ho is said to
have collaborated with Mirabeau in the _Galerie de Portraits_ published
in the following year, why it should have been appended to Mirabeau's
_Histoire Secrete de la Cour de Berlin_, and accordingly attributed to
Mirabeau himself, why Barruel should have denounced it as dust thrown in
the eyes of the public, although it entirely corroborated his own point
of view, are questions to which I can find no reply. That is was written
seriously and in all good faith it is impossible to doubt; whilst the
fact that it appeared before, instead of after, the events described,
renders it even more valuable evidence of the reality of the conspiracy
than Barruel's own admirable work. What Barruel saw, de Luchet foresaw
with equal clearness. As to the role of Mirabeau at this crisis, we can
only hazard an explanation on the score of his habitual inconsistency.
At one moment he was seeking interviews with the King's ministers in
order to warn them of the coming danger, at the next he was
energetically stirring up insurrection. It is therefore not impossible
that he may have encouraged de Luchet's exposure of the conspiracy,
although meanwhile he himself had entered into the scheme of
destruction. Indeed, according to a pamphlet published in 1791 entitled
_Mysteres de la Conspiration_,[615] the whole plan of revolution was
found amongst his papers. The editor of this _brochure_ explains that
the document here made public, called _Croquis ou Projet de Revolution
de Monsieur de Mirabeau_, was seized at the house of Madame Lejai, the
wife of Mirabeau's publisher, on October 6, 1789. Beginning with a
diatribe against the French monarchy, the document goes on to say that
"in order to triumph over this hydra-headed monster these are my ideas":

We must overthrow all order, suppress all laws, annul all power,
and leave the people in anarchy. The laws we establish will not
perhaps be in force at once, but at any rate, having given back the
power to the people, they will resist for the sake of their liberty
which they will believe they are preserving. We must caress their
vanity, flatter their hopes, promise them happiness after our work
has been in operation; we must elude their caprices and their
systems at will, for the people as legislators are very dangerous,
they only establish laws which coincide with their passions, their
want of knowledge would besides only give birth to abus