st
liberally experienced in the ways of the then turbulent world,
undertook, as his first task, the removal of the sentence of death which
still confronted him. Not only did he succeed in this, but, by his
plausibility and eloquence, he shifted the entire cost of the
proceedings to the shoulders of the complainant--the aged magistrate he
had so grossly wronged. His next venture was an effort before the
tribunal of Aix, to compel his wife to return to him. Here he failed, as
also he failed in an effort to compromise a suit pending between his
father and mother. Not only that, but by his pleadings his mother became
forever alienated from him, and by reason of his bitter attacks upon the
rulings of the court he was forced to leave Paris. Locating at
Amsterdam, he began his lasting and respectable relations with Madame de
Nehra, daughter of Zwier van Haren, a Dutch writer and politician. She
was a woman of education and refinement, who exercised a valuable
influence over his rapidly growing celebrity, bringing out his good
qualities, subduing his undesirable characteristics, and encouraging all
of his better ambitions. It was at her suggestion that he went to
England, after a brief stay in Holland, while she repaired to Paris. His
mission--which he accomplished--was to publish his "Considerations sur
l'Ordre de Cincinnatus" and his "Doutes sur la Liberte de l'Escaut;"
while her mission, also successful, was to establish peace between
Mirabeau and the authorities at the French capital.

During twenty years of the thirty-six years he had lived, Mirabeau had
been, either through his father's intervention or by his own acts, a
constant topic of consideration by the French authorities. On the other
hand, by virtue of his writings, his declared enmity to all forms of
tyranny and oppression, and his distaste for pretence, he had become a
popular idol. He was, as Carlyle puts it, "a swallower of formulas," and
it seems he had the ability to digest such food thus taken. Therefore,
upon his return to Paris in April, 1785, he made a series of attacks
upon agiotage, or stock jobbing, most effectively assaulting the
Compagnie des Eaux and the Banque de St. Charles. While such efforts
proved offensive to the government, it caused such an appreciation of
his ability that he was sent, in June, 1786, on a secret mission to
Berlin. He remained there for half a year, and during that time he
secured the material for his notable work, "Histoire