twice a-day to inquire; privately besides: from
the world at large there is no end of inquiring. 'A written bulletin is
handed out every three hours,' is copied and circulated; in the end,
it is printed. The People spontaneously keep silence; no carriage shall
enter with its noise: there is crowding pressure; but the Sister of
Mirabeau is reverently recognised, and has free way made for her.
The People stand mute, heart-stricken; to all it seems as if a great
calamity were nigh: as if the last man of France, who could have swayed
these coming troubles, lay there at hand-grips with the unearthly Power.

The silence of a whole People, the wakeful toil of Cabanis, Friend and
Physician, skills not: on Saturday, the second day of April, Mirabeau
feels that the last of the Days has risen for him; that, on this day,
he has to depart and be no more. His death is Titanic, as his life has
been. Lit up, for the last time, in the glare of coming dissolution, the
mind of the man is all glowing and burning; utters itself in sayings,
such as men long remember. He longs to live, yet acquiesces in death,
argues not with the inexorable. His speech is wild and wondrous:
unearthly Phantasms dancing now their torch-dance round his soul; the
soul itself looking out, fire-radiant, motionless, girt together for
that great hour! At times comes a beam of light from him on the world
he is quitting. "I carry in my heart the death-dirge of the French
Monarchy; the dead remains of it will now be the spoil of the factious."
Or again, when he heard the cannon fire, what is characteristic too:
"Have we the Achilles' Funeral already?" So likewise, while some friend
is supporting him: "Yes, support that head; would I could bequeath it
thee!" For the man dies as he has lived; self-conscious, conscious of a
world looking on. He gazes forth on the young Spring, which for him will
never be Summer. The Sun has risen; he says: "Si ce n'est pas la Dieu,
c'est du moins son cousin germain." (Fils Adoptif, viii. 450; Journal
de la maladie et de la mort de Mirabeau, par P.J.G. Cabanis (Paris,
1803).)--Death has mastered the outworks; power of speech is gone;
the citadel of the heart still holding out: the moribund giant,
passionately, by sign, demands paper and pen; writes his passionate
demand for opium, to end these agonies. The sorrowful Doctor shakes his
head: Dormir 'To sleep,' writes the other, passionately pointing at it!
So dies a gigantic Heathen and Titan;