Honoré Gabriel Riqueti de Mirabeau (1749–1791) is one of the most prominent figures of the Great French Revolution, a brilliant orator and publicist, a bully and a favorite of women, a prisoner of royal prisons and a defender of the monarchy. The posthumous discovery of his secret connections with the court of Louis XVI led to Mirabeau's ashes being removed from the Pantheon of Great Men of France. Attitudes towards him changed more than once in subsequent years. The author of this book, the famous French historian Rene de Castres (1908–1987), sees in his hero not an adventurer, but a political genius who tried to reconcile moderate republicans with monarchists and avoid revolutionary upheavals, war and terror. “If Mirabeau had remained alive, the history of France and Europe could have taken a different path” - the author of the book reinforces this unexpected conclusion with a painstaking analysis of the biography of his hero, his writings and memoirs of contemporaries.