Honoré Mirabeau – Signed Autograph Letter

Autograph letter signed “Mirabeau fils” to his wife. At Château Mirabeau November 6, 1782; 2 pages in-4°. Mirabeau attempts a final reconciliation with his wife who has requested the legal separation of the two spouses: “I am sending you, Madam, the copy of the letter that I am writing to your father (…). No, Madam, I will never believe that it is no longer possible for you to fulfill your duties; and you are not capable of hiding those that your title of wife imposes on you. I will not believe that you had the idea of attesting as an insurmountable barrier between your husband and you chimerical events whose falsity I have demonstrated, as an authentic judgment has declared! Above all, I will not believe that you could have suspected me of being able to attack your freedom, which my entire family as well as yours would defend if I were capable of attacking it; nor that you yourself threatened your husband to invoke the help of the law against him. It is under their guarantee, Madam, that I am your husband; and this name is very dear to me. I am resolved to claim the rights, and to defend them (…) because I see your happiness there as well as mine. Eight years have matured my youth since we lived far from each other. I will find it difficult to believe that these eight years devoted to misfortune, a very sacred title over good hearts, have driven me from yours. Ask the lady; consult your true friends, those of your house, those of your person; those who have no interest in disuniting us, in quarreling us; to animate us against each other; I doubt they will go against my wishes. But what I do not doubt is that by descending into yourself; it is that by listening to the cry of your conscience, of your fairness, of your natural generosity, you have a horror of pleading, that the man you have chosen, with whom you have lived for two years, to whom you have written some letters very worthy of you, and who has not seen you since these letters testifying to your tenderness were written; that this man, this father of a son whom you mourned for eighteen months with tears which have touched all those who know you, tears whose source only your husband can dry up by giving you other tokens of his love; that this man is no longer and must no longer be your husband. And why Madam? Because he has debts, which he would no longer have, if their arrangement was not subject to slow formalities? Because he was very unfortunate, very slandered, and it pleases I don't know what councils to regard as a personal outrage against you an accusation that an authentic judgment has rejected? Ah! Madam ! I know you well. Your heart is indignant at these barbaric sophisms and disavows your pen. You are aware that the husband you have chosen is neither without generosity, nor without nobility, nor without heart, we ourselves have more praise, madame, than it is appropriate for me to repeat here... .but I must not forget them. They are a judge to me, precious of your affection, of your esteem, deign to remember in your turn that if the threat, even serious and not insignificant, as is the one that was advised to you, never obtained anything from me: your tenderness, your reason, your gentleness were rarely refused, and above all never will be." Young Mirabeau, despite his gambling debts and a reputation as a libertine, married Emilie, daughter of the powerful Marquis de Marignane in 1770. They had a son Victor who died in 1778. To escape his creditors, his father had him imprisoned at Fort Vincennes and the Château de Joux. At the same time, Mirabeau was having a romantic affair with a married woman, Sophie de Monnier, which forced him into exile and imprisonment. His wife requested legal separation in 1782, the year of this letter. This was pronounced in 1783.