Yes, Reader, that is the Type-Frenchman of this epoch; as Voltaire was of the last.  He is French in his aspirations, acquisitions, in his virtues, in his vices; perhaps more French than any other man;—­and intrinsically such a mass of manhood too.  Mark him well.  The National Assembly were all different without that one; nay, he might say with the old Despot:  “The National Assembly?  I am that.”

Of a southern climate, of wild southern blood:  for the Riquettis, or Arighettis, had to fly from Florence and the Guelfs, long centuries ago, and settled in Provence; where from generation to generation they have ever approved themselves a peculiar kindred:  irascible, indomitable, sharp-cutting, true, like the steel they wore; of an intensity and activity that sometimes verged towards madness, yet did not reach it.  One ancient Riquetti, in mad fulfilment of a mad vow, chains two Mountains together; and the chain, with its ‘iron star of five rays,’ is still to be seen.  May not a modern Riquetti unchain so much, and set it drifting,—­which also shall be seen?

Destiny has work for that swart burly-headed Mirabeau; Destiny has watched over him, prepared him from afar.  Did not his Grandfather, stout Col. d’Argent (Silver-Stock, so they named him), shattered and slashed by seven-and-twenty wounds in one fell day lie sunk together on the Bridge at Casano; while Prince Eugene’s cavalry galloped and regalloped over him,—­only the flying sergeant had thrown a camp-kettle over that loved head; and Vendome, dropping his spyglass, moaned out, ’Mirabeau is dead, then!’ Nevertheless he was not dead:  he awoke to breathe, and miraculous surgery;—­for Gabriel was yet to be.  With his silver stock he kept his scarred head erect, through long years; and wedded; and produced tough Marquis Victor, the Friend of Men.  Whereby at last in the appointed year 1749, this long-expected rough-hewn Gabriel Honore did likewise see the light:  roughest lion’s-whelp ever littered of that rough breed.  How the old lion (for our old Marquis too was lion-like, most unconquerable, kingly-genial, most perverse) gazed wonderingly on his offspring; and determined to train him as no lion had yet been!  It is in vain, O Marquis!  This cub, though thou slay him and flay him, will not learn to draw in dogcart of Political Economy, and be a Friend of Men; he will not be Thou, must and will be Himself, another than Thou.  Divorce lawsuits, ’whole family save one in prison, and three-score Lettres-de-Cachet’ for thy own sole use, do but astonish the world.

Our Luckless Gabriel, sinned against and sinning, has been in the Isle of Rhe, and heard the Atlantic from his tower; in the Castle of If, and heard the Mediterranean at Marseilles.  He has been in the Fortress of Joux; and forty-two months, with hardly clothing to his back, in the Dungeon of Vincennes;—­all by Lettre-de-Cachet, from his lion father.  He has been in Pontarlier Jails (self-constituted prisoner);