Life of Madame Roland

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LIFE OF MADAME ROLAND

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LIFE OF

MADAME ROLAND

By I. A. TAYLOR

Author of" Queen Hortense and Her Friends" " Queen Christina of Sweden"
" Lady Jane Grey and Her Times" etc. etc.

WITH 15 ILLUSTRATIONS, INCLUDING
A PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE

London *> HUTCHINSON & CO.
Paternoster Row <+> ^ 191 1

PC

PRINTED BY

HAZELI., WATSON AND VINEY, LD.

LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

PREFATORY NOTE

ANY writers have concerned themselves, directly
or indirectly, with Madame Roland, her place
in history, and the influence she exercised during the
brief period covered by what may be called her public
life. The most prominent feminine figure of the French
Revolution, the representative and embodiment of the
spirit by which its purest and most disinterested ad-
herents were animated, she has attracted an amount of
attention only less than that accorded to its foremost
leaders. Her Memoirs have been printed and reprinted
by editors many and various, by friends who had
loved her — with omissions they considered due to her
memory — by later historians in their entirety. Her
letters have been collected and published, and the
information thus supplied has been supplemented by
facts that have gradually come to light and made plain
to the general public secrets jealously guarded by her
comrades and associates.

In most cases it would seem hard that the veil
should have been thus withdrawn ; but had it been
possible in this instance to consult the person chiefly
concerned, it is not likely that she would have shrunk
from these revelations. She had a hardy self-confidence
which precluded the dread of exposure, and there is no

vi Prefatory Note

reason to doubt the sincerity of her reiterated assertion
of a desire that the whole truth concerning her should
be known. " I have made my reckoning and taken my
part/' she wrote from prison. "I will tell all — abso-
lutely all." And when the friend to whom a large
portion of her manuscripts was confided expressed
doubts as to the expediency of so much openness, she
refused to be convinced. " For what concerns myself
personally," she wrote, "I hold absolutely to the truth.
I have never felt the least temptation to win greater
esteem than I am worthy of." Her faith in herself was
great, and was largely justified ; nor did she fear that
the truth would do her memory wrong.

It is not probable that much that is material will be
added to what is now known. To the labours of
M. Claud Perroud, the latest editor of her Memoirs and
letters, supplemented by copious notes and appendices,
any future biographer must be largely indebted. His
researches appear to have been practically exhaustive, and
from the data he supplies, as well as from the testimony
of contemporaries, it is possible to gain a clear view of
the woman she was — generous, courageous, warm-hearted,
arrogant, and self-occupied. Of that woman, her great
gifts and powers, her faults and her weaknesses, and
the charm she exercised over those brought into contact
with her, I have here endeavoured to give a picture,
adding only so much of the history of her times as
may be necessary to throw her figure into relief and to
define the place she filled with regard to it.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

1754—1765
Birth of Marie Jeanne Phlipon — Various estimates of her — Her parent-
Lge, childhood, and education — She is placed at a convent . . pp. 1-9

CHAPTER II

1765
The convent school — Friendship with the Cannet sisters — Visit to her
ind mother — Correspondence with Sophie Cannet — Relations of mother
id daughter — Impatience of existing customs . . . pp. 10-18

CHAPTER III

Youth — The question of marriage — De La Blancherie — Domestic
roubles — The future uncertain pp. 19-25

CHAPTER IV

Death of Louis XV. — Accession of Louis XVI. — Manon's indifference
to politics — Her visit to Versailles — The political situation — Riots in Paris
and the provinces — Manon's reflections .... pp. 26-33

CHAPTER V

Death of Madame Phlipon — Manon's sorrow— Her heart-searchings —
Religious developments — Studies and compositions — The Nouvelle Heloise
— Rousseau's influence— Love-affair with de La Blancherie. pp. 34-45

CHAPTER VI

Friendship with M. de Boismorel — Acquaintance with Roland — First
impressions — Growing liking for him — Turgot dismissed — Visit to
Rousseau— M. de Sainte-Lette and M. de Sevelinges . . pp. 46-59

viii Contents

CHAPTER VII

Roland's return to France— Development of his relations with Manon
— Voltaire in Paris— Manon and the Cannets — Roland in love— Difficulties
—Correspondence— The engagement suspended ... pp. 60-76

CHAPTER VIII

The rue Neuve Saiut-Etienne— Offer of a post at Court— Roland's
indecision— His visit to the convent— And renewed proposals— Marriage

pp. 77-82

CHAPTER IX

First years of marriage— Domestic happiness — At Paris and Amiens —
Views on the position of women— Eudora's birth— Visit to Paris— Madame
Roland soMa'teuse—Hei failure— And success ... pp. 83-97

CHAPTER X

At Lyons— Domestic life — Friendships with Lanthenas and Bosc —
Madame Roland femme de menage — Life at Lyons, Villefranche, and Le
Clos PP- 98-106

CHAPTER XI

Vintage-time at Le Clos— The approach of the catastrophe — Succeeding
ministers— Madame Roland passive— Fall of the Bastille— The Rolands'
revolutionary enthusiasm — Disturbances in the Beaujolais — Madame
Roland an extremist in politics pp. 107-118

CHAPTER XII

Madame Roland absorbed in public affairs — An interlude at Le Clos —
First acquaintance with Bancal des Issarts — Her relations with him —
Eudora a disappointment — Roland sent to Paris . . pp. 119-131

CHAPTER XIII

Visit to revolutionary Paris — First impressions — Madame Roland's
salon— Her opinion of Robespierre — Buzot— Madame Roland at the con-
ftrenccs of the leaders— Mirabeau's death— The flight to Varennes—
Massacre of the Champs de Mars— End of Roland's mission pp. 132-147

CHAPTER XIV

A new friend— Quarrel with Bosc— Return to Le Clos— Madame
Gfandcbwnp'i Visit— Madame Roland discontented— Eudora pp. 148-156

Contents ix

CHAPTER XV

Arrival in Paris — Relations with Madame Grandchamp — Disappoint-
ment— Changes in the capital — Madame Roland's despondency — Roland's
appointment to the office of Minister of the Interior . . pp. 157-168

CHAPTER XVI

Roland in office — Madame Roland's share in his promotion — Bosc's
susceptibilities — Pache — Madame Roland's life at the Hdtel de l'lnterieure
-The King and his Ministers — Declaration of war . . pp. 169-183

CHAPTER XVII

Robespierre and the Gironde — Madame Roland's position — Disagree-
ment between King and cabinet — Roland's letter to the King — His dis-
missal pp. 184-193

CHAPTER XVIII

At the rue de la Harpe — Lafayette's influence declining — Barbaroux
and the Rolands — The invasion of the Tuileries — The country declared in
danger — Duke of Brunswick's manifesto . . . .pp. 194-202

CHAPTER XIX

August 10 — Roland recalled to office — The new Cabinet — Danton's

position in it — Madame Roland and Danton — Her wish to see Marat —

Rapid enactments — The invading forces — Terror in Paris — The September

lassacres pp. 203-219

CHAPTER XX

Madame Roland's horror of the massacres — Marat's attacks — the
National Convention elected — Dumouriez's successes — Roland in office —
The opinions of foreigners — Buzot in Paris — Breach with Lanthenas

pp. 220-231

CHAPTER XXI

Pache at the War Office — Law against the emigrants — Lavater's pro-
test— Dumouriez in favour of conciliation — His views of the Rolands —
Fierce enmity of parties — Danton predominant — Madame Roland and
Buzot — Apprehensions. pp. 232-242

Contents

CHAPTER XXII

Execution of Louis XVI. — Hebert's abuse of Madame Roland — Her
life considered in danger — Roland's resignation and its causes — Madame
Roland and Buzot — The rue de la Harpe — Failure, public and private —
Dumouriez a traitor — Seizure of Roland's papers — Bancal's love-affair —
Madame Roland decides to leave Paris . . . .pp. 243-259

CHAPTER XXIII

May 31 — The Insurrection — Attempt to arrest Roland — Madame
Roland at the Tuileries — Fails to gain a hearing — A troubled night — She
is arrested pp. 260-269

CHAPTER XXIV

Madame Roland in prison — Her sense of relief— Letters to Buzot —
Visits from Madame Grandchamp and others — Literary activity — Her in-
Urrogatoire — Roland and Buzot in safety .... pp. 270-280

CHAPTER XXV

Removal from the Abbaye — Release and rearrest — At Sainte-Pelagie —
Plans for her escape — Henriette Cannet — Prison life — Waning hopes —
Marat's murder — Destruction of the Notices Historiques—Hzi Memoirs —
Last letter to Buzot ........ pp. 281-295

CHAPTER XXVI

Madame Potion — Her mother's execution — Scenes in the prison —
Madame Roland's Memoirs — Ceases writing them — Mes dernieres Pensees
—Suicidal intentions— Trial, condemnation, and death of the Twenty-
two — Madame Roland receives the news — Interview with Madame
Grandchamp pp. 296-307

CHAPTER XXVII

The Conciergerie— Comte Beugnot— Riouffe— Madame Roland's ex-
amination— Condemned to death— The last scene . . pp. 308-321

PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES p. 321

INDEX PP. 323-328

ILLUSTRATIONS

IADAME ROLAND ....
From a painting by Heinsius.

iDAME ROLAND AT SAINTE-PELAGIE

Photogravure Frontispiece

WIS XVI

From an engraving by Le Cour, after a picture by Bertaux.

ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE .
From an engraving by Ligbert.

[ADAME ROLAND . . .

From an engraving by M. F. Dien.

T>AME ROLAND .
From an engraving by Hopwood.

.XIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE
From an engraving by Fiesinger.

LANCOIS BUZOT .
From an engraving by Baud ran.

JNERAL DUMOURIEZ
From a lithograph by Delpech.

.DAME ROLAND .
From an engraving by Baudran.

L.N PAUL MARAT
From an engraving.

painting by Marke.

DANTON

From an engraving by Greatbatch.

CHARLOTTE CORDAY

From an engraving by Greatbatch, after a

THE DEATH OF MARAT .

From a photo by G. Herman, after the picture by David at Brussels.

DEATH OF THE TWENTY-ONE DEPUTIES OF THE GIRONDE
Designed and engraved by Duplessis Bertaux.

xi

FACING PAGE

xii

26

64
64

82

134
144
166
168

. 208

224

288

290

304

d*t p«/*h jl /r &tp!x>

MADAME ROLAND AT SAINTE-PELAGIE (see p. 284).

Life of Madame Roland

CHAPTER I

1754—1765

Birth of Marie Jeanne Phlipon — Various estimates of her — Her parentage,
childhood, and education — She is placed at a convent.

ON March 17, 1754, began the short, strenuous, and
tragic life of the woman known to the world as
Madame Roland.

The period covered by what may be called her public
life is brief. It is as the heroine of the Gironde, as
the representative of a group containing the noblest,
most disinterested, and most single-hearted patriots of
the French Revolution, that she has won notoriety.
The Girondists were the idealists of its opening phase,
and amongst them Madame Roland stood foremost,
sharing to the full their hopes, their illusions, their
enthusiasms, their devotion, their bitter disappointments,
and their doom. Men of all parties and of opposite
tempers have united to praise her. To Sainte-Beuve
she is the genius of her party, in her strength, her purity,
her grace ; its muse, brilliant and severe, invested with
the sacredness of martyrdom. To Michelet she is the
type of those makers of history who, perceiving in
external things what as yet only exists within, seeing,
create it. She had that faith in the possibilities, though
unexplored, of human nature which is essential to its real
1

2 Life of Madame Roland

comprehension, and even more essential if a successful
appeal is to be made to it. She had also the true spirit
of self-sacrifice alone conferring upon the possessor a
right to demand the like from others.

For her three years of semi- public life the thirty-six
preceding ones were a preparation and a training,
showing a gradual development and ripening of the
singular gifts and powers bestowed upon her by nature.
Their history is the history of a soul and a mind. Owing
nothing to birth, nothing to environment, she rescues
herself, by the sheer force of her individuality, of her
will and her character, from her surroundings, obtains
recognition, and triumphantly emerges from her native
obscurity into the full light.

