Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2

Le Monde was started under that name in 1860 as a substitute for L’Univers, which, placing the Pope before the Emperor and preferring Rome to Paris, had got itself into trouble with the Government. It was edited for many years by M. Louis Veuillot, most vigorous of Ultramontane journalists, and author of several remarkable books, including “Les Odeurs de Paris,” “Les Parfums de Rome,” and a curious study of feudal rights and privileges, as, according to M. Veuillot, they really existed in France before the Revolution.

Le Temps, one of the best of the Paris papers, after having been discontinued for some years, was revived in 1861 by M. Nefftzer, previously editor of La Presse. Le Temps soon took rank as what the French call a serious journal. For many years one of the most interesting features of Le Temps was the letter on English affairs contributed from London by M. Louis Blanc. Among the other distinguished contributors to Le Temps may be mentioned M. Scherer, the literary critic, and M. Louis Ulbach, chiefly known as a novelist, but who for many years wrote for this journal its theatrical feuilleton. There are plenty of papers published in Paris besides those we have mentioned, some of them in the enjoyment of large circulations, but distinguished by no marked features, or by none that possess special interest for English readers. The best-known, however, of all the Paris journals is the Figaro, published originally under the Restoration, and edited for some time by Nestor Roqueplan. After numerous prosecutions, it ceased to exist; suppressed practically if not formally by the Government.

But in 1854 the Figaro (which, it need scarcely be said, derived its name from the celebrated barber invented by Beaumarchais) was revived by Mme. Villemessant, and it played an important part, though by no means a consistent one, under the Second Empire. This it still continues to do; and whatever its political views may be, it is the most amusing, the most interesting, and one may almost say, the most literary journal in Europe. Among the celebrated writers who have from time to time contributed to its columns may be mentioned Edmond About, Théodore de Banville, Henri Rochefort, B. Jouvin, Albert Wolff, and Henri de Pène, who, for criticising the manners of French subalterns, found himself exposed to the necessity of fighting all the lieutenants and sub-lieutenants of the French army, a task from which he was saved by being almost mortally wounded by the first of his antagonists. The cause of M. de Pène’s encounter with the junior officers of the French army, as represented by the clever swordsman who ran him through the lungs, was an article, written by the contributor to the Figaro, on a ball given at the École Militaire. The youthful officers were, he declared, too constant and too eager in their attendance at the buffet; and he added that when one of them had a plate of cakes offered to him by a waiter, he said he was not sure that he could eat them all, but that he would accept them nevertheless. The jest was an ancient one, but it angered the young bloods of the Military School, and their indignation demanded a victim, who at once offered himself in the person of the author of the injurious statement.

The case of Henri de Pène and of so many other fighting journalists, with the redoubtable Henri Rochefort and Paul de Cassagnac among them, suggests that in France a newspaper-writer should be as much a master of the sword as of the pen. This does not interfere with the fact that one of the most gentle and amiable of modern French writers, M. Ernest Legouvé, possessed the reputation of being the first fencer of his day.

CHAPTER XLI.
FROM THE QUAI VOLTAIRE TO THE PANTHEON

The Quai Voltaire – Its Changes of Name – Voltaire – His Life in Paris and Elsewhere – His Remains laid in the Pantheon – Mirabeau – Rousseau – Vincennes

WHAT a number of names had the Quai Voltaire borne before receiving the illustrious one by which it has now been known for about a century! First Quai Malaquais; then Quai du Pont Rouge, when the red bridge had just been constructed to replace the old ferry opposite the Rue de Beaune; in 1648 Quai des Théatins, after the religious order of that name established by Mazarin; finally on the 4th of May, 1791, by decision of the Commune of Paris, Quai Voltaire. During forty years Voltaire had almost uninterruptedly been absent from France, when, on the 10th of February, 1778, he returned, and the mansion he had purchased in the Rue Richelieu for himself and his niece Denise not being ready for his reception, accepted the hospitality of the Marquis de Villette, in whose house, on the quay now known as that of Voltaire, he died May 30th, 1778. The fact is recorded in an inscription placed on the façade of the former Hôtel de Villette.

