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Milton and Mirabeau

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Don M. Wolfe
Don M. Wolfe*
Affiliation:
Geneva College
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Extract

Though Milton and Mirabeau were devoted to almost identical ideals of civil liberty, their personalities offer a peculiar contrast. Milton was an idealist, a theorist, a poet; he was abstemious in food and drink, inclined to seclusion, religious by nature. Mirabeau, on the other hand, was a soldier, an orator, a political leader. Whereas Milton was thoughtful and reserved, Mirabeau was animated, impulsive, ever seeking the center of action, forever restless and impatient. Sensual and gluttonous, he was as much a slave to his passions as any of the Englishmen Milton condemned for being so; and in his last moments he turned away, more in kindness than in derision, the priest who sought to shrive him. Notwithstanding these essential differences, Mirabeau found in Milton a kindred spirit; he found in him that flaming love of liberty, that passion for essential freedoms, that lofty and unselfish devotion to country to which he himself aspired. Milton's influence on Mirabeau, many times suggested but never evaluated, is one of significant interest to students of Milton's politics. A close study of two Mirabeau tracts, Théorie de la Royauté après la Doctrine de Milton and De la liberté de la Presse, reveals not only that Mirabeau's reading of Milton strikingly verified his own political conclusions: it presents evidence that Milton's voice at a critical period of the Revolution became the weapon of its most powerful leader. French cries for liberty found expression in the tracts of the Puritan poet.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , December 1934 , pp. 1116 - 1128
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1934

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References

1 Carlyle, The French Revolution, i, 106.

2 Mirabeau, Œuvres, ed. M. Merilhou, 8 vols. (Paris, 1834–35), iii, 305.

3 Œuvres, iii, 308.

4 Prose Works (Bohn edition), ii, 71.

5 Œuvres, iii, 323.

6 Œuvres, iii, 341.

7 Ibid., iii, 342.

8 Œuvres, iii, 346–347.

9 Henry de Jouvenel, The Stormy Life of Mirabeau, p. 205.

10 de Jouvenel, op. cit., 209–210.

11 John Stores Smith, Mirabeau, a Life History (Philadelphia, 1848), p. 295.

12 This overemphasis of the importance of Milton's position in the Commonwealth is typical of Mirabeau's evident unfamiliarity with the details of Milton's life. Another instance is his error in retelling Richardson's story (found in Toland) of Milton's having refused employment under Charles ii. He has Milton reject toutes les places instead of one. We should say, however, that Mirabeau's errors are not critical but biographical. There is no large inaccuracy in translation or misrepresentation of Milton's thought.

13 “Sur Milton et ses Ouvrages,” Théorie de la Royauté (Paris, 1789), pp. lxii, lxiii.

14 Ibid., p. lxvii.

15 Mirabeau, Sur Milton et ses Ouvrages, p. lxxi.

16 Ibid., p. lxiii.

17 Prose Works, ii, 109–110. Mirabeau's version of this passage will illustrate his omission of references for the sake of clearer translation: “Puisque nous sommes appelés à redevenir esclaves, du moins, profitons du peu de temps qui nous reste pour prendre congé de la liberté.”

18 Smith, Mirabeau, a Life History, p. 182.

19 Smith, op. cit., p. 182.

20 Ibid., pp. 182–183.

21 Ibid., p. 185.

22 Carlyle, The French Revolution, i, 160.