In blood, position, and circumstance there was
nothing to render it likely that Marie Jeanne Phlipon
would play a conspicuous part amongst the men and
women of her generation. She was the daughter of
parents belonging to the Parisian middle class. Her
grandfather, Gacien Phlipon, had been a wine-merchant ;
her father, another Gacien, was a master-engraver, and,
occupying a position half-way between the artist and the
tradesman, employed many workmen and apprentices,
and combined with his craft the traffic in precious
stones to which his subsequent ruin was largely due.
Her mother, married at twenty-six, brought little dowry
save a charming face and a sweet and unblemished
character to the husband selected for her, on whom,
according to her daughter, she bestowed herself without
any illusions as to her future prospects. 4< An honest
man whose gifts ensured a livelihood was presented to
her by her parents, and reason bade her accept him.
In the absence of the happiness she could not anticipate
she felt that she would cause the peace which takes its
place to reign around her," and Marguerite Bimont
became the wife of Pierre Gacien Phlipon.

Birth and Infancy

Their second child was born in the street then bear-
ing the name of the rue de la Lanterne, and afterwards
called the rue de la Cite, and, baptized on the follow-
ing day, received the names of Marie Jeanne. Of
Marguerite Phlipon's seven children she was the sole
survivor, " all the rest dying out at nurse or at birth,
in consequence of divers accidents." Such is the cursory
mention made by their sister of the little band who had
passed away. Yet, if it was in a home shadowed by
reiterated misfortune that Manon's first years were spent,
no consciousness of any cloud is perceptible in Madame
Roland's record of her childhood. Written in prison
during the months intervening between her arrest and
the guillotine, these memoirs — "jouant," once more to
quote Sainte-Beuve, "d'eux-memes dans le cadre sanglant,
funebre, qui les entoure " — supply a graphic and charm-
ing description of the child she was, or that she believed
herself to have been. Nor is there any reason to ques-
tion her veracity. If her estimate of herself, her gifts
and talents, was at all times high, it was not unjustified,
and the woman whose unusual powers are attested by
a crowd of independent witnesses may not have been
mistaken in laying claim to a supernormal childhood.

In conformity with the custom of the time, the first
two years of Manon's life were passed, not under her
father's roof, but in the care of her foster-nurse — a worthy
woman for whom she cherished a life-long affection.
When she was reclaimed by her parents they had shifted
their abode, and M. Phlipon had established himself
upon the quai de l'Horloge, looking upon the Pont
Neuf, one of the fashionable resorts of the Paris of that
day. There he carried on his craft, the removal to new
quarters bearing witness to the thriving condition of
his business ; and there he pursued, less fortunately,
the commercial enterprises he had added to his original
calling by trading in jewelry and gems.

4 Life of Madame Roland

Whatever Phlipon afterwards became, he bore the
character, at this period, of a respectable and prosperous
man of business. " One cannot say," wrote his daughter
with impartial candour, " that he was high-minded ; but
he had much of what is called honour ; he would, indeed,
have charged more for an article than it was worth ; he
would, however, have killed himself rather than fail to
pay for what he bought.' ' It was to a dwelling of ease
and comfort that Manon was brought when at two
years old she exchanged the country home of her foster-
mother for her father's house. A brown-faced, black-
headed, healthy child, she was well calculated to intro-
duce new life and interest into her mother's shadowed
existence. Between the two the bonds of affection were
quickly and closely knit, only to be severed, twenty
years later, by Madame Phlipon's death. Notwith-
standing the self-will and independence of the child, a
word from her mother would suffice to reduce her to a
condition of penitence, and looking back across thirty
years, the culprit could still recall the impression pro-
duced upon her by a look of displeasure or the sub-
stitution of the term " Mademoiselle " for " ma fille "
or " Manon," the name by which she habitually went.

With her father, on the other hand, her relations left
much to be desired ; nor was it until after a final trial
of strength, ending in the defeat of the elder combatant,
that M. Phlipon relinquished the attempt to govern, and
permanent peace was established. " It is not out of
place," says Madame Roland — and she is right — " to
draw attention to the facts that decided him. ... I
was very obstinate ; that is, I did not easily consent to
that of which I did not see the reason, and when I was
conscious only of the exercise of authority or imagined
that I detected caprice, I would not yield." It was
natural that this temper of mind should bring the wills
of father and daughter into collision. Content for the i

Childhood

most part to leave the management of the child to
her mother, M. Phlipon nevertheless expected that an
order, when given, should be met by a blind obedience
Manon was in no wise disposed to render, and trouble
followed. Punished by a despot, the " gentle little girl
became a lion.,, She was six years old when a climax
was reached. M. Phlipon's commands — a distasteful
medicine was in question — having been categorically
disobeyed, corporal punishment was twice inflicted in
vain. Threatened a third time with the whip, the child,
probably already hysterical, gathered her resolution
together, ceased crying and, leaning against the wall,
prepared to undergo whatever might ensue rather than
yield. " They might have killed me on the spot and
I should not have given a sigh." The revolt against
authority unenforced by reason, characteristic as it was
of the woman she was to become, met with entire
success. Phlipon withdrew, worsted, from the contest
and accepted his defeat. Thenceforth and for many
years father and daughter remained on friendly and
affectionate terms.

Both parents were proud of the child, and nothing
was spared in her education. She was an apt pupil,
and at four years old could read. Many teachers
were employed to instruct her in the various branches
of learning. A M. Marchand, whose patience and
gentleness gained him from his pupil the sobriquet of
M. Doucet, taught her writing, geography, and history.
A gentleman named Cajon, who had been successively
chorister, soldier, deserter, capucin, and clerk, was her
master in singing ; she was instructed in dancing by
an ugly Savoyard ; a Spanish giant named Mignard
taught her the guitar. Nor does this list exhaust the
number of her tutors.

In matters of religion a guide was supplied in the
person of her mother's young brother, priest at a

6 Life of Madame Roland

neighbouring church, to which his niece was sent to
share the catechism of the poorer children of his flock.
It is again characteristic that the recollection of her
childish triumphs and the credit thereby accruing to
her uncle found a place in the mind of the woman
who was awaiting her death-sentence. In particular she
records with satisfaction a victory won over a superior
ecclesiastic who had come to inspect the class. " To
test my knowledge and to display his own sagacity,
he asked me how many orders of spirits existed in the
celestial hierarchy. Convinced by the triumphant and
malicious air with which he put the question that he
expected to puzzle me, I replied, smiling, that though
several were mentioned in the preface of the Mass, I
had seen elsewhere that they counted nine, and I
passed in review before him angels and archangels,
thrones, dominations, etc."

Of her young uncle — her petit oncle — with his hand-
some face, kindly nature, gentle manners, and frank
gaiety, she was indulgently fond, even though, having
volunteered to add to his labours the task of instructing
his niece in Latin, he quickly repented of the rash
promise and — " bon enfant^ lazy, and gay " — was rarely
found able or willing to bestow a lesson upon the eager
pupil.

It may easily have seemed to the young man that
Manon had masters enough. Initial instruction in
her father's art of engraving was added to her other
studies, and she became sufficiently proficient to present
medals of her own designing, with an inscription of
appropriate verses, to those she desired to honour on
a birthday or fete. In spite, however, of a natural
and inherited facility, she received no encouragement toi
devote herself to the art, inferring from a conversation;
she overheard that the needful training presented an
objection to its pursuit.

Early Studies

Madame Phlipon observed, " and acquaintances that we
do not desire would be made."

The child's days were indeed full ; but if crowded,
they were happy. Lessons were play to little Manon,
with her quick intelligence and keen interest in all
departments of knowledge. Every book upon which her
small hands could be laid was devoured, her father's
limited library being supplemented, partly under the rose,
by works abstracted from the stores of one of his pupils.
Lives of the saints, a Bible in old French, some volumes
of Scarron's, the memoirs of Pontis and of La Grande
Mademoiselle, Renard's travels, various plays, were
amongst the books read in these early days. At nine
years old her acquaintance with Plutarch's Lives marked
an epoch in her life. " From that moment," she wrote,
" 1 date the impressions and the ideas causing me uncon-

tciously to become a republican."
Such was her conviction at a later period. But it
nust be remembered that Rousseau, the idol of her
more advanced years, had likewise attributed to
Plutarch's works, read at nine years old, his republican
creed and his impatience of servitude ; and Madame
Roland's retrospective estimate of their effect upon her
childish mind may not improbably have been, in part at
least, imitative.

Telemaque and Tasso followed in due order, exciting
the imagination of the little girl, identified in her own
eyes with the heroines of whom she read. " To
Telemaque I was Eucharis, to Tancred I was Erminia . . .
it was a dream with no awakening." Yet she stirred
in her sleep, and a young poet of twenty, with a sweet
voice, a tender face, and colour that came and went
like a girl's, who was a frequenter of her father's house,
would make her heart beat faster and — perhaps — dis-
tracted her thoughts from her manifold studies.

8 Life of Madame Roland

Scholastic pursuits were not permitted to engross the
whole of her time. Twice a week Manon's black hair
was tortured by curl-papers or tongs into conformity
with fashion ; she was arrayed in silken gowns, made
like those of the court ladies, close-fitting above and
spreading into voluminous skirts, and in this guise was
taken to church, to walk in the Tuileries, or to visit
old Madame Bimont, her grandmother, who, fallen into
her second childhood, was an object to her not only
of repulsion but of terror. There were also occasional
family fetes, when a marriage, a baptism, or a birthday
was to be celebrated ; and visits were regularly paid to
her father's parents.

There is no need to linger over these early days. It
was a narrow, restricted life, modelled on the pattern
of hundreds of little Parisians of her time and class,
or differing from theirs solely because, an only and
idolised child, she was the centre of a greater amount
of attention in her home. Alike in its duties and its
pleasures, it was intended to serve as the prelude to
an existence of middle-class prosperity ; nor were those
who had the ordering of it likely to be troubled by
any forebodings of the storm that was brewing and was
so soon to break over France.

When Manon was eleven years old a change came.
It was 1765 — the year that the Dauphin, son to Louis XV.,
died, leaving the burden of his inheritance to his son,
a boy of Manon's age. It was also the year that
the Austrian marriage first took shape in Maria Theresa's
brain, and that she set herself unwittingly to compass
the undoing of her little daughter, Marie Antoinette.
At the quai de l'Horloge the master-engraver's child
— a year older than the Archduchess — had been roused,
by a shock caused by the misconduct of one of her
father's apprentices, to what in Puritan phraseology
would be termed uthe conviction of sin,"

Religious Scruples

" I was a penitent before I was a sinner/ ' she said,
looking back upon that time of troubled and vague
awakening ; " from that moment I was dominated by-
religious ideas."

A period of uneasy devotion followed, accompanied
by morbid terror and by restless and tormenting scruples.
When the time drew near for her first Communion, her
apprehensions increased in strength. Filled with anticipa-
tion of the coming event, no sacrifice appeared too great
to ensure a right preparation for it ; and though hitherto
the mere suggestion of a parting from her mother had
been sufficient to cause her to shed tears, she now, un-
prompted and sobbing, begged permission to retire for a
time to a convent. The request was granted, and it was
arranged that she should be placed under the care of
the Dames de la Congregation in the rue Neuve Sainte-
Etienne, a teaching order enjoying a good reputation.
On May 7, 1765, she entered on her new way of life, and
thus ended the first stage of her childhood.

It had been a happy one. Studying the picture
painted nearly thirty years later by her own hand, we
gain a clear conception of the sturdy, vigorous, con-
fident and vainglorious little figure, with the vivid,
changing face ; already self-conscious, already bent upon
crowding into life all it could be made to contain ;
affectionate, warm-hearted, self-willed ; the precocious
knowledge conferred by books contending with the
natural ignorance which is one of the graces of child-
hood ; and prompt to question and defy an authority
unable to plead reason as its justification.

CHAPTER II

1765

The convent school— Friendship with the Cannet sisters— Visit to her
grandmother — Correspondence with Sophie Cannet — Relations of
mother and daughter — Impatience of existing customs.

LOOKING back over the years of storm and stress,
of excitement and hope and disappointment, that
lay between the months spent at the rue Neuve Sainte-
Etienne and the day when she set down her memories
of them on paper, it seemed to Madame Roland, owing
no doubt something to the glamour conferred by distance,
to have been a time of almost unclouded joy and peace.
Her sacrifice had been made, and she reaped the reward.