Before conferring upon the quay the name borne by one of the most witty and most powerful writers that France ever produced, the Commune received a report and pronounced through one of its members a eulogium in his honour. Until the time of the Revolution it was the custom in France, as in other countries at a much later period, to name streets and other thoroughfares after some aristocratic family. Since the Revolution, however, it has become usual to substitute, in connection with the thoroughfares and public places of Paris, the names of national celebrities and national benefactors. In this latter character Voltaire will not be universally accepted, though his aim was certainly to do good; and that he had “done some good,” was, he once declared, the only epitaph he aspired to. According to an observation attributed to M. de Tocqueville, Voltaire possessed in greater abundance than anyone else the wit that everyone possesses; and D. F. Strauss, in the six lectures on Voltaire which he wrote for and dedicated to the Princess Louise of Hesse, says much the same thing when he admiringly declares that every quality of the French mind belonged to Voltaire in a more marked degree than to any other Frenchman. Goethe seems to have thought still more highly of him. “Voltaire,” he said, “will always be looked upon as the greatest man in the literature of modern times, and perhaps even of all times; as the most astonishing creation of Nature, a creation in which it has pleased her to collect for once in a single frail organisation every variety of talent, all the glories of genius, all the powers of thought.”

Very different, indeed, was the opinion entertained by the great supporter of absolute monarchy and of the Roman Catholic Church. “Paris,” wrote Count Joseph de Maistre, “crowned him; Sodom would have banished him… How am I to picture to you what he makes me feel? When I think of what he might have done and what he did, his inimitable talents inspire me with a sort of holy rage for which there is no name. Midway between admiration and horror, I sometimes wish to see a statue erected to him – by the hand of the executioner.”

It must be remembered, however, that in Voltaire’s time there was no such thing in France as either political or religious liberty, and that he took the part of the persecuted whenever he had an opportunity of doing so. “His life,” says M. Arsène Houssaye, “is a comedy in five acts, in which, through French genius, shines human reason. The first act takes place in Paris, among distinguished noblemen and popular actresses; beginning with the entertainments of the Prince de Conti and ending with the death of Adrienne Lecouvreur, whose hurried secret burial by torch-light inspired Voltaire with so much indignation. This was the period of the Bastille and of banishment. The second act takes place at the castle of Cirey and at the court of King Stanislas; this second act might be called the love of science and the science of love. The third act takes place at the court of Frederick II., at Berlin, Potsdam, and Sans-Souci. The fourth act is that of Ferney, where he builds a church (with ‘Deo erexit Voltaire’ inscribed over the portal), gives a dowry to Corneille’s niece, defends the family of the persecuted Calas, pleads for Admiral Byng, for Montbailly, for La Barre, for all who are in need of an advocate. The fifth act takes place at Paris, like the first; but the man who at the beginning of the drama was a prisoner and a proscript has come back as a conqueror. All Paris rises to salute him. The Academy believes that Homer, Socrates, and Aristophanes are to be found again in Voltaire; the Théâtre Français crowns him with immortal laurels. But the poet has reached the last point of greatness; Paris smothers in its embraces this ruler of opinions, who with his last breath proclaims the rights of man.”

Born in 1694, this powerful writer was so weak as a child that it was not thought safe to baptise him until he was nine months old. His father was treasurer in the Exchequer Chamber, and he had for godfather the Abbé de Château-Neuf, one of those sceptical abbés who help to give a character of its own to the eighteenth century. As a youth he was in the good graces of Ninon de L’Enclos, the celebrated beauty, who, living to a prodigious age, is said to have preserved her charms to the last. She recognised Voltaire’s precocious talents as he, on his side, was delighted by her personal fascinations. She left him by will 2,000 francs for the purchase of books. The Abbé de Château-Neuf introduced him meanwhile into the most brilliant society of Paris. This did not suit the views of his father, who wished his son to enter the magistracy. He accordingly separated him from the Abbé de Château-Neuf to attach him as page to the Marquis of the same name, who took the young Voltaire or Arouet, to call him by his proper name, in his suite to Holland. Returning to Paris, the youthful Arouet began to write, when he adopted, for literary purposes, the name of Voltaire, which will be recognised as an anagram of Arouet l. j. (le jeune). According to most historians the name of Voltaire was borrowed by the youthful Arouet from an estate belonging to his mother; but there seems to be no authority for this supposition, and the anagrammatic or quasi-anagrammatic explanation is probably the true one.

