It was impossible to avoid giving the details of this unfortunate portion of Mirabeau's life. Forty-one months spent in a dungeon forms too important an epoch in a man's existence for a biographer to pass it over; or to shun the detail of the causes and effects. Forty-one months of solitude and privation--of alternate hopes and fears wound to their highest pitch--of arduous study--of excessive physical suffering--must colour a human being's whole after-existence. The devoted love of Sophie ennobled his sufferings. She erred--but her error was redeemed by her heroism and self-abnegation. Resolved in her own thoughts that she was not the wife of the poor old man to whom her parents had forced her to give her hand, but of him who possessed her heart, she believed it to be her duty to bear all rather than concede. That her too ardent nature required the stay of religion cannot be denied, but her generosity and heroism are undoubted, and shed a grace over details which would otherwise he revolting.[11] Mirabeau quitted his prison, eager to gain his father's good will, and redeem himself in the eyes of the world. He stept out, from so long a series of suffering and imprisonment, with a spirit as vigorous and free as in boyhood. All were astonished by his mingled gentleness and vivacity; his submission to his father, joined to reliance in his own powers. Some months passed before the marquis would see him, but, when he did, he expressed himself to his brother in more favourable terms than he had ever before done. Occupied in the task of reforming, he even began to praise him. It is to be remarked, that the interloper in the family, madame du Pailly, was absent at this time, and the son was allowed to make his own way with his father.