II.

A Scandalous Youth

Born at the château of Bignon (in Loiret, central France), Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, the future Comte de Mirabeau, was the eldest son of a noble family from Provence. His father was an economist who became associated with the school of economic reformers known as the Physiocrats. As a young man his scandalous misadventures attracted attention—he ran up debts, fought duels, and had numerous love affairs (despite his unprepossessing physical appearance, caused by the effects of smallpox). He was imprisoned twice under lettres de cachet (written orders allowing him to be held without trial), and was compelled by his father to join the army in 1767. In 1771 he married a Provençal heiress, Émilie de Marignane.

Following an affair with the wife of the Marquis de Monnier, and their flight to the Low Countries, Mirabeau was condemned to death for seduction and abduction, and imprisoned in the Château de Vincennes between 1777 and 1780. During his detention he wrote several works, most famously an essay, Des Lettres de Cachet et des Prisons d'État (1780; On Lettres de Cachet and State Prisons). At the end of 1786 he was appointed to a diplomatic mission to the court of the king of Prussia, Frederick the Great, in Berlin. His account of the mission, Histoire Secrète de la Cour de Berlin (1789; Secret History of the Court of Berlin) created another scandal.