Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/513

A.D.1790.] prince on behalf of the court, and Bouillé had been so much struck with it, that he recommended that every means should be used to secure the zealous exertions of Mirabeau in carrying out the plan, and he engaged himself to support it by all his power with the army.



The great difficulty lay in the repugnance of the queen to enter into personal communication with a man of Mirabeau's debauched character. Mirabeau, with all his ambition, was the veriest slave of his passions. No sooner did he obtain the ample allowance from the king, than he quitted his obscure lodgings for a magnificent house in the Chaussée d'Antin, which he fitted up most sumptuously. He had the most elegant servants; he gave the finest dinner parties; he indulged in all the licentious pleasures possible; he lived on the freest terms with madame Jay, the wife of his publisher; and, besides, kept a number of opera-girls, with whom he passed all his leisure hours. All this time he knew that the royal coffers, from which his extravagance was supplied, were next to empty, and that the court itself was often at its wit's end for money. Though his father was dead, and the money that he received from the court was ostensibly to enable him to clear off the debts from the family estate, that was the very last thing Mirabeau thought of. He was aware that to assist the monarchy would require not only all his talent and sagacity, but all his most earnest thought, time, and watchfulness: he never stinted his debaucheries till nature