Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau
Victor de Riqueti, Marquis de Mirabeau (5 October 1715,
Biography
Mirabeau was brought up very sternly by his father, and in 1728 joined the army. He took keenly to campaigning, but never rose above the rank of
The event that led Mirabeau to devote himself to political economy was undoubtedly his work on a manuscript of Richard Cantillon's Essai sur la nature du commerce en général, which he had in his possession as early as 1740.[2] He elaborated a commentary of this text that gradually became what became his Ami des hommes.
While in garrison at Bordeaux Mirabeau had made the acquaintance of Montesquieu (1689−1755),[3] and after retiring from the army he wrote his first work, his Testament Politique (1747), which demanded for the prosperity of France a return of the French noblesse to their old position in the Middle Ages. in 1749, his son Honoré Gabriel was born. This work was followed in 1750 by a book on the Utilité des états provinciaux, which was attributed to Montesquieu himself. In 1756 Mirabeau made his first appearance as a political economist by the publication of his L'Ami des hommes ou Traité de la population ("The friend of Man, or treatise on the population"). This work has been often attributed to the influence, and in part even to the pen, of
In 1760 he published his Théorie de l'impot, in which he attacked with all the vehemence of his son the farmers-general of the taxes, who got him imprisoned for eight days at
But his marriage had not been happy; he had separated from his wife in 1762, and had, he believed, secured her safely in the provinces by a
The marquis's younger brother, Jean Antoine Riquetti, the
Mirabeau was nicknamed "Friend of Man", after his work L'Ami des Hommes.[citation needed]
He was the first to employ the term "social science" in French in 1767.[4]
Works (excerpt)
- L'ami des hommes : ou, Traité de la population (1759)
- Théorie de l’impôt (1761), online
- Les économiques
- Philosophie rurale (ou, Économie générale et politique de l'agriculture, reduite à l'ordre immuable des loix physiques & morales, qui assurent la prospérité des empires) (1763)
- La science ou Les droits et les devoirs de l’homme (1774)[5]
Literature
- Georges Weulersse (1874-1950): Les manuscrits économiques de François Quesnay et du Marquis de Mirabeau aux archives nationales, inventaire, extraits et notes (1910), online
- Thérence Carvalho: « "L’ami des hommes et le prince pasteur". Le rôle du marquis de Mirabeau dans la diffusion et l’application des théories physiocratiques en Toscane », Annales historiques de la Révolution française, nº 394, 4/2018, p. 3-24.
- René de La Croix de Castries: Mirabeau ou l’échec d’un destin, Paris, Fayard, 1960.
- Louis de Loménie: Les Mirabeau : nouvelles études sur la Société française au xviiie siècle, Paris, Dentu, 1879-1891, 2 vol.
- Anthony Mergey: « La question des municipalités dans l’Introduction au Mémoire sur les États provinciaux du marquis de Mirabeau (1758) », Revue de la recherche juridique - Droit prospectif, 2, 4, 2006, p. 2523-2548 (ISSN 0249-8731))
- Henri Ripert: Le Marquis de Mirabeau, ses théories politiques et économiques, Paris, A. Rousseau, 1901.
- Albert Soboul: (avant propos d’), Les Mirabeau et leur temps, Société des études, Centre aixois d’études et de recherches sur le xviiie siècle, 1968.
References
- ^ a b c d e public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Mirabeau, Victor Riqueti, Marquis de". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 570. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- S2CID 219747599.
- ISBN 9782051029391.
- .
- ^ Excerpt
- Louis de Loménie Les Mirabeau (2 vols., 1879). Also Henri Ripert, Le Marquis de Mirabeau, ses theories politiques et économiques