The marquis de Mirabeau at first rejoiced in the catastrophe which exiled his son for ever from the soil of France, and was willing to forget his existence. Not so the family of Sophie: her mother, induced by mixed feelings of religion, resentment, and even affection, was eager to obtain possession of the person of her daughter, to separate her from her lover, and induce her by severity or persuasion to return to her husband. Through an imprudence the place of their retreat was discovered, and the marquis writes to his brother, "He is in Holland, and lives on the earnings of his pen. De Brugnierres is setting out to fulfil a bargain made with madame de Ruffey, to seize her mad daughter, for which he is to be paid 100 louis. I have profited by the occasion and made the same arrangement--to be paid only if the man is taken to his destination." [Sidenote: 1777. Ætat. 28.] Mirabeau and his companion had lived eight months at Amsterdam: they had made friends; and some among these told them that their retreat was discovered, and an arrest impending. At first a treaty had been commenced to induce Mirabeau to place madame de Monnier in the hands of the French authorities, offering money and liberty as his reward: he spurned these propositions and prepared to fly with her to America; yet still the lovers were too secure, and delayed for the sake of obtaining a sum of money. The very night on which they were to depart they were arrested. Sophie, who, till the crisis arrived, was calm and serene, though serious and resolved, was seized by despair: she resolved to destroy herself. Mirabeau was her stay: he gained the goodwill of the men about them, revealed his fears, and obtained the consent of M. le Noir, lieutenant-general of police, to see her once, and afterwards to correspond with her. His persuasions were all powerful, and she consented to live. She was taken to Paris and imprisoned in a sort of asylum for women, while Mirabeau was shut up in the donjon of Vincennes. At first no gleam of hope lighted on the prisoners: all that bound them to existence was the correspondence they kept up with each other, and the fact that Sophie was about to give birth to a child. The letters that Mirabeau wrote to his mistress from his prison fell afterwards into the hands of a man who published them: certainly Mirabeau would have been the last person in the world to have permitted the publication of letters intended for the eye of his mistress alone, and drawn from a nature whose paramount vice was excess of passion, now wrought to intensity by close imprisonment and enforced separation from her whom he ardently loved. These letters are in parts grossly indelicate and unfit for perusal; but they display the burning ardour of his nature, and the excess of his attachment for the unhappy woman whom he had drawn into participation in his wretched destiny. For nearly two years these letters are stamped with a hopelessness, often carried to desperation.