biography
| name: |
Mirabeau, Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de (Count of)
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pronunciation:
[meeraboh]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1749–91)
|
| biography:
| Revolutionary politician and orator, born in Bignon, C France. At 17 he entered a cavalry regiment, but was imprisoned on several occasions for his disorderly behaviour. While hiding in Amsterdam, having eloped with a young married woman, he wrote the sensational Essai sur le despotisme (Essay on Despotism). Sentenced to death, he was imprisoned at Vincennes in 1777 for over three years, where he wrote his famous Essai sur les lettres de cachet (2 vols, 1782). Elected to the Estates General by the Third Estate of Marseille (1780), his political acumen made him a force in the National Assembly, while his audacity and eloquence endeared him to the people. He advocated a constitutional monarchy on the English model, but failed to convince Louis XVI. As the popular movement progressed, his views were also rejected by the revolutionaries. He was nonetheless elected president of the Assembly in 1791, but died soon afterwards. |
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