Mirabeau : Honoré Gabriel Victor Riqueti (1749-91), Comte de Mirabeau, French revolutionist & statesman, one of the greatest figures in the National Assembly, the body that governed France during the early phases of the French Revolution. “Mirabeau initiated, Danton inspired, Robespierre slew, Napoleon fulfilled”, Mirabeau “was the pure Egoist” [SABCL 17: 378, 379].
... Liberal. Mirabeau had neither. He was the pure egoist, the eternal Rakshasa. Not for the sake of justice and liberty did he love justice and liberty but for the sake of Mirabeau. Had his career been fortunate, the forms of the old regime wide enough to satisfy his ambitions and passions, the upheaval of 1789 might have found him on the other side. But because the heart and senses of Mirabeau were unsatisfied... great in its men filling them all with its vehemence, its passion, its fierce demand on the world, its colossal impetus. Through four of them chiefly it helped itself, through Mirabeau, Danton, Robespierre and Napoleon. Mirabeau initiated, Danton inspired, Robespierre slew, Page 513 Napoleon fulfilled. The first three appeared for the moment, the man in the multitude, did their work and departed... fortunate who get that release or are wise enough, like Garibaldi, to take it. Not altogether happy is their lot who, like Napoleon or Mazzini, outstay the lease of their appointed greatness. Mirabeau ruled the morning twilight, the sandhya of the new age. Aristocratic tribune of the people, unprincipled champion of principles, lordly democrat,—a man in whom reflection was turbulent, prudence ...
... and specially-forged instruments of the Power which determines them. Mirabeau helped to create the French Revolution, no man more. When he set himself against it and strove, becoming a prop of monarchy, to hold back the wheel, did the French Revolution stop for the backsliding of France's mightiest? Kali put her foot on Mirabeau and he disappeared; but the Revolution went on, for the Revolution was ...
... in movement! How was it possible to combine in a single voice such power and strength with so much sweetness! I had read about the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, heard the eulogies of France's Mirabeau and Danton, of Burke and Gladstone of England. But it was truly an experience to have heard with one's own ears a human voice of their calibre. One cannot do without a mike today if one is to address ...
... inspirations of the Time-Spirit in their purity, so long as they remain loyal to it in the depths of their being. Pythagoras and Plato, Zoroaster and Christ and Mohammed, Leonardo, Galileo and Newton, Mirabeau, Danton, Robespierre and Napoleon, Mazzini and Garibaldi, Marx and Lenin etc., in the West, and Rama, Sri Krishna, Mahavira and Buddha, Shankaracharya and Chaitanya, Sri Ramakrishna and Swami ...
... to appreciate the working of an idea against all obstacles through many centuries; we can comprehend now, for instance, that we must seek the beginnings of the French Revolution, not in Rousseau or Mirabeau or the blundering of Louis XVI, but in movements which date back to the Capet and the Valois, while the precise fact which prepared its tremendous outbreak and victory and determined its form was ...
... that vision. Yes, since the time I had studied the story of the French Revolution, I was looking for the real spirit behind that Revolution. I had studied Rousseau and Voltaire; I had studied also Mirabeau, Robespierre and several other leaders of that great epoch. And then, suddenly, when I began to study Danton and his speeches, I felt that I had discovered the real centre of that Revolution. Although ...
... soon find how. terrible is the grasp of God and how insignificant the human reason before the whirlwind of His breath." Has any war gone exactly according to the calculations of the war-lords? Was Mirabeau or Danton able to regulate the lava-flow of the French Revolution? What then? Does it mean the total abdication of reason? Not altogether - only, one has to be ready always to listen to the other ...
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