other men’s labour as his due, and impressed their words, of
which he had suggested the underlying ideas, with the stamp of
his own individuality; his collaborators themselves did not complain—they
were but too glad to be of help in the great work
of controlling and forwarding the French Revolution through
its greatest thinker and orator. As an orator his eloquence has
been likened to that of both Bossuet and Vergniaud, but it had
neither the polish of the old 17th century bishop nor the flashes of
genius of the young Girondin. It was rather parliamentary oratory
in which he excelled, and his true compeers are rather Burke and
Fox than any French speakers. Personally he had that which is
the truest mark of nobility of mind, a power of attracting love
and winning faithful friends. (H. M. S.)
Authorities.—The best edition of Mirabeau’s works is that published by Blanchard in 1819–1822, in ten volumes, of which the first two contain his Œuvres oratoires; from this collection, however, many of his less important works and the De la monarchie prussienne are omitted. For details of his life consult Peuchet, Mirabeau: Mémoires sur sa vie littéraire et privée (1824); and the Mémoires biographiques, littéraires et politiques de Mirabeau, écrits par lui-meme, par son père, son oncle et son fils adoptif, which was issued by his adopted son, Lucas de Montigny (8 vols., Paris, 1834–1835). See also Etienne Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau (1832), a work which has been translated into English by Lady E. R. Seymour as The Great Frenchman and the Little Genevese (1904); Louise Colet, La Jeunesse de Mirabeau (1841); and Alfred Bégis, Mirabeau, son interdiction judiciaire (1895). The publication of the Correspondance entre Mirabeau et le comte de la Marck, by A. de Bacourt (2 vols., 1851) marks an epoch in our exact knowledge of Mirabeau and his career; some additional letters appeared in the German edition (3 vols., Leipzig, 1851–1852). Other published correspondence is Lettres de Mirabeau à Chamfort (1796); Lettres du comte de Mirabeau à Jacques Mauvillon (Brunswick, 1792); Lettres originales de Mirabeau, écrites du donjon de Vincennes, 1777–1780, published by L. P. Manuel (4 vols., 1792); and, on the same subject, Paul Cottin, Sophie de Monnier et Mirabeau d’après leur correspondance inédite (1903); Lettres à Julie, edited by D. Meunier and G. Selois (Paris, 1903); Lettres inédites (1806), edited by J. F. Vitry. The Histoire secrète forms the basis of H. Welschinger’s La Mission secrète de Mirabeau à Berlin (Paris, 1900). The most useful modern books are Louis and Charles de Loménie, Les Mirabeau (5 vols., 1878 and 1889); Alfred Stern, Das Leben Mirabeaus (1889). See also E. Rousse, Mirabeau (1891) in the Grands Ecrivains Français series; P. Plan, Un Collaborateur de Mirabeau (Paris, 1874), treating of Reybaz and throwing infinite light on Mirabeau’s mode of work; and H. Reynald, Mirabeau et la constituante (1873). On his eloquence and the share his collaborators had in his speeches see F. A. Aulard, Orateurs de l’assemblée constituante (1882). For his death see the curious brochure of his physician, Cabanis, Journal de la maladie et de la mort de Mirabeau (Paris, 1791, ed. H. Duchenne, Paris, 1890). There is a good sketch summarizing modern opinion by E. Charavay in La Grande Encyclopédie. English works include P. F. Willert, Mirabeau (1898) in the “Foreign Statesman” series; C. F. Warwick, Mirabeau and the French Revolution (1905); W. R. H. Trowbridge, Mirabeau, the demi-god (1907); H. E. von Hoist, The French Revolution Tested by Mirabeau’s Career (Chicago, 1894); and F. Fling, Mirabeau and the French Revolution (London and New York, 1908). Other works are Victor Hugo, Étude sur Mirabeau (1834); Jules Barni, Mirabeau (1882); Albert Sorel, “Mirabeau” in Essais d’histoire et de critique (1883); G. Leloir, Mirabeau à Pontarlier (1886); Ferdinand Schwartz, Mirabeau und Marie Antoinette (Basel, 1891); and Alfred Mézières, Vie de Mirabeau (1892).
