Mirabeau

#[31348] — Honoré Gabriel Riqueti Count of Mirabeau 9 March 1749 - 2 April 1791 was a leader of the early stages of the French Revolution. A noble he had been involved in numerous scandals before the start of the Revolution in 1789 that had left his reputation in ruins. Nonetheless he rose to the top of the French political hierarchy in the years 1789-1791 and acquired the reputation of a voice of the people. A successful orator he was the leader of the moderate position among revolutionaries by favoring a constitutional monarchy built on the model of Great Britain. When he died of natural causes he was a great national hero even though support for his moderate position was slipping away. The later discovery that he was in the pay of King Louis XVI and the Austrian enemies of France beginning in 1790 brought him into posthumous disgrace. Historians are deeply split on whether he was a great leader who almost saved the nation from the Terror a venal demagogue lacking political or moral values or a traitor in the pay of the enemy. The frisian patriot Coert Lambertus van Beyma went to Paris to speak to Mirabeau. This book is a well documented product of several journalists amongst others Jacques Pierre Brissot. Most attention is drawn to the declaration of human rights. unknown