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Authors: Robert Harvey
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undoubtedly a nymphomaniac, Delfina failed to win him back to her bed, but they continued to be seen together, and quarrelled with the intensity of lovers. Supposedly an illegitimate daughter of Louis XV, Delfina was the greatest French coquette of her time and, according to a contemporary wit, ‘loved everyone, even her husband’. She showered Miranda with letters, saw him frequently, and was his last companion when he left France.
Miranda’s sojourn in prison did not deter him from meddling inrevolutionary politics. Having twice escaped the guillotine he believed himself a charmed man, and now pursued his own moderate liberal agenda, which was anathema to extremists inside and outside the government. In particular, he showed an exemplary tolerance, in an anti-clerical age, of the more liberal-minded among the clergy; and (in spite of his youthful disdain of the man) he lauded the qualities of George Washington, who ‘had obtained the confidence of his fellow countrymen not from his brilliance, which he cloaks, but from the calmness of his spirit and uprightness of his intentions’. Miranda’s views on the direction of the French Revolution were succinctly expressed: ‘I love freedom, but not a freedom based on blood and pitiless towards sex or age, like that which has been the order of the day in this country until recently.’ He made no secret of the fact that he wanted to hold office in post-revolutionary France.
Miranda seems to have been sucked into an alliance between the moderates and the royalists as one of two possible leaders of a military coup. A prominent royalist remarked contemptuously that it would be astonishing if the King of France should be replaced ‘by a Spanish Creole, the lieutenant of a provincial regiment of his Catholic Majesty’s, and a total stranger in France where he has lived only a few years and where he has only been known since the Revolution’.
As the showdown between royalists and republicans approached, it is unclear whether Miranda sat on the fence or took part. When the government sent 1,500 troops to close down a radical ‘electoral body’ gathered in a French theatre at two in the morning on 4 October, revolutionary newspapers reported Miranda to have been in charge of the illicit proceedings.
Miranda went underground, was accused of being one of the principal conspirators, and then emerged to declare that he had taken no part in the parliament. Arrested and ordered out of the country, he secured a stay of execution of the order and continued to live in his usual style, but always followed by a gendarme. He managed to give him the slip one night and went into hiding, whence he bombarded the press with letters defending himself and attacking his enemies. He was eventually given official permission to stay, and continued to survive through the after-shocks of revolutionary France, always activein half-plots, always preaching his own brand of liberal anti-monarchism and anti-extremism.
In September 1797 another alleged monarchist conspiracy was suppressed by the government, and again Miranda was named as one of the plotters. Once more he went underground, once more the police were ordered to hold the ‘Peruvian’ general if he had not, as was widely believed, escaped to Athens. In fact, at last wholly disillusioned with the French Revolution, fearing another long spell in prison and especially angry that France had formed an alliance with the Spain he so hated, he had resolved to go to Britain.
Passionately he kissed Delfina goodbye and, wearing a wig and green spectacles and passing as a minor businessman, took a coach to Calais, then embarked on a Danish boat, arriving in Dover in January 1798. A customs inspection there found that his case had a false bottom, filled with papers. After discussion, documents were furnished for him to travel to London, where he set about organizing his network of contacts and friends in South America and in Europe.
Chapter 6
THE
Miranda’s sojourn in prison did not deter him from meddling inrevolutionary politics. Having twice escaped the guillotine he believed himself a charmed man, and now pursued his own moderate liberal agenda, which was anathema to extremists inside and outside the government. In particular, he showed an exemplary tolerance, in an anti-clerical age, of the more liberal-minded among the clergy; and (in spite of his youthful disdain of the man) he lauded the qualities of George Washington, who ‘had obtained the confidence of his fellow countrymen not from his brilliance, which he cloaks, but from the calmness of his spirit and uprightness of his intentions’. Miranda’s views on the direction of the French Revolution were succinctly expressed: ‘I love freedom, but not a freedom based on blood and pitiless towards sex or age, like that which has been the order of the day in this country until recently.’ He made no secret of the fact that he wanted to hold office in post-revolutionary France.
Miranda seems to have been sucked into an alliance between the moderates and the royalists as one of two possible leaders of a military coup. A prominent royalist remarked contemptuously that it would be astonishing if the King of France should be replaced ‘by a Spanish Creole, the lieutenant of a provincial regiment of his Catholic Majesty’s, and a total stranger in France where he has lived only a few years and where he has only been known since the Revolution’.
As the showdown between royalists and republicans approached, it is unclear whether Miranda sat on the fence or took part. When the government sent 1,500 troops to close down a radical ‘electoral body’ gathered in a French theatre at two in the morning on 4 October, revolutionary newspapers reported Miranda to have been in charge of the illicit proceedings.
Miranda went underground, was accused of being one of the principal conspirators, and then emerged to declare that he had taken no part in the parliament. Arrested and ordered out of the country, he secured a stay of execution of the order and continued to live in his usual style, but always followed by a gendarme. He managed to give him the slip one night and went into hiding, whence he bombarded the press with letters defending himself and attacking his enemies. He was eventually given official permission to stay, and continued to survive through the after-shocks of revolutionary France, always activein half-plots, always preaching his own brand of liberal anti-monarchism and anti-extremism.
In September 1797 another alleged monarchist conspiracy was suppressed by the government, and again Miranda was named as one of the plotters. Once more he went underground, once more the police were ordered to hold the ‘Peruvian’ general if he had not, as was widely believed, escaped to Athens. In fact, at last wholly disillusioned with the French Revolution, fearing another long spell in prison and especially angry that France had formed an alliance with the Spain he so hated, he had resolved to go to Britain.
Passionately he kissed Delfina goodbye and, wearing a wig and green spectacles and passing as a minor businessman, took a coach to Calais, then embarked on a Danish boat, arriving in Dover in January 1798. A customs inspection there found that his case had a false bottom, filled with papers. After discussion, documents were furnished for him to travel to London, where he set about organizing his network of contacts and friends in South America and in Europe.
Chapter 6
THE
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