The women are all angelic or perverse, the men sublime or depraved, and their language even is as emphatic and lofty as their aspirations.

There is in their most familiar correspondence the colour and tone of the heroic tongues of Italy.
The ancestors of Mirabeau speak of their domestic affairs as Plutarch of the quarrels of Marius and Sylla, of Caesar and Pompey.

We perceive the great men descending to trifling matters.

Mirabeau inspired this domestic majesty and virility in his very cradle.

I dwell on these details, which may seem foreign to this history, but explain it.