MIRABEAU

mirabeau, comtesse de martel de janville (1850- ) french writer, who was born at the chateau of koetsal in the morbihan. her father, who was the grandson of the vicomte de mirabeau and great-nephew of the orator, served in the papal zouaves, and died during the campaign of 1860. her mother, the comtesse de mirabeau, in addition to some graver compositions, contributed to the _figaro_ and the _vie parisienne_, under various pseudonyms, papers in the manner successfully developed by her daughter. under the pseudonym of "gyp" madame de martel, who was married in 1869, sent to the _vie parisienne_, and later to the _revue des deux mondes_, a large number of social sketches and dialogues, afterwards reprinted in volumes. her later work includes stories of a more formal sort, essentially differing but little from the shorter studies. the following list includes some of the best known of madame de martel's publications, nearly seventy in number: _petit bob_ (1882); _autour du mariage_ (1883); _ce que femme veut_ (1883); _le monde a cote_ (1884), _sans voiles_ (1885); _autour du divorce_ (1886); _dans le train_ (1886); _mademoiselle loulou_ (1888); _bob au salon_ (1888-1889); _l'education d'un prince_ (1890); _passionette_ (1891); _ohe! la grande vie_ (1891); _une election a tigre-sur-mer_ (1890), an account of "gyp's" experiences in support of a boulangist candidate; _mariage civil_ (1892); _ces bons docteurs_ (1892); _du haut en bas_ (1893); _mariage de chiffon_ (1894); _leurs ames_ (1895); _le coeur d'ariane_ (1895); _le bonheur de ginette_ (1896); _totote_ (1897); _lune de miel_ (1898); _israel_ (1898); _l'entrevue_ (1899); _le pays des champs_ (1900); _trop de chic_ (1900); _le friquet_ (1901); _la fee_ (1902); _un mariage chic_ (1903); _un menage dernier cri_ (1903); _maman_ (1904); _le coeur de pierrette_ (1905). from the first "gyp," writing of a society to which she belonged, displayed all the qualities which have given her a distinct, if not pre-eminent, position among writers of her class. those qualities included an intense faculty of observation, much skill in innuendo, a mordant wit combined with some breadth of humour, and a singular power of animating ordinary dialogues without destroying the appearance of reality. her parisian types of the spoiled child, of the precocious schoolgirl, of the young bride, and of various masculine figures in the gay world, have become almost classical, and may probably survive as faithful pictures of luxurious manners in the 19th century. some later productions, inspired by a violent anti-semitic and nationalist bias, deserve little consideration. an earlier attempt to dramatize _autour du mariage_ was a failure, not owing to the audacities which it shares with most of its author's works, but from lack of cohesion and incident. more successful was _mademoiselle eve_ (1895), but indeed "gyp's" successes are all achieved without a trace of dramatic faculty. in 1901 madame de martel furnished a sensational incident in the nationalist campaign during the municipal elections in paris. she was said to have been the victim of a kidnapping outrage or piece of horseplay provoked by her political attitude, but though a most circumstantial account of the outrages committed on her and of her adventurous escape was published, the affair was never clearly explained or verified.