On the very first night after she had parted in tears
from her mother, rising noiselessly from her bed in
the room she shared with four companions, she crept
to the window and stood looking down upon the convent
garden bathed in moonlight, its tall trees casting their
shadows on the ground beneath the serene heights of
the night-sky. In the stillness of that hour it seemed
to her that God had accepted what she offered, and
the child's troubled heart found rest and solace.

Nor were her expectations disappointed. Life in
the convent corresponded fully to the hopes she had
entertained. Religion — the religion she was afterwards
to renounce — absorbed her, mind, heart, and soul. Easily
stirred to the extreme of excitement, she was powerfully
attracted by its mysteries, and the impression made

10

The Convent School n

upon her by the beauty and solemnity of the rites
of the Church remained stamped upon her memory
long after their inner significance and meaning had
been effaced and the attitude of a devout worshipper
had been exchanged for that of an indulgent critic.
When, soon after her arrival, she witnessed the ceremony
of a novice taking the veil, she was filled with awe and
reverence. Watching the spectacle with the fascinated
gaze of a nervous and overwrought child, she threw
herself into the part of the principal actor in the scene.
" When she was covered with the funeral pall I shivered
with terror. ... I was no longer myself ; I was she.
I thought they were tearing me from my mother, and
I shed floods of tears."

There is a certain luxury in the indulgence of even
painful emotion, and Manon probably enjoyed her tears.
She liked everything about the life upon which she had
entered — the solitude of the garden where she could
read or dream undisturbed ; the moments spent alone in
the dim church ; and no doubt, though she makes no
mention of it, the companionship of the petites follesy
ready to become her playmates when she unbent so far
as to permit it, was a welcome novelty. The nuns
were gentle and kindly women, bound by no rule of
undue austerity, of whom she retained till the last an
affectionate memory.

In one respect her surroundings were unfortunate.
They were not such as to correct the sense of self-
importance natural in an only child. On the contrary,
everything conspired to nourish and accentuate it. If
Manon regarded herself as the centre of the universe,
the illusion was encouraged by those to whom her un-
usual gifts made her a special object of interest. Her
impassioned devotion won the approval, if not the admira-
tion, of the community ; her precocious learning secured
her a place amongst the elder scholars ; and the parish

12 Life of Madame Roland

priest of the quai de l'Horloge came in person to com-
mend so promising a member of his flock to the ecclesi-
astic charged with the care of the pupils. Although
the interview between the two learned gentlemen was
carried on in Latin, the astute little girl did not fail
to infer that the account supplied to her new guide
was favourable, and her self-esteem was gratified.

Amongst the sisters she quickly made friends. Her
special teacher, Mere Sainte Sophie, aged seventy, singled
her out for favour ; and the young lay-sister, Soeur
Agathe, charged with attendance on the pupils, became
devotedly attached to her and remained so long after
Manon had left the convent and graduated in a wholly
different school. Altogether the time passed pleasantly at
the rue Neuve Sainte-Etienne, varied by weekly meetings
with her parents, who came on Sundays to take their
little daughter to walk in the Jardin du Roi.

A fresh interest was shortly added to her life.
Summer had come when an event occurred destined to
prove of no little importance during the coming years,
and to lead in the end to Manon's acquaintance with
her future husband. This was the arrival of two
scholars, Henriette and Sophie Cannet, from Amiens.

The newcomers were regarded with interest by their
schoolfellows. It was observed that Henriette, a tall
girl of eighteen, wore a manifestly discontented air ; her
sister, Sophie, four years younger, was tearful and
dejected. The reasons soon became known. Their
mother, desiring that her younger daughter should pass
a certain time at school, had sent the elder sister there
to keep her company, and Henriette not unnaturally
felt herself a victim. The two presented a marked con-
trast. High-spirited and gay, with varying moods, fits
of quick remorse following upon outbreaks of ill-temper,
affectionate and imaginative — thus Madame Roland de-
scribes the elder of the two girls who were to be the

.

The Cannct Sisters 13

iends of her childhood and youth. " Fond of her as
you might be, she was difficult to live with."

Sophie was of another type. Prematurely calm and
reasonable, level-headed, thoughtful, and sedate, she
possessed little outward attraction. Yet it was to her
that Manon, vehement and impulsive, attached herself with
enthusiasm. She felt that in Sophie she had found a
companion after her own heart, and a school-girl friend-
ship of the most exaggerated species was formed. In religi-
ous sentiment the two were agreed, and possessed many
tastes in common. Both were fond of argument. Sophie
discussed, analysed ; Manon, or so she imagined, played
chiefly the part of listener. Sophie, at fourteen, was an
adept in the art of conversation. Manon — again accord-
ing to her later impressions — only knew how to answer
questions. She admitted that people were singularly
fond of putting them to her.

Thus, with the engrossing interest supplied by
Sophie's society, the year spent in the convent passed
quickly by. When Manon quitted it, it was not to
return at once to her father's house. Phlipon's busi-
ness took him much abroad ; the supervision of the
apprentices fell, in consequence, to his wife's share,
leaving her little leisure to bestow upon her daughter,
and it was decided that the child should spend a year
under the care of the elder Madame Phlipon, her father's
mother.

With a fortunate aptitude for adapting herself to
circumstances, Manon saw no cause for regret in the
arrangement. Meetings with her parents would be
frequent, and she was fond of her grandmother. A
bright little lady, full of natural gaiety, Madame Phlipon
had been early left a widow, and had acted as governess
in the family of a certain Madame de Boismorel until a
small legacy had enabled her to take a lodging in the
He Saint-Louis. There an unmarried sister bore her

14 Life of Madame Roland

company, admired and tended her, and performed the
greater part of the household duties. With these two
Manon was, for the present, to take up her abode.

Her new way of life proved much to her taste. She
liked the company of the two old sisters, to whom she
was, once more, an object of tender interest. She liked
the evening walks with tante Angelique by the river-
side ; the quiet of the unfrequented quays suited her
present mood ; and, should she need variety, her father
or aunt were always ready to escort her to the convent,
where she received an enthusiastic welcome in a crowded
parlour.

Other visits were less to her taste, and she was
already inclined to resent the patronage of the rich and
great, represented by Madame de Boismorel, her grand-
mother's former employer.

4C Comme e'est sententieux ! " exclaimed this lady
with kindly ridicule, as the little bourgeoise, her pride
up in arms, replied to an inquiry as to her future
calling by the grandiloquent statement that she was still
ignorant of its nature and had not yet attempted to
decide the question — " Comme e'est sententieux ! Take
care she does not become a blue-stocking. It would be
a great pity."

The child's answer had been intentionally vague.
Like many of the nuns' pupils, she had left the rue
Neuve Sainte-Etienne feeling a vocation for the clois-
tered life, and her aspirations coloured her dreams of
the future. For all that was in her mind she found
an outlet in an active correspondence carried on with
Sophie Cannet, both whilst her friend remained at the
convent school and after she had quitted it to return
to her home at Amiens.

The letters constantly passing between the tw
cemented the tie formed at school, and throw a clear
light upon the years of Madame Roland's youth and

Letters to Sophie 15

early womanhood. Once or twice every week, as time
went on, the closely written pages were dispatched, filled
less with the events of every day than with thoughts,
opinions, sentiments.

" I learnt to reflect the more because I communicated
my reflections ; I studied with the greater zeal because
I loved to share what I had learnt ; and I observed with
the closer attention because I took a pleasure in de-
scription." Perhaps also she might have added that
she thought in order to communicate her thoughts.
The practice is not uncommon, nor is it devoid of
danger.

At fourteen Manon returned to her father's house,
there to resume the ordinary routine of bourgeois life.
If she at first continued to cherish the design of entering
the cloister, the project gradually faded from her mind.
Her days were filled with lessons from qualified masters,
nor had her eagerness to acquire knowledge declined.
Immersed in study, she grudged, or believed that she
grudged, the time devoted to occasional visits, paid
or received, or spent as she grew older in joining in
infrequent gaieties — a ball, or some other entertainment
to which her mother would escort her. Sundays, as
of old, were marked by expeditions taken together by
father, mother, and daughter, and were often passed
at Meudon, where the woods, solitary pools, and pine-
tree alleys were more attractive to one at least of the
little party than the gayer resorts of the Bois de
Boulogne or Saint-Cloud.

Thus the girl grew up, in an atmosphere of peace
and quiet content, her strenuous inner life, exhibited in her
outpourings to Sophie, running side by side with the
commonplace incidents of every day, and supplying the
intellectual interest such an existence might otherwise
have lacked.

" How easy it is to be happy ! " — if only one knew

1 6 Life of Madame Roland

the way — so she once wrote, with the pathetic confidence
of youth that that difficult knowledge has been acquired.
She was, she declared at seventeen, happier and more
contented every day.

It was in some respects a lonely life. Of intimate
association with companions of her own age there is no
trace ; and if her affection for her mother was true
and deep, ease and familiarity, as childhood was left
behind, was wanting. Though Madame Phlipon's whole
thoughts centred upon her child, the quiet dignity
touched with outward coldness of the woman who
was acquainted with what experience and sorrow have
to teach was chilling at times to the vehement student
of books.

She enjoyed, on the other hand, an unusual amount
of liberty ; her mother being curiously careful to refrain
from interfering with the disposal of her time and to
allow her to devote herself freely to the occupations
and pursuits she loved. Only occasionally called upon
to share in household duties, in shopping or cooking,
she was left for the most part in possession of the
leisure she valued so much. The mother, too, j
systematically refrained from any attempt to force the ;
girl's confidence. She was not indeed unacquainted
With the working of the young restless brain. By a
tacit convention Manon had, unsolicited, adopted the |
habit of leaving her letters to Sophie for a certain time i
unsealed, well aware that Madame Phlipon took the;
offered opportunity of reading them, and only re-
taining the privilege of adding, upon occasion, a private j
postscript. But if it was a satisfaction to the writer to
communicate to her mother in this indirect fashion j-
opinions, tastes, and sentiments she would not have
ventured to express in words, the silence maintained
on the subject is significant of the relations of the !
two.

Early Discontent 17

To Madame Phlipon the heart-searchings, the in-
tolerance, the self-confidence, the crowding speculations,
the impatience of the established order of things, ex-
pressed in the letters she read, would have seemed no
more than the result of undigested information. All
would quiet down as the girl grew older, and natural
and domestic duties would supply an outlet for her
superabundant energy. And yet the traces of discontent
may have awakened in her a vague disquiet. If it
is clear that, looking back, Madame Roland ante-
dated some phases of the development of her thoughts,
ideas, and beliefs, the bitterness with which, from child-
hood upward and with the harsh intolerance of youth,
she regarded the injustice and caprice dominating the
conditions of life cannot be mistaken. The world was,
in her opinion, far from upright in its dealings, and
social institutions had gone much astray. Though
political unrest might not have penetrated to the house
of the prosperous tradesman — by the nature of his
craft dependent upon wealth and luxury — the spirit
of revolt spreading so rapidly through the land was
already alive in his daughter. Little incidents, trivial
in themselves and which a few years earlier would
have passed unnoticed, served to quicken the indigna-
tion of an observer on the alert to criticise and to
condemn. As in her childhood Madame de Bois-
morel's well-meant patronage had roused her wrath, the
recognition accorded to the titles to honour possessed
by a spinster, plain, poor, but of good birth, who made
her home for a time with Madame Phlipon, afterwards
stirred her to impatient contempt. What was there in
Mademoiselle de Hannaches, ignorant, ill-educated, and
old-fashioned in dress, to command respect ? A more
personal insult occasioned still greater indignation ;
when, invited by a lady in the country to dinner,
Manon and her mother were relegated to the table of

1 8 Life of Madame Roland

the upper servants. The slight — probably quite un-
intentional, since it would not have occurred to the
hostess that the wife and daughter of the engraver
would expect to be received on terms of equality — sank
deep into the heart of one of the guests, and perhaps
bore fruit in her readiness to adopt the theories then
becoming current.

CHAPTER III

ith — The question of marriage — De La Blancherie — Domestic troubles
— The future uncertain.