Voltaire had not long exercised his pen when he was thrown into the Bastille as the author of a satire which he had not written. Here he sketched out the plan of his “Henriade” and of his “Siècle de Louis XIV.,” both suggested to him, it is said, by the Marquis de Château-Neuf. The true author of the satire having been discovered, Voltaire was set at liberty, and, according to the custom of the time, received a money indemnity from the Regent, whom he thanked for providing him with food, while expressing a hope that he would not in future furnish him with a lodging. Besides making notes for his historical work and for his epic poem, Voltaire had written in the Bastille a tragedy on the subject of Œdipus, which in 1718, when the author had just attained his twenty-fourth year, was produced at the Théâtre Français with a success which no other tragedy had obtained since the days of Corneille and Racine.

Voltaire’s literary life in Paris was cut short by a painful incident. In an animated discussion he had taken the liberty of contradicting the Chevalier de Rohan, who was cowardly enough to lay a trap for his antagonist; and getting him to leave the room, subjected him to violent maltreatment at the hands of his servants. Voltaire challenged the Chevalier, who, however, not only refused him satisfaction, but had him shut up in the Bastille for six months and then banished from France. Taking refuge in England, he studied the language, literature, and especially the philosophy of the country. After a residence of three years he was able to make known to his countrymen, through a volume entitled “Lettres sur les Anglais,” the philosophy of Bolingbroke and of Locke, the scientific theories of Newton, the poetry of Shakespeare, and the prose of Addison. It was during his residence in England that he wrote the tragedies of Brutus, The Death of Cæsar, Zaïre, &c., which, however un-Shakespearian, were evidently the outcome of a study of Shakespeare’s plays. Voltaire’s position in regard to Shakespeare has been somewhat misunderstood. He did not fully appreciate Shakespeare, he even undervalued the great dramatist. But he saw that genius was in him; which is more than can be said of some of our own writers of the eighteenth century, not excluding Addison, who, in The Spectator, points to “Shakespeare and Lee” for examples of the “false sublime.”

During his stay in England Voltaire mixed freely in literary society, and made the acquaintance of some of our best writers. Johnson, it will be remembered, thinking only of his irreligion, would not shake hands with him; though afterwards, when he heard that Voltaire had praised his “Rasselas,” he said that there was “some good in the dog, after all.” When Voltaire was introduced to Congreve, the brilliant dramatist explained that he wished to be looked upon, not as a writer of comedies, but as an English gentleman; to which Voltaire replied that if the latter had been his only character, he should never have taken the trouble to seek his acquaintance. Voltaire for long enjoyed the credit of having acquired sufficient knowledge of the English language to be able to express himself gracefully and correctly in English verse, but it has been conclusively proved that the productions were corrected and revised by an English friend.

Returning to Paris, he lived there tranquilly for some time; but on the death of Adrienne Lecouvreur, to whom he was much attached, and to whose remains Christian burial had been refused, he wrote some indignant verses, which, after they had been put in circulation, filled him with alarm as to the notice that would probably be taken of them by the authorities. He now escaped to Rouen, where he printed his “History of Charles X.” and “Philosophical Letters.” The latter work was burned by the hangman, a fate reserved for more than one of Voltaire’s subsequent works. His ingenious remark has elsewhere been cited, to the effect that the public executioner, were he presented with a copy of every book he had to burn, would soon possess one of the finest libraries in France. Another production of his, the “Epistle to Urania,” which expressed theological views of a most unorthodox kind, was soon to get him into fresh trouble, though by a well-known artifice of those tyrannical days he disavowed the work. He thought it prudent, all the same, to keep out of the way for a time, and he now accepted the hospitality offered to him by Mme. du Châtelet at Cirey. He here gave himself up for a time, in common with his hostess, to mathematical and scientific studies. He published one after the other, with astonishing rapidity, “Newtonian Elements,” “Mahomet,” Mérope, “The Discourse on Man,” and other works, besides going on with his “Century of Louis XIV.” and his essay on morals.

Voltaire’s reputation was now European; and the Prince Royal of Prussia, afterwards Frederick the Great, one of his most fervent admirers, wrote to him begging him to undertake the publication of his “Anti-Machiavel,” though as Miçkievicz the Polish poet says in reference to this work, it was Machiavellism itself that Frederick II. both practised and professed. In the midst of his success, Voltaire, as irritable as he was kind-hearted, suffered much from the attacks of pamphleteers, whose favourite accusation was that, writing on many different subjects, he was not master of one. To these attacks he replied in the most impetuous style, though he would have done better to preserve the silence of profound disdain. Voltaire, however, reminds one, in this respect, of that horseman who, riding through a forest, was so exasperated by the chirping of myriads of grasshoppers, that he leaped at last from his saddle, and, drawing his sword, set about the vain task of exterminating the offensive insects, although nightfall was at hand and they would shortly have grown silent of their own accord. The pamphleteer and poetaster, Jean Fréron, was a favourite object of Voltaire’s detestation; he it was for whom Voltaire took the trouble to make an adaptation of a quatrain originally belonging to the Greek Anthology. Here are Voltaire’s lines —

 
“Un jour loin du sacré vallon
Un serpent mordit Jean Fréron:
Songez ce qui en arriva:
Ce fut le serpent qui creva.”
 

