204 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.

thoughts prevailed ;—he would not kill, but only tame,as with blows, the fiery-spirited boy ; so he caused himto he imprisoned in the fortress of the Isle de llhe ; andthe youth felt that all the world was his enemy, andthe chief his harsh implacable parent. In his eloquentletter to the marquis, written some years after, in theprison of Vincennes, he alludes with bitterness to thisperiod of his existence.

“ I may say,” he writes, “ that from my earliestyears, and on my first entrance into life, I enjoyed fewmarks of your kindness ; that you treated me withrigour before I could have merited it; and yet thatyou might have soon perceived that my natural im-petuosity was excited, instead of repressed, by suchtreatment ; that it was as easy to soften as to irritateme ; that I yielded to the former, and rebelled againstthe latter. I was not born to be a slave ; and, in aword, that, while Lambert ruined, Viomenil would havepreserved me. Allow me also to remind you, that,before you restored me to your favour, you confessedin one of your letters that you had been on the point ofsending me to one of the Dutch colonies. This madea profound impression, and influenced prodigiously therest of my life. What had I done at eighteen to merita fate the thought of which makes me tremble evennow ? — I had loved.”

In his prison, Miraheau acquired the friendship ofthe governor, whose mediation only added to hisfather’s irritation. He was, however, induced to liber-ate him, and permit him to join an expedition to Cor-sica. He was entered as sub-lieutenant of foot in theregiment of Lorraine. The same mixture of wild pas-sion, unwearied study, and eager aspiration for distinc-tion, marked this period. He wrote a history of Cor-sica ; he fabricated an itinerary of the island, foundedon his personal inquiries and perambulations; themanuscript, the voluminousness of which testified hisindustry, were deemed of such value by the Corsicansthemselves, that they desired its publication; but it was