile over the celebrated ashes, which as the mighty multitude in solemn silence laid by those of Descartes, the clock struck midnight! It was indeed the midnight of France! While the nation, anxious and uncertain of the future, falling with the fall of its mighty tribune, its frail security crumbling to dust in the impending hour of peril and crisis, consoled its despair in every conceivable form of popular idolatry-public votes, street harangues, newspaper elegies, hawkers' ballads, and universal homage-the higher and more violent Jacobins, who had ascertained his projects and feared his energies, made small concealment of their gladness. "Achilles dead," cried the earnest Robespierre ; "then Troy shall not be taken!"—" Why did he not join to Cicero's eloquence Cicero's in

The funeral which followed next day, swelling almost to the proportions of the national regret, gave to the dead the honors of Rome's most gorgeous triumphs to the living. Towards the shades of evening, through streets lined for three miles with double tiers of National Guards, backed and surrounded wherever the eye could reach by a decorous and sympathizing population, the specta- corruptibility ?" triumphantly asked "the orator tor witnessed the passage of a stupendous proces- of the people," Freron." People!" screamed out sion-the living body and moving mass of the the fanatical Marat, "render thanks to the gods! nation. Troops of cavalry marshalled in slow your greatest enemy is no more! He has died order; successive brigades of sappers, miners, the victim of his numerous treasons. Stained by and artillerymen, flanked by the mutilated veterans a thousand crimes, let his character be covered by of the old French wars, marching by, at last a dark veil!"

*The "fils adoptif"-M. Lucas Montigny, the editor of the "Memoirs of Mirabeau, written by himself, his father, and his Adopted Son."

Vile faction! well may they exult! The hand that held them in check is forever removed, and their vulture instincts already scent the cherished