tion the most noble calm, and the sweetest smile upon that face, which seems enwrapped in a living sleep, and occupied with an agreeable dream."

So closes the most wonderful death-bed scene whereof we yet have annals: we called it wonderful; and not beautiful, and yet we would not have had it otherwise, for it is altogether in keeping with the man, and completes the character. A Christian's death had assuredly been more affecting, more beautiful, and less remarkable: but this stands out isolated; unlike any other, and must for many generations be esteemed as the beau-ideal of a materialist's death-bed-as the sublime of Deistic Faith!

CHAPTER XIV.

SENSATION CREATED BY HIS DEATH-POST-MORTEM EXAMINATION-WAS MIRABEAU POISONED?-FUNEREAL-EPISODIC.

THERE is no way so accurate for ascertaining the necessity and usefulness of a man, as to examine minutely the sensation. created by his death; and if we measure Mirabeau by this standard, he must infallibly occupy the highest place in the temple of human excellence. His death was considered a loss by all parties: the king and court party mourned his decease, because he was the last bulwark to oppose unto the encroaching floods of republicanism; the moderate men mourned him, because they saw clearly what an unfinished and dangerous thing was the Revolution, and it was to him, and him alone, they looked for its completion; the ultras also lamented him, for they could not shake from their recollection that it was he, who, when none other dare do so, had defied absolute misrule, and stood up boldly for the unquestionable and reasonable rights of his nation. We may say that the entire nation went into mourning for him; and it was not the formal etiquette mourning of conventional life, but the inner lamentation of the heart. His loss was deemed a personal and a public calamity, and one which nothing could mitigate or repair. One young man put into the hands of Cabanis this note, just before Mirabeau's death: "I have read in the public papers that transfusion of blood has been performed in Eng

land with success in severe illnesses. If to save M. de Mirabeau, the doctors think that plan useful, I offer some of my blood; and I offer it from the heart itself. The one and the other are pure." Greater proof cannot be given.

All theatres and places of public amusement were closed, and private reunions postponed; some from respect to the feelings of the people, but more from real sorrow for the death of the lamented one. On the Champs-Elysées there was a ball being held, however; and, it being deemed an insult to the national sorrow, the people burst in upon the revelers, dispersed the dancers, stripped the ladies of all their feathers and finery, and marched them all away with imprecations. Another, also in Paris, was served the same; and these were the only attempted scenes of festivity that were discovered in the whole of that immense city. There was one, too, at Argenteuil, in which the chaplain of the Carmelites figured so prominently, that he was seized, and would have been hanged had not the mayor rescued him. So very jealous was the nation, that their lost king should be duly lamented.

To this universal grief there were, of course, some few exceptions. Mirabeau had been far too high a character, and too independent, not to have made many enemies; and it is, perhaps, the highest eulogium we can pass on Mirabeau, to state who these were who earned a disgraceful notoriety by vituperating him when the nation was adoring; by rejoicing when all were mourning: these were Robespierre and Marat.

Camille Desmoulins, as usual, underwent that struggle between good and evil he experienced to his very latest minute: his heart incited him to weep for and to laud Mirabeau, and his faction, his principles (say, rather, his non-principles) led him to disparage and abuse. His Revolutions de Paris, therefore, for April 9, No. 91, is a strange admixture of libels, blame, denunciation, &c.; through which there is incessantly peeping forth the warm sympathies of the heart, and the admiring enthusiasm of the intellect. It is evident that Camille endeavored to bring himself to hate Mirabeau and curse his memory, but found that he could not do it.

More decided was Marat: "People! return thanks unto the gods! Thy most redoubtable enemy has just fallen before the scythe of destiny: Riquetti is no more; he has fallen the victim of his numerous treasons: victim of the barbarous foresight of

1

his atrocious accomplices, alarmed by having seen the depositary of their frightful secrets to be wavering. ""*

Robespierre's opinion is arrived at by a short but striking sentence of his: when the news was brought to him of Mirabeau's death, and his last memorable speech about the "Achilles' funeral," Robespierre cried, with much exultation, "Achilles is dead! Then Troy shall not be taken." The acute-visioned terrorist knew well that the great obstacle to the spread of sans-culottism and alarm was now removed, and felt that there would thus be for him

"A way, out of his wreck, to rise in!"

But before the corpse of Mirabeau was consigned to its destination, was there not one most momentous question to be asked and answered? He had fallen suddenly: not like one that had wasted himself away, but more as one that had been unfairly dealt with; therefore, there arose the question-Was Mirabeau poisoned or not? And a most difficult one truly to answer: one upon which it is almost impossible to reach a positive conclusion; the circumstantial evidence is so heavy on both sides of the argument. In this state of the case, history, with hardly any exception, has written down his death as natural; leaving, however, a little doubt upon it: but we think we shall be able to show that the correcter view would be, to state his death as caused by poison; also giving, however, a little room for dubiety.