ARLY youth is perhaps the time when human nature
is most occupied with itself. Possibilities being
untested, uncorrected by experience, hopes are naturally
extravagant and the means by which they are to be
realised are anxiously scrutinised. The weekly outpour-
ings dispatched by Manon to Sophie Cannet prove that
she was incessantly occupied with self-analysis. If she
did not omit to bring her powers of observation to bear
upon the facts of daily life, she found herself infinitely
more interesting. Facts might be useful for purposes
of illustration ; they were little more — they are rarely
more to the young. Human nature, human happiness,
the means of securing it, self-discipline, the restraint to
be exercised over imagination, passion, and sentiment,
with all kindred subjects, were discussed in letters
proving the inborn and remarkable gift of language and
expression belonging to the writer. In spite, however,
of her learning and her philosophy, the actualities of life
could not be wholly ignored, and the possible husbands
suggested for her acceptance were in turn submitted
to the judgment of the friend who continued to hold
the predominant place in her heart.

It is curious to contrast the dreams indulged by
Manon Phlipon at eighteen with what was to follow. A
quiet, unpretentious existence, a simple little house in

19

20 Life of Madame Roland

the country, close to a church, a garden wherein art was
to second, not eclipse, nature, a lonely wood, green fields,
sloping hills, running water, a good library and the
companionship of Sophie Cannet — this was the picture
painted by the little Parisian as she sat at her window
looking down upon the fashionable groups loitering on
the Pont Neuf. One remembers the early visions of
Saint-Just, somewhat in the same strain — a country
life, quiet and peace, a wife and children " pour mon
cceur," and leisure filled by study. Both girl and boy
were to be far from attaining the realisation of their
dreams.

It had not hitherto occurred to Manon that more
would be necessary to afford her full satisfaction. At
an age when most girls were provided with homes
of their own, she was in no haste to leave her father's
roof. She was content — so she told Sophie. Her God,
her happiness, her friend, sufficed her. " Enfin," she
added naively, "je jouis de moi-meme."

Her parents could not be expected to concur in
these views. Phlipon would have wished his daughter to
make a good match. His wife, conscious of failing
health, was anxious to place the girl in hands more
fitted than her father's for the charge. Nor were
opportunities, many and various, wanting. Manon was
by no means deficient in personal attraction. Her face, I
without regularity of line or what could be called beauty,
made up for the lack of them by its charm. The)
portraits of her, mostly of doubtful authenticity, show J
the defects of feature ; the descriptions of contemporaries |
prove that defect of feature was no bar to their ad- i
miration. "I think," wrote Champagneux, intimately;
acquainted with her, " it is as difficult to describe this|
woman's face exactly as it was to paint it." Four artists,,
he added, had failed in the endeavour, owing to the;
impossibility of representing her changing moods. At-i

Personal Appearance 21

tempting to give a description of herself, Madame Roland
admitted that the task was not an easy one. The mouth
was large ; yet, if many excelled it in perfection of line,
not one, said the owner, had a more tender and attractive
smile. Her skin was good, her complexion bright, her
eyes — dark grey1 — were set under well-marked eyebrows,
dark like her hair. Her hands were long and slender ;
and the peculiarity of her countenance was its rapid
changes and varying expression, according to the person
to whom she was speaking. " It does not belong to all,"
she added, with the candour ever characterising her atti-
tude of self-observation, " to think me pretty, or to feel
my worth." Camille Desmoulins, for instance, had been
justified in wondering that, at her age and with so little
beauty, she had possessed what he called worshippers.
True, she had never addressed him ; but had she done
so, she would probably have been cold, if not re-
pellent.

In figure she was neither tall nor short, was well pro-
portioned and fully developed, with the sloping shoulders
admired in her day. Her movements were light and
buoyant, and she had the beauty of perfect health.

Into the history of the manifold suitors who presented
themselves en foule to sue for the hand of the only child
of a man reputed to be carrying on a prosperous business
it is not necessary to enter at length. The interest
attaching to the separate episodes — in which the romantic
element was conspicuously absent — is small. Respectable
tradesmen, more especially jewellers or goldsmiths, a neigh-
bouring butcher, a Provencal doctor and others swelled
the list, each being proposed for M. Phlipon's approval
in due form by their respective kinsfolk. Flattered and
amused, her father would refer the question to Manon,
and allow her to dictate his replies, usually taking the

1 Upon the question of their colour opinions differed. Riouffe calls
them black, Beugnot blue.

22 Life of Madame Roland

form of a decided negative. Her views on the subject of
her settlement in life were marked by cool common
sense. Indulging no extravagant ideal of the marriage
tie, she was nevertheless fixed in her determination to
bestow her hand upon no man out of sympathy with
her intellectually and morally, or with her conception of
life and its duties ; she regarded the matter, for the rest,
with the dispassionate impartiality of a nature unawakened
to the possibilities before her. At a full comprehension
of those possibilities she was indeed to arrive strangely
late.

" In the habit of making a study of myself," she
afterwards wrote in reference to a match brought nearer
than others to a successful issue, " of regulating my
affections and controlling my imagination, and penetrated
by the severity and sublimity of a wife's duties, I did
not perceive what difference a little gentleness, more or
less, in a character could make to me, and what [a
husband] could exact more than I exacted of myself. I
reasoned like a philosopher who makes his calculations,
and like a hermit acquainted neither with men nor with
passions. I measured the morals of my species by my
own tranquil and affectionate heart. This was for long
my failing ; it has been the sole source of my errors.
I hasten to point it out : it is to give in advance the
key to my cabinet."

The passage should be borne in mind. Madame;
Roland is right in saying that it explains much in her |
subsequent conduct and history.

Though, amongst the men desirous of obtaining herj
hand, those had not been wanting upon whom, had
circumstances been favourable, she might have consented'
not altogether unwillingly to bestow it, the only person!
who at this period came near to making a serious
impression upon her heart was a certain young man,
not more than twenty-two, a lover of letters and science,.

De La Blancherie 23

of good birth, intelligent, well educated, and destined
for the profession of the law. For M. Pahin de
La Blancherie she had a genuine liking — to develop
later on into something stronger — and she admitted that
the thought of a marriage with him might not have
displeased her.

La Blancherie, however, was not, like the opulent
tradesmen who were his rivals, in a position to main-
tain a wife ; and Manon wisely concurred in her parents'
refusal to allow her to enter upon an engagement of
indefinite duration. When, after an absence of some
months in Italy, he returned to Paris, his financial
prospects were no better, and though, trusting in his

(daughter's good sense and cool head, M. Phlipon did
not forbid him the house, nothing but friendship at
this date ensued, and Manon went no further than to
confess to Sophie a certain regret that circumstances had
put marriage with the young man out of the question,
since, in similarity of thought, his mind seemed to re-
flect her own. It may be that her liking for him,
combined with a faint hope that the obstacles to their
union might be removed at some future date, added
strength to her desire to remain for the present free
from other ties. At the same time, submitting her
sentiments to the usual process of analysis, she was able
to rejoice that she had not been affected by her regard
for La Blancherie to the extent of being thereby rendered
incapable of bestowing her heart upon another man.

The man upon whom she should bestow it did not
meantime appear ; and her mother's married life, as her
eyes were gradually opened to its conditions, served as
an object-lesson of perils incurred by a passive acceptance
of an uncongenial lot. The silence maintained on the
subject between mother and daughter was broken on one
occasion. Madame Phlipon had placed before the girl
the advantages of a suggested match. A worthy man

24 Life of Madame Roland

was in question ; Manon was now twenty, and her choice
would become more limited. If the present aspirant
had not all the refinement — dilicatesse — she sought, he
would love her and she would be happy. So the mother
reasoned.

Manon sighed. "A happiness like yours," she

said.

Her mother had nothing to reply ; there was in truth
no answer to make. The divergence in tastes and dis-
position existing from the first between husband and
wife had insensibly widened. Domestic peace had been
preserved. Where wills or opinions came into conflict,
Madame Phlipon had yielded in a silence so complete that
only when childhood was left behind had Manon become
aware of the effort involved, and throwing herself, in
some sort, into the breach, had become, in her own
language, her mother's watch-dog. Between mother and
daughter, no explanation had taken place. Madame
Phlipon was not a woman to utter her griefs, and she
would have shrunk from saddening her child by an
explicit confession of failure. Manon too kept silence
as to what she had discovered. Recognising her
father's failings and ready to resist him to his face,
a convention had been tacitly established by which
no reproach was permitted to attach to him in his
absence.

In other matters besides those that were purely
domestic M. Phlipon's conduct supplied abundant cause
both for blame and reproach. As years went by, specu-
lation had usurped to a large extent the attention that
should have been devoted to his legitimate craft.
Amusement, pleasure and commerce combined, together
with the gaming-table and lotteries, absorbed him, with
the natural results. The artistic aptitudes which consti-
tuted part of his stock-in-trade suffered ; his sight became
less keen, his hand less sure ; his wife and daughter

Domestic Troubles

25

>oking on at the menace to material prosperity involved
in his course of life in a silence broken at times by the
half-confidences that, refuse to clothe apprehension in
words. Outward tranquillity continued to pervade the
household; strangers perceived nothing amiss. But the
future was growing increasingly uncertain.

CHAPTER IV

Death of Louis XV. — Accession of Louis XVI. — Marion's indifference to
politics — Her visit to Versailles — The political situation — Riots in
Paris and the provinces — Manon's reflections.

THE year 1774 — Manon was twenty — was an eventful
one for France. On May 10 the reign of Louis
XV., once termed the Bien-Aime — the name must have
sounded like irony — came to an end, and he died, regretted
by few save those whose power and influence hung on his
life. The nation, assisting at the death-bed, hoped for
better things. " An old era passed away ... his era
of sin and tyranny and shame, and behold, a new era
is come, the future all the brighter that the past was
base." *

What was to be the nature of that new era ? What
was to be the outcome of the hopes and anticipations
with which France hailed it ? The following years
were to show. At present the forecast was sanguine
and the future rose-coloured. In that future not many
women were destined to play so conspicuous a part asj
the daughter of the master- engraver in the quai def
l'Horloge, few were more penetrated with the spirit off
her age. Yet for the moment it is curious to observe
how small was the amount of attention bestowed by!
Manon, open-eyed and alert as she was, upon the
situation. The abstractions of philosophy, discussions as
to the nature and character of mankind, continued to

1 Carlyle's French Revolution, bk. i. ch. iv.
26

LOUIS XVI.
From an engraving by Le Cour, after a picture by Bertaux.

p. 26]

Accession of Louis XVI 27

engross her, to the dwarfing, if not exclusion, of more

I practical questions.
" How indifferent is a heart occupied by matters
which interest it," she wrote to Sophie with unconscious
egoism — an egoism mistaking itself for superiority —
" to the most important events ! Under other circum-
stances a king's death, the wishes of the country, its
fears, its hopes, the accession of a new sovereign, would
have supplied us with material for reflection in several
letters, and we have not yet said a single word about it."

What was it that she found, and expected her
correspondent to find, more interesting ? The passage
occurs towards the end of an epistle containing an
interminable disquisition designed to prove education
the universal panacea for every ill incident to humanity,
evil the outcome of error and ignorance alone. Absorbed
by subjects of this kind, Manon remained unmoved by
the wave of excitement and joy that had greeted the new
King's accession.

The outlook, nevertheless — setting aside the evils
for which it was hoped that a cure might now be
found — might well have arrested the attention even of
one little concerned with political problems. The youth
of the ill-starred couple who had succeeded to the in-
heritance which was to prove so heavy a burden, in
itself lent them interest. Louis, on whom the hopes
of the nation centred, was Manon's own age ; his wife —
a year younger — had displayed, in dealing with the
anomalies of her father-in-law's court, a power of
resistance and a strength of will going far to prove
that she would not be content to remain a cipher. But
to all this Manon scarcely gave a thought. Her
interests, so far, lay elsewhere ; and the field of abstract
speculation and discussion afforded her all the necessary
vent for her mental restlessness. To write and to reason
was, she told Sophie, her daily bread. With work, no

28 Life of Madame Roland

one was happier ; without it, her intellectual activity
became a torment ; and though admitting that to be of
use was the first duty of man and that the chiefest
virtue was love of the public good, she had not yet
conceived the possibility of struggling against the fate
making her one of a sex feeble, inept, and often useless.

In the autumn of this same year she was brought
into closer contact with what was going forward by a
visit to Versailles. A woman in attendance upon the
new Queen and acquainted with Manon's uncle, the
Abb6 Bimont, lent her apartments at the palace to him
and his sister, and the few days spent there afforded a
pleasant variety upon the routine of daily life in the
quai de l'Horloge.

