dislike for the
misshapen child. Hence, when at three years of age the little one was
left wretchedly pitted by a severe attack of small-pox, its fate was
listed. It must not, could not, bear the name of Mirabeau.

Accordingly, when the youngster was fourteen years old--after several
years of instruction under the private tutorship of Lachabeaussiere,
_pere_--he was entered under the fictitious name of "Pierre Buffiere,"
at a private military school in Paris. Here, strong of limb, body, and
mind, industrious and aggressive, he remained for four years. Then his
father placed him in the Berry regiment of cavalry, which regiment had
been commanded, sixty-two years before, by his grandfather.

This event marked the end of a boyhood which had been clouded by an
almost entire absence of paternal favor, and wholly free from maternal
care--the mother's absence having been secured by the father, by a
_lettre de cachet_. In addition, that boyhood had been irritated and
embittered by a continuous and exasperating development of his natural
personal disfigurement. His enormous head grew less in harmony with his
torso, his lips and nose became thick and heavy, great moles revealed
themselves upon his cheeks, and in every way, physically, his growth was
a perpetual disappointment.

However, he was now (1767) the eighteen-year old "Pierre Buffiere," a
lieutenant of cavalry, conscious of his exceptional mental strength and
somewhat vain thereof, and full of ambition and determination to win as
he wished and in spite of all of his many obstacles. Unfortunately, but
most naturally, considering his temperament, the first test of his will,
his passion, and his determination, resulted in his victory. He won the
affection of a young woman to whom his colonel had long been devoted,
and the scandal resulting therefrom caused the father to obtain a
_lettre de cachet_, by authority of which the indiscreet young man was
placed in confinement in the Isle of Rhe. Immediately the prisoner began
his first illustration of his ability to gain to his own purposes the
ability and influence of others--one of his strongest and most useful
characteristics. Within two months he had secured the esteem and
confidence of his jailer, so that that official soon made a most
favorable report, upon the strength of which Mirabeau was accepted as a
volunteer to accompany the French expedition sent (in 1769) to conquer
Corsica. So well did the young soldier conduct h