On the same day as his demise, the public accuser for the first arrondissement of the department of Paris demanded that his body should be examined, in these words; clearly expressing the feeling of the public: "The violence of the illness, its rapid progress, the suddenness of the dissolution; perhaps also the exaggerated fears that the celebrity of M. Riquetti, the services which he has rendened to the public cause, and the strangeness of the circumstances, seem to justify, to a certain extent, the supposition that the death of M. Riquetti could not be natural. To verify that idea, or destroy suppositions perchance illfounded, it is necessary to proceed to open and examine the body; and to give all the publicity and authenticity possible to that examination."t

Ami de peuple, No ccccxix.

† Procès-verbaux de l'Ouverture et de l'Embaumement du Corps de Mirabeau lainé. (lu Fils Adoptif, vol. viii. 461.)

In pursuance of that order, about noon on Sunday, the 3d of April, the body was opened in the presence of forty-four physicians and surgeons, as well as of some magistrates and other officials; and of a deputation of seven, sent by the crowds assembled in all the neighboring streets. The result of this post-mortem examination is well known: it was that he had not been poisoned; and the state of the body, as published by Cabanis, was made to appear to corroborate that statement: for, as M. Vicq d'Azyr told the queen, the appearances of the body, as published, would argue as much that they had been caused by violent remedies, as by poison.* And if the matter rested there, natural death would be the only tenable conclusion: but it does not, and there is quite sufficient existing evidence to show that the whole procès-verbal was a mere time-serving job.

"The stomach, the duodenum, a great part of the liver, the right kidney, the diaphragm, and the pericardium, presented traces of inflammation, or, rather, of active congestion. The pericardium contained a considerable quantity of a thick, yellowish, opaque matter. The whole of the external surface of the heart was covered with coagulated lymph, with the exception of its apex. The cavity of the chest contained a small quantity of water."+

So ran the published result of the examination; but that description is only negatively true: negatively we say, because while there is nothing but the truth inserted, the whole truth is studiously concealed. There were forty-four medical men at the autopsy, and several survived till within a few years; and these, having been carefully hunted up and questioned by the Fils Adoptif and other interested parties, the result is, that we discover that very many of the surgeons were confident that there were traces of poison; and also that, after long years' experience, they still entertained the same conviction. The doctors thus examined amount to ten, and it is but fair to argue that many more may have held the same views. How, then, came the verdict to be rendered, when thus dubious, as indubitably natural death? It was so rendered from expediency; there can be no doubt that the populace would have extorted a fearful revenge from somebody, had it been authoritatively stated that Mirabeau had been poisoned; and therefore the doc† Cabanis, p. 314.

* Campan, vol. ii. 135.

tors judged it advisable to extinguish that idea. And now let us turn to a most suspicious circumstance.

M. Roudel and the Baron Barbie were two pupils of the Professor Sue; and the former of the twain, on examination of the stomach, found many erosions (holes eaten into it by mineral poison), and having pointed them out to the latter, they both exclaimed that he had been poisoned; but their master, Sue, immediately drew them aside, and silenced them with these words: "He was not poisoned-he cannot be poisonedunderstand that, imprudens! Would you have them devour the King, the Queen, the Assembly, and all of us?" The inquiring students were thus put down: but Barbier, whether he disclosed his sentiments or not, being determined to satisfy at any rate himself, took up a portion of the stomach, and found it corroded and perforated evidently by a poisonous substance. was about to demonstrate that fact, when he was suddenly called aside for a moment, and, on returning, the affected part had vanished: neither could he recover it! So the question was burked. Barbier rose to be the surgeon-in-chief to the Val-de-Grâce, and was for many years one of the most celebrated practitioners in Paris, and still maintained the same opinion; and Sue himself assured the Fils Adoptif, that the words attributed to him were correct.

He

The post-mortem examination being thus unsatisfactory, it is necessary, to the obtaining of a decision, to discuss the circumstantial evidence of the likelihood of his being poisoned.

As we have intimated, this is strong on both sides; but far stronger on that of death by poison. In the first place, it was the clear and firm conviction of Mirabeau that he would be poisoned; as also of all his friends and his family. After his famous "Silence aux trente voix," on his way to outface the malice of the Jacobins, he called upon his sister, as our readers will remember, and said, in the course of conversation, that he had signed his death-warrant. He was frequently seized with acute pains, after dining or supping at strange houses; and on one of these occasions, when Madame du Saillant stated her fears that they were caused by attempts at poisoning, he replied "You are right, I feel it: they hold me; they will have me." So firmly convinced was he of this, that, for several weeks before his death, he never partook of anything from home, save at his sister's or niece's houses. To Dumont he said at parting, "If I believed in slow poisons, I should not