From March, 1790, when La Marck, after some months of absence, returned
to Paris, Mirabeau's relations with the Court assumed a more definite
character, and in the following summer his notes for the Court
regularly began. In his first letter to Louis, Mirabeau denounced all
schemes of counter-revolution as 'dangerous, criminal and chimerical,'
and made it plain that to his mind the only hope of saving the Monarchy
lay in frankly accepting the Revolution, and in placing the King in
cordial co-operation with the large and loyal party of reform. In the
memoranda which he forwarded to the Court in rapid succession all
through the summer and autumn, he laid stress upon the dangers to be
feared,--the increasing disorder, the untrustworthiness of Lafayette,
the mistakes of the Assembly, the intrigues in Paris, in the provinces,
in the army, the terrible risks of bankruptcy and of winter. He urged
unceasingly the necessity of facing these dangers, and pointed out
the steps to be taken and the means to be employed in order to escape
them. On the 14th October, 1790, in a note of great thoroughness and
insight, he recapitulated the whole political position, and laid
down what must be accepted as the bases of the constitution for the
future. He again exhorted the Court to recognise the new departure
and to abandon for ever all reactionary ideas. He again urged the
desirability of securing the repeal of the decree of the 7th November.
With singular breadth of view he suggested the formation of a Ministry,
in which the Jacobin leaders were to be included, in order to teach
them moderation and the responsibilities of power. And he sketched out
the plan, which he afterwards matured, of sending out recognised agents
into the provinces, to instruct the people upon politics, to begin an
agitation against the action of the Assembly, and to prepare the way
for recovering the influence of the Crown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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