It was surety these lines which inspired Goldsmith with the idea of his “Elegy on a mad dog.”

 
“But soon a wonder came to light,
Which showed the rogues they lied;
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.”
 

In 1743, after the successful production of Mérope Voltaire regained some favour at the court, and obtained, through the patronage of Mme. de Pompadour, the title of historiographer of France, together with the post of gentleman of the king’s bed-chamber. At the same time the French Academy, after having twice rejected him, elected him as a member. His writings of this period bear the stamp of his somewhat frivolous life; among them are the operas, Temple of Glory, Samson, and Budkah, the ballet Princess of Navarre, &c. Soon, however, the part of court poet fatigued him, the more so as the king treated him coldly and Mme. de Pompadour thought him inferior to Crébillon. His friendship for Mme. du Châtelet still continued. But after her death he yielded to the pressing invitations of Frederick the Great (1750) and went to the court of Berlin, where a brilliant position, the post of chamberlain, and a considerable money allowance awaited him. The result of the celebrated intimacy between the philosopher and the king is well known; it lasted two or three years, but the monarch could not control his domineering habits nor the great writer the manifestation of his intellectual superiority. The jealousy of the literary men of France, a quarrel with Maupertius, whose part was taken by the king, some sharp utterances, and various other causes precipitated the inevitable rupture. Voltaire left Prussia in 1753, after undergoing more than one humiliation. The most important work he published during his stay at Berlin was that “Century of Louis XIV.” which remains his masterpiece in the historic line. Having ascertained that the French Government would not be pleased to see him at Paris, he travelled for several years in Germany, Switzerland and France, establishing himself finally at Ferney in 1758, where he built himself a magnificent house, in which he passed the last twenty years of his life. Here he received flattering letters from the sovereigns of Europe, and no less flattering visits from some of the first literary men of the time. Princes and philosophers made pilgrimages to Ferney, and “Patriarch of Ferney” became Voltaire’s recognised name. The fact of Switzerland’s being a republic did not, of course, prevent the Swiss landed proprietors from having serfs, and Voltaire did his best to procure their personal liberation. This is doubtless what he would have been glad to do in his own country, had it been possible in the days before the Revolution to propose an amelioration that would at once have been looked upon as revolutionary. “He pleaded,” says one of his biographers, “for the emancipation of the serfs of the canton of Jura; he endeavoured to remedy a number of abuses, to reform a number of unjust laws.”

To give an idea of the kind of life led by Voltaire at Ferney, we may reproduce in abridged form the account published by Moore, who, travelling in France at the time, extended his journey in order to pay a visit to Voltaire.

“The most piercing eyes I have ever seen in my life,” says Moore, “are those of Voltaire, now eighty years of age. One recognises instantly in his physiognomy genius, penetration, nobility of character.

“In the morning he seems restless and discontented, but this gradually passes away, and after dinner he is lively and agreeable. But there is always in his expression a tinge of irony, whether he smiles or frowns.

“When the weather is favourable he goes out in a carriage with his niece or with some of his guests. Sometimes he takes a walk in his garden, and if the weather does not allow him to go out he employs his time in playing chess with Father Adam, or in receiving strangers, or in dictating or reading his letters. But he passes the greater part of the day in his study, and whether he is reading or being read to he has always a pen in his hand to take notes or make observations; an author writing for his bread could not work more assiduously, nor could a young poet greedy of renown. He lives in the most hospitable manner, and his table is excellent; he has always with him two or three persons from Paris, who stay at his house a month or six weeks; when they go away they are replaced by others, and there is thus a considerable change of inmates. The visitors, together with the members of Voltaire’s family circle, make up a party of twelve or fifteen persons, who dine daily at his table whether he is present or not; for when he is occupied with the preparation of some new work he does not dine in company, and contents himself with appearing for a few minutes before or after dinner.