When the visit was over, and Manon had regained
— as she told Sophie, turning her ridicule for once upon
herself — her gravity, her great ideas, her serious bear-
ing, she could moralise over the lessons taught by what
she had witnessed ; at the time she confessed to having
assumed an ease, a levity and a cheerfulness more appro-
priate to the abode of kings and courtiers.

The week at the palace must have been full of new
experiences. The King and Queen lived in public ;
of privacy they enjoyed little or none. They belonged
to the people, and the people vindicated their rights
over them. Even the great dining-hall was thrown
open once every week, that all who chose might see
their sovereigns eat ; and domiciled in the palace itself
Manon must have had many opportunities of watching
the girl whose death upon the scaffold was to take place
not a month before her own.

In spite of the light-mindedness which she ad-
mitted, the days at Versailles had not passed without
serious reflection ; and, true to her habit of self-analysis,
Manon had thanked God that her lot was cast in
obscurity. From what she knew of herself — and she

I

kn

Visit to Versailles 29

new all that constant introspection could tell her — she
believed that, had she been near the throne, her present
affection for the sovereign would have been replaced
by resentment, carried to the point of hatred, at the
inequality between him and his subjects. For the rest,
if a good king seemed to her worthy of something
approaching to worship, she had already decided that a
republic was the more ideal form of government.

Such was the result of the visit, as contained in a letter
to Sophie. Madame Roland, in her memoirs, looking
back, supplies more details. The party had been
accompanied by Mademoiselle de Hannaches, the lady
of good blood and inferior intellect and education for
whom Manon indulged so marked a contempt ; and
upon this occasion again she found it difficult to tolerate
the deference accorded to birth as distinct from intrinsic
worth or merit. Again, too, the pride of the bourgeoise,
conscious of mental and moral superiority, was in arms.
The notice taken of her — no doubt kindly meant —
she resented as patronage ; the scenes she witnessed,
the life of the palace, the banquets, the gaming-tables,
the presentations, were regarded by her with lofty con-
tempt. Asked by her mother, at the close of the
visit, whether she had enjoyed it, she gave vent to her
sentiments.

" Provided it ends well," she replied. " A few more
days, and I should have acquired so much hatred for
the people I see that I should not know what to do
with it."

" What harm have they done you ? " was Madame
Phlipon's quiet reply.

"They have caused me to feel injustice and to con-
template absurdities," answered the youthful censor
grandiloquently ; and sighed as she compared what she
had witnessed with Athens.

She had been a looker-on at the pageant of a court,

30 Life of Madame Roland

at a King, honest, dull, well meaning, a figure-head of
royalty, in whom there was nothing to justify either the
torrent of hatred directed against him not twenty years
later, or the passion of loyalty leading men to give their
lives gladly for his sake ; at a Queen well calculated to
attract hatred and love. But both alike were repre-
sentative of a principle and a tradition, and it is principles
and traditions that, clothed in flesh, rouse the passions
of hate and love to the highest point.

If Manon's mood at Versailles had been one of
incipient revolt, reflecting that which was abroad, it
underwent some modification as the months went by
and she caught fire from the enthusiasm evoked by the
measures inaugurating the new reign, by the reforms
initiated by the King, the suppression of useless offices
and the reconstitution of the Parlement. After all,
she wrote, what could be feared from that body ? It
was like an ancient ruin, still an object of veneration,
but no longer a barrier against the royal authority — a j
powerless though cherished idol to be restored to its J
worshippers. That this should have been accomplished I
testified a respect for law, and received a corresponding
welcome. Summarising the matter, she gave expression
to the views of the situation taken at the time — ant
enlightened ministry, a well-meaning and docile King,
an amiable and beneficent Queen, an easy, agreeable,
and decent court, an honourable legislative body, aj
charming nation only desirous of being enabled to love|
its master, a kingdom full of resources. " Ah, howi
happy we are going to be ! " so ran the hopeful)
forecast, the joyful anticipation so quickly to bej
overcast.

France, like Manon, expected to be happy. Thej
aSe °f g°W was come. The very exaggeration oft
hope ensured disappointment, and when weeks and
months had passed by and no sensible improvement|

Political Conditions 31

had taken place in the condition of the suffering millions,
m titterings of popular discontent began to herald more
serious trouble to come. By a hungry nation fierce
animadversions could not fail to be made upon a
Government incapable of performing the miracle of
multiplying loaves.

It was true that Turgot, honest, upright, as repre-
sentative of the new spirit as the King was of the old,
was doing his best as Comptroller-General to deal with
the tangle placed in his hands. Corn laws were altered,
reforms initiated ; but famished men cannot afford to
wait for measures, however wise, to take effect, and
by May 1775 — a year after the King's accession — the
impatience of the populace had found open vent.
Versailles itself was visited by an angry mob, addressed
by Louis in person from the balcony. On the following
day the agitation had reached Paris, the bakers' shops were
besieged, in many cases stormed, and a panic spread
through the city, shopkeepers putting up their shutters
and remaining in a condition of alarmed defence.

And Manon looked on. Turning, at the end of

a letter filled with philosophical speculations, to what

was taking place under her eyes, she described to

Sophie the scenes in the streets, men who carried their

captured loaves in triumph, soldiers set to guard the

bakers' shops ; the tension of men's nerves being so

great that an incursion of a few children into a church

sufficed to cause the entrances to be shut as against

an invasion of the populace. Sights like these, Manon

added, gave rise to new emotions and to many reflections

— which she did not communicate to her friend. The

answer to the Petition of Grievances presented by the

1 crowd at Versailles to their King — the two leaders hanged

: on a gallows forty feet high — might have given rise

; to more. For the present the tumult was driven

• underground.

32 Life of Madame Roland

Of the disturbances in provincial centres Manon
wrote in the same tranquil tone. The people's agita-
tion, she observed, was said to be due rather to secret
instigation than to want. It took every one by surprise.
Scarcity was no more pressing than in the time of the
late King. The present sovereign had done all that
man could do. Time only was required. The people,
however, were hungry. They spoke of nothing but
bread — it was thus in all times and places. For the
rest, exaggeration was rife ; and Manon, quitting politics,
fell instead to describing the graceful customs existing
in Salency of choosing a rosiere — a Rose Queen — and
dilating upon the charms of the country life of which
she knew so little.

Save the two ringleaders whose lives had paid the
penalty of the riot, the crowd received a pardon ;
superficial tranquillity was restored ; nor were there
any to prophesy that the turbulent scenes of May 1775
were no more than a shadow, a rehearsal, of the terrible
ones to follow. Yet not six months earlier Manon,
like other Parisians, had received an object-lesson in
the savagery residing in human nature, and more
especially in the excitable Latin races. Two young
men, convicted of parricide, had been condemned to be
broken on the wheel, and Paris kept holiday. Before
the window whence she watched the throng with
fascinated and horror-stricken eyes, masses of people
passed by on their way to the place where the barbarous
sentence was to be executed. The streets were like
an anthill ; the roofs of the houses were utilised as
vantage-points of observation ; and from the spot where
the ghastly scene was enacted the cries of the victims!
reached the quai de l'Horloge, the crowd applaudingj !
with clapping of hands and shouts of joy, like the ,
audience at a theatre. Was there a veritable taste for,
blood in the human heart, the girl questioned, or wasj

An Execution

33

it merely a desire for strong sensation ? " I own," she
wrote, <c that I have both a great contempt and a great
love for men. They are so wicked and so mad that it is
impossible not to despise them ; on the other hand, they
are so unhappy that one cannot help pitying and loving
them."

Madame Roland was to indulge both sentiments
until the end of her life.

CHAPTER V

Death of Madame Phlipon — Manon's sorrow— Her heart-searchings—
Religious developments— Studies and compositions — The Nouvelle
Hilolse — Rousseau's influence— Love affair with de La Blancherie.

IN the summer of 1775 the even tenor of Manon's
life was rudely disturbed, and she was brought for
the first time into intimate and personal contact with
death. Some little time earlier a slight stroke of paralysis
— represented to her, by a merciful euphemism, as rheu-
matism— had forewarned her mother of coming danger ;
a gradual decline of strength had followed, causing her
daughter pangs of vague apprehension. Madame Phlipon
was, however, comparatively young — not more than fifty ;
death is rarely envisaged as a practical possibility by
those unfamiliarised with its approaches ; and when the
end came the girl, who had never yet met the great
enemy at close quarters, was wholly unprepared for the
blow and was stunned by the shock. The single person,
save Sophie Cannet, for whom she felt a deep affection
was gone — she was alone.

Manon was twenty-one when, deprived of her
mother's care, she was left to find her way as best she
might amongst the shoals and quicksands of life, with
none to whom she naturally turned for support and
guidance, none to whose judgment she felt she could
submit her own. With the uncle who had been the
friend of her childhood, and was to remain her friend
till the end of his life, a temporary coolness had eclipsed

I

Madame Phlipon's Death 35

intimacy of earlier years. Her grandmother, who
had become an inmate of her son's house, had introduced
into it an element of restless discontent rather than of
added affection ; her father's perfunctory expressions
of regret for the wife he had lost served to accentuate
the gulf between himself and a daughter who mourned
all she had loved most. " It seems," she wrote, " as
if he himself had torn away the veil of respect through
which I had hitherto regarded him." Kindness on the
part of more distant relations, tenderness and care during
her period of collapse, were not wanting ; nor was the
girl ungrateful. But she recognised the fact that she
stood alone. And thus, uncompanioned, she entered

f)n a new phase of existence.
In many ways she was well equipped for the battle
life. Amongst her characteristics was that hardy self-
confidence, that almost unlimited belief in her powers
— largely justified by their nature and extent — which
is so important an auxiliary in the race and goes far to
ensure success. If few women, in a day when faith,
if not in God in man, had reached so great a height,
would have been capable of attaining to the position
Marie Jeanne Roland was to achieve, few would have
imagined themselves to be capable of it, and diffidence
would have crippled effort. Humility may scale heaven ;
it often tends to leave earth's fortresses unassailed, and
is a poor co-operator in the building of our terrestrial
Babels. Her mind and intellect were trained and ordered.
To an insatiable appetite for knowledge she added a
singular power of acquiring it, and — more rare in
women — of systematising it when acquired.

So far as was possible at her age she had made
herself acquainted with the weapons supplied her by
nature, had proved and tried them, bringing to the
task of self-observation a close and minute attention ;
and, sincerelv seeking to conform practice to theory,

36 Life of Madame Roland

had learnt to govern her impulses, curb her imagina-
tion, and direct her conduct by rules first prescribed
by religion and later by philosophy. The intense interest
she found in the exploration of that " colony of God, the
soul," continued to be made evident by the registration
of her discoveries in that domain, frankly communicated
to her friend. She had come to the conclusion, she
had told Sophie at an earlier date, that self-love — often
playing her ugly tricks — was her dominant failing, adding
the naive acknowledgment that she could find no other
defect.

" Amongst the great number of faults 1 am con-
vinced I must have is that of knowing little of any ,
except this. You cannot imagine how much this ignorance
confounds and surprises me. I am only partly consoled :
by the recognition of my self-love, of which I have a j
copious dose and which must be the origin of this !
ignorance, as well as the veil concealing them from me."

The passage is an illustration alike of her minute j
investigations and of her candour in avowing a con-
fessedly unattractive quality. It also shows that she did j
not, like some others, shrink from laying her finger!
upon what was no doubt her vulnerable point. Her diag- 1
nosis was correct ; there can be no doubt that, from first j
to last, the frailty to which she confessed was her snare. 1 1
In the same way, moods, temper, qualities, were all)
analysed, to be docketed and placed in their proper order.)
Introspection was the habit of her life.

" Unconscious of her worth . . . ," says Carlyle, de-j .7
scribing the woman he considered the noblest of all living!
Frenchwomen, u of her greatness, of her crystal clearness,
genius, the creature of sincerity and nature . . . blessed
rather whilst awseen, even of herself."

The eulogy is strangely chosen. Was Manon, onei
wonders, ever unconscious of her powers ? Was she ever
unseen of herself ? Rather, had she not, from the very!

1

I

Religious Developments 37

st, and though ignorant of the purposes they were to
serve, marshalled all her forces of body, soul, and spirit,
passed them severally in review, and assigned to each its
proper place and value in the battle of life ?

