In October, 1790,
Louis wrote to the King of Spain and other sovereigns to pay no heed to
his concessions for he only yielded to duress, and all this even as
Mirabeau made his supreme effort to save those who were fixed upon
destroying themselves. Mirabeau sought the King and offered his
services. The court sneered at him as a dupe. The Queen wrote, "We make
use of Mirabeau, but we do not take him seriously." When Mirabeau awoke
to his predicament, he broke out in mixed wrath and scorn: "Of what are
these people thinking? Do they not see the abyss yawning at their feet?
Both the King and Queen will perish, and you will live to see the rabble
spurn their corpses."
The King and Queen, the Nobility and Clergy, could not see the abyss
which Mirabeau saw, any more than the lawyers could see it, because of
the temper of their minds. In the eye of caste Europe was not primarily
divided into nations to whom allegiance was due, but into superimposed
orders. He who betrayed his order committed the unpardonable crime.
Death were better than that. But to the true aristocrat it was
inconceivable that serfs could ever vanquish nobles in battle.
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