“The morning is not a favourable time for visiting Voltaire, who cannot bear any interference with his hours of study; such a thing puts him at once in a rage. He was often ready, moreover, to pick a quarrel, whether by reason of the infirmities inseparable from old age, or from some other cause. He is in any case less genial in the early part of the day than afterwards.

“Those who are invited to supper see him at his best. He takes an evident pleasure in conversing with his guests, and makes a point of being witty and agreeable. When, however, a vivacious remark or a good jest is made by another person, he is the first to applaud; he is amused and his gaiety increases. When he is surrounded by his friends, and animated by the presence of women, he seems to enjoy his life with the sensibility of a young man. His genius, disengaged from the burdens of age, shines in the brightest manner, and delicate observations, happy remarks, fall from his lips.

“His aversion for the clergy makes him often speak about them, to the scandal of people not sufficiently witty to make their raillery acceptable.

“He compares the English nation to a barrel of beer, of which the top is froth, the bottom scum, while the middle part is excellent.

“With his inferiors Voltaire appears in a most favourable light. He is affable, kind, and generous; he likes to see his tenants and all his dependents thoroughly prosperous, and he occupies himself with their individual interests in the spirit of a patriarch. He does his best, moreover, to maintain around him industrial works and all kinds of manufactures; through his care and patronage the miserable village of Ferney, whose inhabitants were previously grovelling in idleness, has become a prosperous and flourishing town.

“Voltaire had formerly in his house a little theatre at which pieces were represented by his friends and himself; some important part was generally assigned to him, but to judge by the accounts given of him he was not a great actor. The amateur performances at Ferney suggested to a company of regular players the idea of visiting the place. I have often attended this theatre, and seen the performances of this company, which were not first rate. The famous Lekain, who is now at Ferney, comes there at times for special performances. On these occasions I am chiefly attracted by the desire of seeing Voltaire, who is always present when one of his pieces is played, or when, in no matter what piece, Lekain appears.

“He takes his seat on the stage behind the scenery, but so as to be seen by the greater part of the audience; and he takes as much interest in the performance of the piece as if his reputation depended on it. If one of the actors makes a mistake, he seems grieved and shocked; if on the other hand the actor plays well, he gives him, by gestures and by word of mouth, the liveliest marks of approbation. He enters into the spirit of both situations with all the signs of genuine emotion, and even sheds tears with the effusiveness of a young girl assisting for the first time at the performance of a tragedy.”

Voltaire reconstructed at his own expense the church of Ferney, which he thereupon dedicated to the Supreme Being: “Deo erexit Voltaire.” He had often, however, sharp disputes with the curé of the parish, who more than once complained to the bishop. He is said on one occasion to have gone through the Easter ceremonies at the church of Ferney without having previously confessed; desiring, he said, to fulfil his duties as a Christian, an officer of the king’s household, and a village squire. Encroaching another time on the prerogative of the curé, he appeared in the pulpit and preached a sermon. Some of these stories, it must be added, rest on no more authentic basis than hearsay and the well-known changeableness of Voltaire’s disposition.

In 1778 Voltaire quitted Ferney to visit Paris, where he had not been seen for twenty years. He was received in triumph: the Academy and the Théâtre Français sent deputations to meet him, the most illustrious men by talent or birth, women of the highest rank, waited upon him to present their homage, and the people generally offered him ovations whenever he appeared in public. A performance of his tragedy of Irène was given at the Théâtre Français. His bust was crowned with laurels, and after the representation he was conducted home with acclamations from an enthusiastic crowd. “You are smothering me in roses!” cried the old poet, intoxicated with his glory. Such emotions, such fatigue had, indeed, the worst effect upon his health; he was nearly eighty-four years of age – the age at which Goethe died – and the excitement was too much for him. On his death-bed he was surrounded by priests who wished to obtain from him something in the way of concession if not retractation, but his only reply to the curé of Saint-Sulpice was, “Let me die in peace.” A written report from the hand of this ecclesiastic is said to exist in the archives of his church. Meanwhile that Voltaire did not die reconciled to the Church is sufficiently proved by the fact that Christian burial was denied him. His nephew, the Abbé Mignot, had the corpse hastily carried to his abbey at Cellières, where it remained until the days of the Revolution – when it was brought back in triumph to Paris and placed in the Pantheon, the former church of Saint-Geneviève. On the 30th of May, 1791, the National Assembly decreed that Voltaire was worthy of the honour which should be paid to great men, and that his ashes were to be transferred to the Pantheon. This translation was the occasion of a national celebration, which, under the direction of David the painter, took place on the 12th of July in the same year. Joseph Chénier wrote for the festival a poem which Gossec set to music. The three last lines of the last stanza are worth quoting: —