With the assistance of her memoirs, supplemented by
her earlier letters, it is possible to arrive at a more or
less definite conception of the views she evolved during
the years separating childhood from maturity. It is
clear, comparing the one source of information with
the other, that, in retrospect, she antedated the se-
quences of thoughts and ideas ; her correspondence with
Sophie proving that it was not until she was eighteen
that the first serious doubts of the claims of the religion
in which she had been brought up presented themselves
to her mind, and then only to be kept at bay by all
the force of her will. But if in her description of her
transition from a condition of emotional faith to one,
if not of actual negation, of suspended judgment she
supplemented the results of earlier study by the con-
clusions of later life, the process was plainly in progress
at the time of her mother's death, and the account she
gives of it may be briefly summarised here.

Marie Jeanne Phlipon embodied to a marked degree
the spirit of her time. Religion was then at its lowest
ebb in France ; and Christianity, sincere and genuine
amongst the peasantry, had been almost universally
abjured by the men of education and culture at whose
feet she sat. It would have been therefore singular had
she continued to maintain without a struggle the attitude
of her devout childhood with regard to the Catholic
faith. At an age when systems of philosophy and
theories of the universe have seldom been taken into
serious account, Manon had been absorbed by these
studies. Nothing in the shape of such literature came
amiss to her. She pored alike over the works of the
Fathers of the Church, of Helvetius, Diderot, Bossuet,

38 Life of Madame Roland

d'Argens, d'Alembert, Raynal, and scores of other
writers. When the treatises of the Christian apologists
were placed in her hands she did not refuse to read
them ; but she also procured the works against which
they were directed, and upon the foundations she began
at this period to lay were doubtless based her future
conceptions of human society, of the duties and rights
of man and of his relations to God and his fellows.

Upon her researches in the realm of metaphysics and
philosophy, no less than upon practical questions, she
brought to bear a spirit of eager curiosity and a keen and
shrewd intelligence rarely tempered by diffidence or
shadowed by doubt as to her gifts of perception
and discernment. To the enthusiasm and zeal of the
explorer she added an ardent and sincere desire to dis-
cover the truth. Confident of her capacity for arranging
the relations of man with man upon a right basis, she
was scarcely more inclined to question her power of
readjusting the relations of man with God by the light
of knowledge, reflection, and reason. " In a few
words," she wrote afterwards, " I trace the result of
some years of meditation and study, in the course j
of which I sometimes shared in the exactingness of the \
Deist, the rigorism of the atheist, and the indifference j
of the sceptic." By this route she was finally landed !
in what may be described as an uncertain hope, accom- j
panied by belief of the impossibility that hope should!
find confirmation in proof. Pure materialism she in-j
stinctively rejected. "In the silence of my chamber or inj
the dryness of discussion I can concur with the atheist,1
and materialist as to the insolubility of certain questions. |
But in the midst of the country and contemplating
nature, my stirred heart is lifted up to the life-giving
principle by which they are animated, to the intelligence
regulating them, to the goodness lending them so great
a charm, and ... I discern beyond this life the reward

Religious Developments 39

of sacrifice and the joy of reunion. How r in what
anner ? I know not. I only feel that it must be so."
These being the vague and largely negative conclusions
she reached with regard to spiritual matters, she neverthe-
less continued for a time to make terms with religion,
and conformed to the established usage in matters of
worship, "her age, her sex, and her position making it
a duty," and because to act otherwise would have caused,
at first, disquiet to her mother, and, later, to an old
servant to whom she was attached. This course of
conduct — curious in a woman never otherwise lacking
in sincerity — was connived at by her confessor, who, after
vain efforts to direct her steps in a straighter path, finally
's'accommodait avec bon sens de me trouver raisonnable."
Whilst she gradually assumed the attitude thus
escribed towards religion, her conclusions with regard to
e relations of man with man were clear. In the
dividual, harmony between conviction and conduct was
sential — <c l'unite du moi personnel." Moral well-
ing, like physical health, consisted in the concurrence of
e several parts of the organisation for the production
f a single result ; virtue lay in the regulation of conduct
by a true intelligence. But happiness not being self-
subsisting and independent, part of it must be renounced
in order that it may be enjoyed as a whole. In a
community all is relative, and reason itself dictates self-
abnegation, since to be opposed to the interest of the
majority is to be encompassed by foes. As symmetry
and grandeur in art, so goodness and generosity in
nature, are necessarily objects of admiration and love, and
this independently of religious doctrine and teaching.
These were the initial conclusions gradually reached
by the young student as she read her books of
philosophy or worked out problems in algebra and
geometry. If they present few features of novelty or
originality, they brought to Manon a sense of rest and

40 Life of Madame Roland

peace, affording a refuge from the disturbance created by
the intrusion of doubt and difficulty into the realms alike
of faith and of social duty, and seeming to her " a haven
in the tempest."

In consonance, again, with the spirit of her time,
she had begun to emancipate herself in some sort
from limits of nationality, and to feel the awakening
of that cosmopolitan love of mankind so characteristic
of the revolution. " Humanity, sentiment," she wrote
the year before her mother's death, " unite me to every
living thing. A Carribee interests me ; I am affected
by the fate of a Kaffir. Alexander desired new worlds
to conquer. I want new worlds to love." But if her
sympathies theoretically embraced the universe, her
country and her love for it were gradually becoming
the factors in her life they were to continue till the end.
Such was Manon at the time of her mother's death.

The melancholy months that followed passed heavily
away. Sophie Cannet was in Paris during the summer,
and her companionship did something to alleviate the
pressure of Manon's grief. She pursued her studies
with even greater ardour than before ; the art of composi-
tion, which she had always loved, became more and more
a resource, and under the title of CEuvres de Loisir
et reflexions diverses she was making a collection of her
scattered literary efforts. Yet though writing was a
necessity to her, she never contemplated publication, and
regarded the idea of becoming known as an author with
a nervous horror singular in a woman of her bold and
hardy nature.

" Mademoiselle," observed some one not long after
this period, " however you may try to avoid it, you will
end by writing a book."

"It will then be under some one else's name," she
answered, " for I will gnaw my fingers off sooner than
become an author."

Rousseau's Influence 41

Soon after Madame Phlipon's death a fresh interest
was introduced into her life and a new and notable
impulse given to the thoughts taking shape in her mind.
It was a turning-point in her intellectual history when
a friend, anxious to divert her from the absorbing
subject of her loss, placed the Nouvelle Heldise in her
hands.

In spite of the eagerness she showed in devouring
all the books she could obtain, Rousseau had hitherto
remained little known to her. Looking back and seeking
to discover the reason of this, she was disposed to believe
that her mother — contrary to her usual habit of non-
interference— had kept the Heldise out of the way of
one too ready to catch fire — se passionner. Had this
been the case, she owned that the precaution might have
been wise, and that it was well that she had not been
earlier acquainted with Rousseau. " He would," she said,
" have made me mad." When, at twenty-one, she read the
Nouvelle Heldise^ its effect was analogous to that pro-
duced by Plutarch upon her as a child. Plutarch had
first lit her enthusiasm for public virtue and for liberty.
Rousseau taught her what happiness could be. To his
works, she wrote some months later, she attributed all
that was best in her. Her soul had been enkindled
and ennobled by his genius. The woman capable of
reading Heldise without being the better for it, or de-
siring to be better, would never rise above the average.
It is difficult to determine the real importance of the
influence thus exercised upon her character and views of
life, at a time when men and women were proud to
call themselves Rousseau's disciples. There can be no
question that, consciously or unconsciously, she formed
herself for the future upon the model he supplied, and
with so much success that Lemontey, on first meeting
her, found his conception of Julie singularly embodied,
the illusion being rendered more complete by her con-

42 Life of Madame Roland

versation. In some respects the cult was a doubtful
advantage. To conformity with the principles dictating
Rousseau's Confessions M. Join-Lambert attributes in
part the coarseness of certain passages in her memoirs.
It may also be the case that the admiration for the
HUoise rendered her more accessible to emotional
excitement than she might otherwise have proved. Her
first real love-affair was certainly coincident with it.

Amongst her many suitors it will be remembered
that she had singled out M. Pahin de La Blancherie as
the object of a liking which, though not sufficiently
strong to disturb her equilibrium to a serious extent,
had been greater than any she had bestowed upon his
rivals. He had now been absent from Paris for close
upon two years ; and though Manon had parted from
him with regret, any impression he had made upon her
heart had had time to fade. When he reappeared in
the capital, four months after her mother's death, the
intercourse between them was to assume a different
character.

Entering the house, ignorant of the loss she had
sustained, he was startled and shocked by the change
he perceived in her.

" Some one is ill ? " he exclaimed.

" Some one is dead," was her reply.

As they fell into talk, mutual confidences took tha
place of ordinary conversation. If Manon had had sorrows!
La Blancherie had not been without them ; and, read]|
to give sympathy, he also demanded it. As some
times chances, intimacy had increased in absence. The])
had many interests in common. Both were young, botj
proud of their intellectual gifts. He had brought for he
perusal proof-sheets of a work on the eve of publication
he had a scheme of joint authorship to propose ; yout
called to youth, and coming close upon the stupor c
her great grief, he brought at once a new factor intj

I

De La Blancherie 43

er life. In his writings Manon recognised a reflection
of her sentiments. " I dare not judge of this young
man," she told Sophie ; " he is too like me. But . . .

II did not love virtue already, he would inspire me
ith a taste for it."
Like other girls, she had had her dreams, and had
>rmed her ideals of the man to whom she would give
erself. " From fourteen to sixteen I wanted a man
of the world ; from sixteen to eighteen a clever man ;
since the age of eighteen I have wanted a true philo-
sopher." In La Blancherie she conceived that she had
found one — a spirit answering to her own. The symp-
toms were, however, the same as if a common lover
had been in question. In his company she was conscious
of a sweet and charming melancholy and — a significant
reversal of her ordinary habits — she reasoned little and
felt much. Less than three weeks later she was con-
fessing her inability to combat a passion only stimulated
by obstacles.

That it would encounter obstacles was certain. In
spite of her twenty-one years, in spite of her independ-
ence of judgment and her self-confidence, M. Phlipon
was to be reckoned with, and saw nothing to incline
him to view with favour the suit of a penniless young
writer, with little to recommend him from a worldly point
of view save the fact that he was well born. Receiving
a hint that, should his visits be continued, he might risk
receiving a rebuff, the lover accepted, " pale as death,"
his dismissal, leaving Manon as disconsolate as any un-
philosophical girl of her age, and no less indignant
than others before and after her with " the bizarre pre-
judices and the barbarous institutions placed in opposition
to the most sacred longings of nature."

In two or three weeks she was nevertheless able
to report amendment in her condition. If her love still
continued, she had regained her calm, and the first had

44 Life of Madame Roland

become a deep river which, having hollowed out its
bed, flowed in silence. La Blancherie loved her ; he
was striving to deserve her ; each was endeavouring,
for the sake of the other, to improve. She judged him
by her heart, similar to his.

It was to be shown that she was mistaken in so
judging him. The sequel of this first romance, extend-
ing over some nine months, may be given here. Assured
of her lover's affection, certain of her own, persuaded
of the permanence of both, Manon had resigned herself
to the situation, though with interludes of what she
would herself have termed folie. " My state varies with
the hours of the day," she told Sophie. "Once immersed
in science and study, adieu to love — gaiety, strength,
activity return. In my philosophical humour D. L. B.
sometimes appears a little insignificant. But turn the
hour-glass and I am mad. This gives rise in me to
many reflections on human nature."

It is to be noted that this cool analysis of her
condition was written after a first visit from Roland
had plainly diverted her attention from her unfortunate
love-affair. One from La Blancherie only two days
after — the first for months — sufficed to reduce her to a
state of despair. Others had been present, the common-
places of intercourse had alone been possible ; he looked
ill and changed, was perhaps dying — a single word
from her lips might restore him to life and health.
Should that word not be spoken ? Unable to remain
silent, she wrote a letter containing indeed no explicit
confession of her love, but destined to assure him that
she was not indifferent. Enclosing it to Sophie, as
an impartial judge, she begged her to read, and, if she
thought well, to send it. In her present state she
could not trust herself to decide the question. "Love
has conquered me ; I can no longer control myself."

