Mirabeau à Aix, Séduction et Révolution

Mirabeau's personal and political life is closely tied to the city of Aix, which was the setting for his marriage and his judicial separation. It was there that he discovered the power of his eloquence, which stirred the enthusiasm of his electors and then of an entire country. This orator of genius, whom the people of Aix carried through the Third Estate to the Estates General, was "the voice of the new world". "It was '89, radiant and splendid, that rose to its feet and called out, accused and denounced to God and to men all the fatal dates of the monarchy," Victor Hugo exclaimed.

Less than a century later, on 3 November 1876, the mayor of Aix decreed that "the Cours d'Aix, running from the Rotonde to the place des Carmélites, shall henceforth be called: Cours Mirabeau". To mark the 150th anniversary of this event, the Académie des sciences, agriculture, arts et belles-lettres d'Aix recalls that our city helped foster the talent of "the man of liberty" that Mirabeau will remain for ever, and has created the exhibition Séduction et Révolution, Mirabeau à Aix, as a distant echo of "the dear voices that have fallen silent".

A unique opportunity to discover, within the Musée-bibliothèque Paul Arbaud, the Académie's collection, made up of numerous period documents, sculptures and paintings of the Riqueti family, which constitutes the richest collection in France devoted to Honoré Gabriel Riqueti de Mirabeau.

"Mirabeau's memory will be shaken by all the storms of the Revolution; the great tribune had so deeply bound himself to it that, even in death, he will remain present within it, by turns exalted and cursed, never forgotten."

Jean Jaurès

"History has all too often recounted the deeds of ferocious beasts, among whom one occasionally makes out a hero. We may hope that we are beginning the history of men, that of brothers born to make one another happy."

Mirabeau, National Assembly, 27 June 1789