 
Chantez; de la raison célébrez le soutien;
Ah! de tous les mortels qui ne sont point esclaves
Voltaire est le concitoyen.⁵
 

Mirabeau, who next to Voltaire was declared worthy of the honours of the Pantheon, was descended from an ancient and powerful family of Florentine origin. Riquetti, originally Arrigheti, was the name of the family, that of Mirabeau being derived from an estate which they acquired when, after being banished from Florence in the thirteenth century, they settled in Provence. The Mirabeaus were celebrated from father to son for their energy, independence, and daring. One of their boasts was that they were all of a piece, “without a joint.” Gabriel Honoré Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, the greatest orator that the Revolution produced, was the son of the Marquis of Mirabeau, who is reputed to have introduced the study of political economy into France. Disfigured at the age of three by the small-pox, he preserved that remarkable ugliness which produced such a strong impression upon his contemporaries, together with that leonine countenance in which intelligence and expression triumphed over superficial hideousness. It was in allusion to his ugliness as well as to his violent passions and his indomitable character, that Mirabeau’s father, who never loved him, said of his son that he was a monster, physically and morally. Placed under different masters, he learnt with surprising facility ancient and modern languages. Lagrange taught him mathematics, and he also studied drawing and music, besides occupying himself with gymnastics. Having revealed at an early age his impetuous disposition, he was placed by his father at the École Militaire, as if with a view to his correction. Here he devoured all the works on the art of war, and at the age of seventeen came out of the school as officer. At this point begins the romance of his life. His debts and a love intrigue caused his father to shut him up in the island of Ré, in virtue of a lettre de cachet obtained for that purpose. Nor was this the only one that the severe parent procured in view of his son’s better behaviour. Sent to Corsica with his regiment, Mirabeau distinguished himself in various ways, among others by writing a history which his father destroyed because it contained philosophical ideas which, according to the parent’s view, were unorthodox. The youthful Mirabeau made a better impression on one of his uncles, who wrote about him: “Either he will be the cleverest satirist in the universe, or the greatest European general on land or sea, or minister, or chancellor, or Pope, or anything else that may please him.”

In 1772 he married at Aix, in Provence, a rich heiress, Émilie de Mirignane by name, whose dowry he was rapidly spending when the ever-watchful father came forward and procured against him a legal interdict, which cut him off from all credit and obliged him to reside within the limits of a particular town. Here, inspired, no doubt, by the situation, he composed in hot haste his “Essay on Despotism,” which deals, however, not merely with the arbitrary exercise of power, but with such concomitants of political despotism as immoderate taxation and standing armies. An insult having been offered to one of his sisters, Mirabeau broke through the rules imposed upon him, and, always at the suggestion of his father, was captured, this time to be imprisoned in the castle of If: familiar to the readers of Dumas’s “Monte Cristo.” Here he paid so much attention to the wife of the steward that it was found necessary to transfer him to another fortress. His new abode was close to Pontarlier; and he obtained permission to quit the fortress and take up his residence in this town. At Pontarlier he made the acquaintance of Sophie de Ruffey, the young wife of the Marquis de Monnier, to whom, under the name of “Sophie,” he was a few years afterwards, as a prisoner in the Bastille, to address the passionate letters generally known as “Lettres à Sophie.” His relations with Sophie, whom he induced to leave her husband in order to accompany him to Holland, brought upon him a criminal action and a tragic sentence. He was condemned to death, and not being present at the time and place fixed for his execution, was decapitated in effigy. He had fled with Sophie to Amsterdam, where, under the name of St. Matthew, he wrote largely for the booksellers who were accustomed to produce pamphlets and books which either had been or, as a matter of course, would have been forbidden in France. Besides original works, Mirabeau supplied the Dutch booksellers with translations from the English and the German. But the French Government would not leave him in peace, and in 1777, his extradition having been applied for, he was arrested at Amsterdam, carried back to France, and imprisoned at Vincennes. He was allowed to write freely to his adored Sophie; and freely enough he did write to her.