Sophie decided that the letter might go, and there

The End of a Romance 45

the matter rested ; Manon remaining convinced that,
reading between the lines, her lover would not fail to
comprehend her meaning, and that, like herself, he
would continue true to the intangible bond which united
them.

It was in June 1776 that an end was practically
put to the situation. At the Luxemburg Manon chanced
to meet La Blancherie, when she observed with con-
sternation that he was wearing a feather. It was a shock
to her. How could that ornament be reconciled with the
philosophy, the simplicity and the way of thinking that
had endeared the young man so greatly to her ? Worse
was to follow. A friend who was with her, ignorant
of any special interest felt by Manon in the man to
whom she had bowed, made the casual remark that he
was in search of an heiress, had made proposals of
marriage to two, and was called the lover of the eleven
thousand virgins.

Though clinging for a time to the belief that he
might have been maligned, Manon's confidence in La
Blancherie was rudely shaken, and the incident marked
the beginning of the end of her first romance. When
some months later he made a fresh attempt to re-knit his
relations with her, it resulted in failure, and the two
parted finally.

CHAPTER VI

Friendship with M. de Boismorel — Acquaintance with Roland — First
impressions — Growing liking for him — Turgot dismissed — Visit to
Rousseau — M. de Sainte-Lette and M. de Sevelinges.

MANON'S first interview with the man who was
to become her husband had taken place at
the very time that her passion for La Blancherie had
reached its high-water mark. But before turning to the
acquaintance which was to have so all-important an
influence on her life, a subordinate relationship belonging
to the period may be noticed. She had never been so
much engrossed by her love-affair as to allow it to
exclude other occupations and interests, and during the
months dominated by the young man a close friendship —
serving amongst other things to mark the social advance-
ment of the engraver's daughter — had been established
between herself and M. de Boismorel, her grandmother's
former pupil and son of the lady whose good-humoured
patronage and ridicule she had resented in her childish
days. Times were now changed. Le Sage de Bercy — it
was thus that she was accustomed to designate Boismorel
in her letters to Sophie — had discovered in the grand-
daughter of his old governess a kindred spirit, had
invited her to his house, where she received a kindly
welcome from his mother and his wife, and a corre-
spondence had been kept up in which Manon discovered
that the sage showed more of his true self than in con-
versation or in the presence of others. To her he

46

sup]

M* de Boismorcl 47

plied a real want. Educated, a scholar, interested
in the same subjects as herself, he met her on equal
terms, read her compositions, lent her books, and was
understood to have so far risen superior to the prejudices
of class and race as to express his regret to her father
that his son and heir — a boy of seventeen — was not of
an age to marry her. It is certain that he begged her
to write an anonymous letter of advice and remonstrance
to the lad, whose disposition and tastes were causing
anxiety — a request to which Manon responded by
sending an epistle still extant.

The intimacy lasted only over eighteen months, and
Boismorers death from sunstroke caused Manon real
grief. She was a woman who, at every stage of her
career, thought much of friendship, and those to whom
she was thus linked were many, although, with the
exception of the Cannet sisters and, later, Madame
Grandchamp, scarcely a woman is to be found amongst
them. Public interests, in the stirring times that followed,
did not, in her case, supersede or exclude private ones.
Patriotism, in her own words, generalised and lifted the
ifFections on to a higher plane ; friendship embellished and
rendered them perfect. She was, in fact, a woman before
she was a politician. To the list of her friends was
now to be added the man who ultimately claimed and
obtained a gift greater than friendship, and by whose
means the whole tenor of her life was changed. Had
she not married Roland, would she have been content
:o remain a spectator of the great drama that was to
3e enacted ? It is impossible to say. But it should

; )e remembered that she is not to be confounded with
:he women who sought and invited personal notoriety;

. ind that it was through her husband alone that she was

; wept into the current of public life.

M. Roland de la Platiere was, at the time he made

: Vlanon's acquaintance, forty-two years of age, and

48 Life of Madame Roland

occupied the position of an inspector of commerce. At
Amiens, where his work lay, he had become known
to the Cannet family ; there, it also appears, he had
won the heart of Henriette, the elder of the two
sisters, whose affection he did not return. Belonging
to an old and well-connected family, his parents had
fallen on evil days, and, compelled to quit the Chateau
of Thizy, near Villefranche, where he was born, had
retired to the Clos de la Platiere, of which he subse-
quently assumed the name. Not destitute of a certain
ambition and a desire to vindicate the claims represented
by his birth as well as by many years of diligence in the
public service, he drew up, after his marriage, a mem-
orandum setting forth his origin and position, with the
object of obtaining letters of noblesse. This document
— combining, as M. Join-Lambert has pointed out,!
homage rendered to the social hierarchy in which hej
sought advancement with sentiments dictated by the]
philosophy of his age and environment — failed to obtaim
what he desired, and was afterwards made a subject oij
reproach by his enemies.

Roland's life, from boyhood upward, had been spemj
in hard work. At Rouen he had filled for ten yeanj
an office in the body of inspectors of manufactures!
From Normandy he had been transferred to Languedou
and Picardy, and in 1776 was doing his best to carrwj
out Turgot's industrial reforms. Conscientious anew
laborious, he fulfilled his duties to the uttermost)
numberless reports upon the results of investigation!
carried on both in France and over the greater part o
Europe bearing witness to his industry. The valu
of his services had been recognised and appreciated
and he was a not unsuccessful man.

But he was more than a mere government official
He had thought and read much, and if not altogethe
meriting the title of philosopher — to which Manon wa

I

First Impressions of Roland 49

clined at first to dispute his claim — he was a scholar
and a savant.

As to the impression he produced upon his new
acquaintance, three sources of information are available —
namely, her letters to Sophie Cannet, to whom he owed
his introduction ; those afterwards addressed by her to
Roland himself; and her memoirs, written after many
years. It is perhaps not unnatural that these authorities
are not wholly in accord. Sixteen years of the close
association of married life were likely not only to have
modified Madame Roland's earlier verdict, but to have
obscured her recollection of her husband as she had seen
him first ; nor is there any just cause to charge her with
a deliberate colouring of facts if her accounts do not
always tally. It is difficult "at all times to bid dry bones
to live, and in her case the difficulty was enhanced by
the fact that, when her memoirs were written, the heart
of the writer was filled by a different image. The
woman who loved Buzot found it hard to believe that
she had ever given her heart to Roland.

Of Roland as he was a few years later, a portrait
then taken gives an idea. It represents a man not
otherwise than good-looking, and who had not yet wholly
lost the appearance of youth. Carefully dressed in the
fashion of the day and with no sign of the Quaker-like
costume he afterwards affected, his features are regular,
the nose aquiline, the eyebrows well defined, and the eyes
dark. If the face may be a trifle wooden and lacking
in animation, it is not unpleasing. Henriette Cannet's
unrequited affection would also seem to point to some
degree of personal attraction.

That Sophie had long desired to make M. Roland
and her friend acquainted appears to indicate that she had
no quarrel with him on her sister's account. It was not,
however, till the January of 1776 that he presented
himself at the quai de l'Horloge, bringing a letter of
4

50 Life of Madame Roland

introduction in which he was described as an enlightened
philosopher of blameless character, his sole defects being
an excessive admiration for the ancients at the expense
of men of more modern days and too great a disposition
to talk of himself.

What Manon saw on this first meeting was a tall,
middle-aged man, moving with the stiffness belonging
to a sedentary life, whose manners were marked by
simplicity and ease, and who combined the courtesy
natural to good birth combined with the gravity of a
philosopher.

Such was the guest of whose visit Manon hastened
to give Sophie an account. It had not been a complete
success, and she feared she had not shown to advantage.
At a dinner shortly before — Roland, alas ! had not been
present at it — it had been a different matter. On that
occasion she felt that she had shone. A sponge must be,
however, passed over the small regrets of her vanity.
For the rest, she had received her new acquaintance in her j
baigneusey her white camisole, and the neglige Sophie had j
thought becoming in the summer. Raynal, Rousseau, j
Voltaire, Switzerland, and the Government had all been, j
though superficially, discussed. M. Roland must have j
seen that she was charmed by his visit, and had asked j
permission to repeat it.

When he did so, in a week or two, the conditions!
were unfavourable. Manon had a bad cold ; her father, J
after an inconvenient custom he had adopted, quitting
his business in the workshop, came to sit by, unable
to join in the conversation and manifestly impatient.
Under these circumstances literature was only coldly
dealt with, and Manon, who preferred the discussion of
philosophy, with the questions arising out of it, to pure
scholarship, found the talk dull.

M. Roland nevertheless introduced a new and welcome
element into her life. The acquisition of a new friend,

1

Dismissal of Turgot 51

of an acquaintance who might develop into one, was
always a matter of importance, even though a love-affair
ight be in progress. At this date, however, there
was no indication of the part he was to play, and she
was at least equally interested in others. A M. de
Sainte-Lette occupied her much — an elderly man lately
admitted to an intimate footing and a true philosopher,
compared with whom Roland was nothing but a savant.
The latter also incurred her displeasure by his sharp
strictures of the Abbe Raynal, then one of her oracles.
In the eyes of the inspector of commerce the Abbe's
performance was neither pure history nor philosophic
history, but simple romance — a feminine piece of work,
" bon pour les toilettes." Buffon, another object of her
admiration, was pronounced to be a mere charlatan with
a pretty style. It was no wonder that Manon felt
vexation ; and though shaken in her own estimates, she
had not gratified the critic by showing it.

In May an advance was made. Manon confessed
that she had learnt to appreciate Roland ; was charmed
by the solidity of his judgment, his agreeable talk, and
the variety of his information. Six weeks afterwards she
had been dreaming of him, and was wondering why no
news of him had reached her.

During that month of May when Manon Phlipon
was learning to know Roland better and the first links
of the chain destined to involve her in his doom were
being forged, Paris had been startled by the news that
Turgot — the man upon whom hopes of the amelioration
of the condition of the starving people chiefly hung — had
been dismissed from his post of Comptroller-General.
Though the fair anticipations greeting the beginning
of the reign had been overcast, the blow was un-
expected by those to whom a new era had seemed
to be opening. Not more than a few weeks earlier
the young King and his minister had appeared in full

52 Life of Madame Roland

concord, and Louis had written to him the well-known
words, u II n'y a que vous et moi qui aimions le peuple."
But Turgot was not a man to be content with phrases.
He was ready to translate theories into action, and on
his proposal to tax clergy, noblesse and Parlement
followed his fall.

Whether his methods were wise or unwise cannot
be discussed here, nor the further question whether sub-
stantial success, at the stage of financial stress which
had been reached, was possible to any man or any method.
What was certain was that, as reformers almost invari-
ably do, he had rendered himself unpopular with every
party in the State — the people, the Parlement, the wealthy,
and, not least, the Queen. Marie Antoinette probably
hastened his fall — she had gone so far as to hint, in
connection with him, at the Bastille.

Unpopular as he was, his dismissal raised a storm.
The Sunday when it became known in Paris was, Manon j
wrote, a day of revolution. The words were truer than !
she knew. It is curious to reflect how little those |
who were to be the chief actors in the approaching j
drama — men and women converging already from all
quarters to a common centre — suspected the direction j
in which their destiny was bearing them. The ideas j
that gave birth to the Revolution were to be found in
every section of society and of the nation ; the language
in which they were clothed was on every lip. The
philosophy of the salons, to use Lamartine's words, was
to become the revolt of the streets. Men sitting in
their libraries or discussing theories were putting a
match to a powder-magazine when they imagined that j
they were lighting a lamp.

With Manon, as with many of her associates, I
sympathy with mankind was so far chiefly an abstract]
sentiment. For the sufferings of humanity at large her j
heart might bleed ; it was only occasionally, whenj

*

Plans for the Future 53

rought face to face with him, that the Lazarus at her
gate caused her a real pang. The charity driving men
and women into highways and byways to rescue in-
dividuals, body and soul, had not yet become a motive
power.

