200 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.

his brother.* The bailli de Mirabeau was enteredby his father into the order of knights of Malta inhis infancy. He served in the French navy for thespace of thirty-one years, when he retired without re.compence, except such as he derived from a high repu-tation. He was a proud, austere, and resolute man,possessing at the same time extreme piety, great good-ness, and unblemished integrity of character, togetherwith a foundation of good sense that contrasts with hisbrother’s intemperate sallies. Uncompromising even toroughness, he was ill suited to a court, while his braveryand sound understanding fitted him for public service.Proud of the antiquity of his race; openly disdainful ofthe new-created noblesse; frank, upright, but somewhatdiscontented, as he well might be, at the small rewardhis services received ; yet at the same time too haughtyto wait obsequiously on the great, or even to takethe measures necessary to refresh their memory, hepassed the latter part of his life in retirement. Hedevoted his fortune to his brother’s service, whom herespected as the head of the family, and regarded withwarm fraternal alfection. A correspondence subsistedbetween the one, living either at Paris or Bignon, andthe other, who was serving his country at a distance, orestablished at Mirabeau, which discloses the secrets oftlie family, and unveils the motives and passions thatswayed the conduct of the marquis. The bailli wasdeeply interested in the child who was to transmit thefamily name, and, being at the time of the boy’s birthgovernor of Guadaloupe , wrote earnestly home for in-formation with regard to him. The child early deve-loped quickness of intellect and turbulence of temper,joined to kindness of heart. Poisson, his tutor, was a

* These extracts form the best part of the “ Memoirs of Mirabeau,” by M.Lucas Montigny, his adopted, or, rather, his natural son, —a work of zealand labour, but undigested, diffuse, and ill-judged. Had the author pub-lished a selection from these letters, which were placed in his hands by thefamily, we should have an invaluable work. As it is, we are often as muchtantalised by what is omitted, as edified by what is given, of the correspond-ence. When the extracts from it cease, the pages of the memoirs lose alltheir charm and value : they degenerate into little else than extracts fromnewspapers, and vapid discussions by the author.