thumb|Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau

Victor de Riqueti, Marquis de Mirabeau (; 5 October 171513 July 1789) was a French economist of the Physiocratic school. He was the father of Honoré, Comte de Mirabeau and André Boniface Louis Riqueti de Mirabeau. He was, in distinction, often referred to as the elder Mirabeau as he had a younger brother, Jean-Antoine Riqueti de Mirabeau (17171794).

Biography

Mirabeau was born in Pertuis. He 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 captain, owing to his being unable to get leave at court to buy a regiment. In 1737 he came into the family property on his father's death, and spent some pleasant years till 1743 in literary companionship with Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues and the poet Lefranc de Pompignan, which might have continued had he not determined to marry not for money, but for landed estates. The lady whose property he fancied was Marie-Geneviève, daughter of a M. de Vassan, a brigadier in the army, and widow of the marquis de Saulveboef, whom he married without previously seeing her on 21 April 1743. In the same year, Mirabeau was made a Knight of the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis.

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. 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), 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 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 Quesnay, the founder of the economical school of the physiocrats, but was really written before the marquis had made the acquaintance of the physician of Madame de Pompadour.

Works

thumb|Economiques, 1769

  • L'ami des hommes : ou, Traité de la population (1759)
  • Volume 1: online
  • Volume 2: online
  • Volume 4: online (1762) <!-- nouvelle édition, augmenté --->
  • Volume 5: online
  • Volume 7: online (1762)
  • 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)
  • Volume 1 (Volltext online)
  • Volume 2 (Volltext online)
  • Volume 3: (Volltext online)
  • La science ou Les droits et les devoirs de l’homme (1774)

References

Sources

  • Louis de Loménie Les Mirabeau (2 vols., 1879). Also Henri Ripert, Le Marquis de Mirabeau, ses theories politiques et économiques

Further reading

  • 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.