Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/215

Rh was aged seventeen, when, owing to a love intrigue, and to debts, his father obtained a lettre de cachet and had him imprisoned in the isle of Ré. From that time ensued a pitiless struggle, a veritable duel, between the imperious father and the ungovernable son. In 1772 Honoré married Emilie de Marignane at Aix; she was a wealthy heiress, but he speedily dissipated her fortune. His father obtained an order that he should be interned at Manosque. But he broke bounds and came to Grasse to visit his sister. Two days later an indecent pasquinade appeared placarded over the walls of Grasse, containing aspersions on the characters of the principal ladies of rank who spent the winter there. It was at once bruited abroad that Mirabeau and his sister, Mme. de Cabris, had concocted the lampoon between them. Mirabeau was incensed. He was too much of a gentleman thus to defame ladies; and he hunted out M. de Villeneuve-Mouans as the author of this report. He went after him one day, when this old gentleman was walking on the road bare-headed, with an umbrella spread, horsewhipped him, and broke the umbrella over his shoulders. The consequence was that a lettre de cachet was taken out against Louise; but on investigation it turned out that it was the Marquis de Grasse-Cabris, the husband of Louise, who was the author of the scurrilous lampoon, and that Honoré had known nothing about it.

When the Revolution broke out, the Marquis fled. The Castle of Cabris was sacked by the mob, and Louise and her husband lived for ten years in great poverty as emigrés. When, finally, she returned to Provence it was to ruined Mirabeau. The castle had been wrecked, but