MIRABEAU, VICTOR RIQUETI, Marquis de (1715–1789), French author and political economist, father of the great Mirabeau, was born at Pertuis, near the old château de Mirabeau, on the 4th of October 1715. He was brought up very sternly by his father, and in 1728 joined the army. He took keenly to campaigning, but never rose above the rank of captain, owing to his being unable to get leave at court to buy a regiment. In 1737 he came into the family property on his father’s death, and spent some pleasant years till 1743 in literary companionship with duc Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues and the poet Lefranc de Pompignan, which might have continued had he not determined to marry—not for money, but for landed estates. The lady whose property he fancied was Marie Geneviève, daughter of a M. de Vassan, a brigadier in the army, and widow of the marquis de Saulveboef, whom he married without previously seeing her on the 21st of April 1743. While in garrison at Bordeaux Mirabeau had made the acquaintance of Montesquieu, and after retiring from the army he wrote his first work, his Testament Politique (1747), which demanded for the prosperity of France a return of the French noblesse to their old position in the middle ages. This work was followed in 1750 by a book on the Utilité des états provenciaux, which was attributed to Montesquieu himself. In 1756 Mirabeau made his first appearance as a political economist by the publication of his Ami des hommes cu traité de la population. This work has been often attributed to the influence, and in part even to the pen, of Quesnay, the founder of the economical school of the physiocrats, but was really written before the marquis had made the acquaintance of the physician of Madame de Pompadour. In 1760 he published his Théorie de l’impôt, in which he attacked with all the vehemence of his son the farmers-general of the taxes, who got him imprisoned for eight days at Vincennes, and then exiled to his country estate at Bignon. At Bignon the school of the physiocrats was really established, and the marquis in 1765 bought the Journal de l’agriculture, du commerce, et des finances, which became the organ of the school. He was recognized as a leader of political thinkers by Prince Leopold of Tuscany, afterwards emperor, and by Gustavus III. of Sweden, who in 1772 sent him the grand cross of the order of Vasa. But his marriage had not been happy; he had separated from his wife in 1762, and had, he believed, secured her safely in the provinces by a lettre de cachet, when in 1772 she suddenly appeared in Paris, and commenced proceedings for a separation. One of his own daughters had encouraged his wife to take this step. He was determined to keep the case quiet, if possible, for the sake of Mme de Pailly, a Swiss lady whom he had loved since 1756. But his wife would not let him rest; her plea was rejected in 1777, but she renewed her suit, and, though the great Mirabeau had pleaded his father’s case, was successful in 1781. This trial quite broke the health of the marquis, as well as his fortune; he sold his estate at Bignon, and hired a house at Argenteuil, where he lived quietly till his death on the 11th of July 1789.
The marquis’s younger brother, Jean Antoine Riqueti, “the bailli” (d. 1794), served with distinction in the navy, but his brusque manners made success at court impossible. In 1763 he became general of the galleys of Malta. In 1767 he returned to France and took charge of the château de Mirabeau, helping the marquis in his disastrous lawsuits.
See Louis de Loménie’s Les Mirabeau (2 vols., 1879). Also Henri Ripert, Le Marquis de Mirabeau, ses theories politiques et économiques, [thèse pour le doctorat] Paris (1901); Oncken, Der ältere Mirabeau und die oekonomische Gesellschaft in Bern (Berne, 1886); De Lavergne, Les Économistes français du 18ᵐᵉ siècle.
MIRACLE (Lat. miraculum, from mirari, to wonder), anything
wonderful, beyond human power, and deviating from the
common action of the laws of nature, a supernatural event.
The term is particularly associated with the supernatural factors
in Christianity. To the Lat. miraculum correspond Gr. τέρας
in the New Testament, and Heb. קֶלֶא (Exod. xv. 11;
Dan. xii. 6) in the Old Testament. Other terms used in the
New Testament are δύναμις “with reference to the power
residing in the miracle worker” (cf. נּבךּרה Deut. iii. 24 and םר׳אה
Num. xvi. 30), and ρημεῖον “with reference to the
character or claims of which it was the witness and guarantee”
(cf. איזה Exod. iv. 8); that the power is assumed to
be from God is shown by the phrases πνεύματι θεοῦ (Matt. xii.
28; cf. Luke iv. 18) and δακτύλῳ θεοῦ (Luke xi. 20).
While Augustine describes miracles as “contra naturam quae nobis est nota,” Aquinas without qualification defines them as “praeter naturam,” “supra et contra naturam.” Löscher affirms in regard to miracles that “solus Deus potest tum supra naturae vires turn contra naturae leges agere”; and Buddaeus argues that in them a “suspensio legum naturae” is followed by a restitutio. Against the common view that miracles can attest the truth of a divine revelation Gerhard maintained that “per miracula non possunt probari oracula”; and Höpfner returns to the qualified position of Augustine when he describes them as “praeter et supra naturae ordinem.” The two conceptions, once common in the Christian church, that on the one hand miracles involved an interference with the forces and a suspension of the laws of nature, and that, on the other hand, as this could be effected only by divine power, they served as credentials of a divine revelation, are now generally abandoned. As regards the first point, it is now generally held that miracles are exceptions to the order of nature as known in our common experience; and as regards the second, that miracles are constituent elements in the divine revelation, deeds which display
