Mirabeau, Victor Riquetti, Marquis de, “crabbed old friend of men,” born at Pertuis, in Provence, claimed to be of Florentine descent; “could never make the world go to his mind,” and set about reforming it by coercing a family as self-willed as himself, to the driving of his celebrated son to desperate courses and reckless excesses; advocated the doctrines of the French economists in a series of writings instinct with a certain theoretical philanthropy (1716‒1783).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Mirabeau, Gabriel Honoré Riquetti, Comte de * Miracle Plays