III.

At the Estates-General

Mirabeau was elected to the Estates-General, representing Aix-en-Provence, in 1789. Even though this was the very year in which he inherited his title, he chose to sit with the Third Estate (representing the commoners) rather than with the nobility. He soon emerged as a leading spokesman for the Third Estate, publishing Appel à la Nation Provençale (Appeal to the Provençal Nation) and Lettres du Comte de Mirabeau à ses Commettants (Letters from the Comte de Mirabeau to his Constituents). On June 17, 1789, he cooperated with Emmanuel Sieyès in transforming the Third Estate into a national assembly. Mirabeau boosted his popularity when he helped rally the new assembly in its refusal to disperse on June 23, famously challenging a royal messenger with the words “if you have orders to remove us from this hall, you must also get authority to use force, for we shall yield to nothing but to bayonets”. A skilled speaker, Mirabeau also defended the freedom of the press with his newspaper Courrier de Provence, assisting with drawing up the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (on August 26), supported the abolition of the privileges of the clergy, and joined the Jacobin Club at the end of 1789.