During the weeks that she was gradually establishing
relations with Roland she had, after her fashion, reviewed
her present condition and settled on the course to be
pursued. At the risk of repetition it is necessary to
recur to her habits of introspection in order to ex-
plain the running commentary upon her life and
character she never failed to keep up. Still under the
dominion of her infatuation for La Blancherie — some
months were to pass before she finally emancipated
herself from its influence — she nevertheless determined
to turn her thoughts into another direction. Study, to
be carried on as before, was to become less aimless and
desultory. " I am made to turn it to good use. It is
the sole career open to me, and I long to throw myself
into it. Overmuch variety hinders progress. It is time
to choose a method and to adopt a line." Renouncing
the idea of making a profession of society or of gaining
a reputation for brilliance, she desired to nourish the
heart by the cultivation of the mind. Yet how to do
this unaided ? She was ennuyee at being a woman —
it is a frequent complaint — a different sex, a different
century, would have suited her better. The barriers
of opinion, the fetters of prejudice, met her on every
side, and her strength was vainly wasted in shaking her
chains. " O Liberty, ideal of strenuous souls, nourish-
ment of virtue, for me you are nothing but a name.
What good is served by my enthusiasm for the public
weal, since I can profit it in nothing ? " The vehement
lament links its writer to the woman she was to become.

Her admiration for Rousseau continued unabated,
and to the February of this year belongs an unsuccessful

54 Life of Madame Roland

attempt she hazarded to obtain a personal interview with
her idol and apostle. A countryman of his — a republican
philosopher — having business to transact with him, had
offered to devolve the privilege of seeing and speaking
with the prophet upon Manon, and on the pretext of
obtaining a personal reply to a letter she repaired to the
house in the rue Platiere where Rousseau lodged. The
visit ended in disappointment. The door was opened
by an elderly woman of austere aspect, who, standing
with her hand on the lock, barred the entrance. Her
husband, she explained, could speak to no one. As to
the request that had been made him, it was impossible
for him to accede to it. His age needed rest.

Admittance was plainly not to be obtained, and
begging that her homage might be presented to the
man in the world she most revered, Manon had no
choice but to withdraw discomfited ; though not, as it
seems from a subsequent letter, without hopes of
achieving her object by other means.

If she was finding a new pleasure in M. Roland's
society — pleasure, so far, untouched by sentiment — she
stood in need of it. Though her letters to Sophie and to I
the elder sister, Henriette, more recently admitted to her \
intimacy, show little diminution of the old enthusiastic
affection, some sort of obstacle to a full and free |
exchange of confidence must have been interposed by
the fact that Sophie — far from following her friend's ;
lead — maintained her original attitude towards religion j
and entertained for a time thoughts of a conventual ;
life. The premature death of M. de Boismorel in the |
autumn deprived Manon, further, of an associate who
had played an important part during the past eighteen
months ; whilst domestic affairs were causing her increasing
anxiety.

M. Phlipon's business was suffering more and more
from neglect ; Manon's fortune, such as it was, was in

I

Roland's Departure 55

anger of being dissipated ; and, unwilling to approach
her father personally on the subject, she was practical
enough to desire that her interests should be, if possible,
safeguarded. Phlipon's private conduct, torn between
affection for his daughter, reluctance to present her with
a stepmother, and other tendencies, also left much to be
desired ; and an element of unrest and uncertainty was
introduced into an existence already sufficiently uncon-
genial to a woman who was, intellectually and socially,
rapidly rising above it.

In Manon's manner of facing the situation and her
steady determination not to seek safety and material
comfort in the obvious remedy offered by a marriage
of convenience she is seen at her best. If necessary, she
said, she could work, and it was well to be prepared
for an emergency, " whereas a chain forged through
interest is in my opinion the worst ill I could suffer. . . .
I can say that I fear nothing, since I await misfortune
and make ready for labour. I know very well that
neither can prevent me from being happy." A declaration
of the affection she still feels for the father who so ill
deserved it follows. He was only what other men in
his circumstances would become. " I love him, pity
him, weep for him, excuse him. I hope, and I console
myself."

Her friends, and Roland amongst them, were a chief
source of consolation. If M. de Sainte-Lette was her
most constant companion — she saw him three or four
times a week — she classed him and M. Roland together
as the men who spoilt her for the society of others,
men rare in their species, and with whom it would be
hard to find any others to bear comparison.

That autumn Roland left France for the purpose
of resuming his travels ; a parting taking place, when,
in the presence of Sainte-Lette, he asked, not in vain,
permission to kiss Manon.

56 Life of Madame Roland

" You are happy in leaving," Sainte-Lette told him,
looking benevolently on from the height of his sixty
years. u Hasten back, that you may demand as much
once more."

Roland did not hasten back. Over a year was to go
by before the two met again, a love-affair at Leghorn
seeming to prove that the traveller had left Paris heart-
whole. His confidence in Manon was nevertheless
proved by the fact that he confided his manuscripts to
her care, in case evil should befall him in foreign lands.
The notes he made abroad — afterwards printed in the
form of letters — were likewise transmitted to her through
his brother.

A letter to Henriette Cannet gives an indication
of Manon's sentiments. She missed M. Roland less
than she might otherwise have done, owing to recent
cares — doubtless her father's misconduct — and her
many occupations, so she told her correspondent. But
whilst these causes may have contributed to lessen her
regret for an absent friend, they were supplemented
by the acquirement of a new one in the person of a
man who came near to exercising an important in-
fluence on her future. M. de Sainte-Lette possessed
"another self " in the person of one M. de Sevelinges.
This gentleman, whose home was at Soissons, having
recently lost his wife, Sainte-Lette, to distract him from
his grief, presently brought to Paris and to the quai de
l'Horloge, where Manon, pitiful and touched by his silent
sorrow, was prepared in no long time to extend to him
a part of the affection she bestowed on Sainte-Lette.
Her description of a day spent in the company of both
places the trio graphically before us.

Having taken her two friends to visit her uncle the
priest, promoted to be Canon of Vincennes, and with
whom she was now on the old affectionate terms, the
three were returning to Paris on foot, when, as they

A Moonlight Walk 57

were walking home by moonlight, another wayfarer was
passed. " An author, a poet, or a madman," he was
declaiming, as he pursued his solitary way, Racine's
Andromaque aloud.

Resisting at first an inclination to give way to
laughter, words caught by the three companions put a
sudden end to their mirth. Orestes was making his
appeal to Pylades :

" Excuse un malheureux qui perd tout ce qu'il
aime."

" The words were hardly pronounced when I saw
M. de Sainte-Lette's friend give him his hand, trembling,
whilst, in moved and sorrowful accents, he repeated the
line. My eyes were wet with tears. We all three
sighed, and silence reigned amongst us."

M. de Sainte-Lette was on the eve of a voyage
to India, and did not long survive it. He left his
friend as a legacy to Manon, and le gentilhomme mal-
heureux in some sort filled his place. At one moment,
indeed, it seemed he was destined to do more, and it
may be well to trace here the course of the connection
between Manon and her bereaved acquaintance. Indi-
cated more lightly in her memoirs, it is described at
length in her correspondence with Sophie.

Roland in Italy, Sainte-Lette in India, Boismorel
dead, La Blancherie finally discredited, and family affairs
unsatisfactory, a fresh object of interest was specially
welcome. Sevelinges, aged fifty-five, of old family —
Manon was not indifferent to such advantages — with,
clinging to him, the glamour of a great sorrow and a
need of sympathy, possessed of that gentle philosophy
and melancholy sensibility for which Manon admitted
she had always entertained a strong liking, and with
tastes corresponding to hers, was well adapted to supply
that object. A correspondence was accordingly started
and kept up. He read and approved her compositions,

58 Life of Madame Roland

ranking them higher than she had hoped, and sending
her one of his own in return. Affection, if not in-
timacy, was the result, and in February 1777 Sevelinges
hazarded, in language so obscure that she at first mis-
understood it, a singular proposal. With small means,
and with two sons whose fortunes would be damaged
should he have children by a second marriage, he
nevertheless desired to secure the companionship of a
woman for whom he had a genuine regard, and the
possibility of an arrangement by which he would be
enabled to enjoy it without detriment to his family
occurred to his mind. Why should not Manon take
his name, and place him in permanent possession of a
sister and friend ? This was the suggestion, to which
her reply, though not given without much hesitation
and searching of heart, was not unfavourable.

Why the plan was not carried into effect remains
uncertain. Possibly M. de Sevelinges perceived drawbacks
to its realisation he had at first overlooked ; possibly —
as it afterwards appeared he wished it to be believed —
he had never really contemplated the arrangement, and j
his ambiguous language had been misinterpreted. In any j
case, nothing further came of it, and in September of the j
same year Manon was writing to Sophie in a tone of com- j
plete indifference that her correspondence with Sevelinges !
was likely to slacken or even cease. It is a curious co-j
incidence that this letter was dated only two days later!
than the first she addressed to M. Roland after his return)
to France.

Meantime life had been carried on after its usual!
fashion. Household duties, the business connected with:
her small fortune, now rapidly disappearing, the ever-|
recurrent questions of marriage, treated by Manon in her
customary sensible and matter-of-fact manner, had filled
her days and occupied her mind ; varied by visits to her
uncle at Vincennes, where the apartments at the Castle

I

Roland's Return

59

were allotted, after the manner of Hampton Court, to
lodgers who possessed a claim upon the royal favour,
and who made up a little society to which the Canon's
niece was a welcome addition. Upon this somewhat
cheerless routine broke the return of M. Roland to
France.

CHAPTER VII

Roland's return to France — Development of his relations with Manon
— Voltaire in Paris — Manon and the Cannets — Roland in love —
Difficulties — Correspondence — The engagement suspended.

ROLAND had left for Italy in the autumn of 1776, \
and had remained absent from France close upon
t year. During this interval it does not appear that, in 1
the matter of keeping up communications with Manon [
Phlipon, he had done more than cause the notes of his j
journeys to reach her. In September 1777, however, a]
letter, dated from Villefranche, where he had rejoined
his family, contained apologies for having left a charming
little note from her unanswered. Finding him at Rome, j
various causes had combined to prevent him from reply- |
ing. Amongst them was a reluctance to make her a I
sharer in his cares and troubles. A death had occurred I
which he would long carry in his heart — a phrase under- j
stood to be connected, literally or metaphorically, with the I
unfortunate love-affair at Leghorn. He counted upon |
her friendship to alleviate his sorrow. The brigands]
and dangers at sea she had feared on his behalf held no
terrors for him. Friends alone had presented an obstacle j
to self-destruction, and amongst them she had no reason 1
to complain of the place assigned her.

Manon answered with effusion and reproaches. Wasj
it possible that, caring to be remembered, he had been S0|
tardy in recalling himself to her memory ? Was this due-
to confidence in her, or to forgetfulness ? His letter had!

60

Roland's Return 6r

cost her tears, yet it had made her happy. She had
pictured him a contented wanderer, whilst she had been
surrounded by troubles and vexations. How mistaken
had she been ! Only the day before she had told Sophie
that she made use of life with indifference and would lose
it without regret — words escaping her in a moment of
suffering. She now felt that friendship caused her to
change her language.

Such was the initiation of the renewal of intercourse
between the man and woman who, two years and a half
later, were to marry. In his masterly introduction to
their pre-nuptial correspondence,1 M. Join-Lambert has
supplied an admirable commentary on the gradual develop-
ment of the situation. The letters he publishes afford a
curious corrective to the view of the affair afterwards
taken by one of the correspondents.

"On M. Roland's return," wrote his wife in her
memoirs, " I found a friend. His seriousness, his manners,
his habits, all dedicated to work, led me to consider him,
so to speak, as without sex, or as a philosopher existing
by reason alone. A species of confidence sprang up
between us ; and through the pleasure he found in my
society he gradually contracted the need of coming more
frequently. It was nearly five years after our first
acquaintance before he made any declaration of tender
sentiments. I was not insensible to them, feeling more
esteem for him than for any one I had hitherto known ;
but I had perceived that he himself was not regardless,
personally, or for family reasons, of external circum-
stances. I told him frankly that I was honoured by his
proposals and would respond to them with pleasure ;
that I did not, however, consider myself a good match
for him, and I unfolded to him without reserve the
condition of the business. It was ruined."

It will be seen that this account of the earlier stages
1 Mariage de Madame Roland^ A. Join- Lambert.

62 Life of Madame Roland

-

of the affair is far from presenting a perfect corre-
spondence with the facts as represented in the letters
The question to be asked is whether the tone of the
letters is to be accepted as an index to the condition of
the writer's mind and heart at the time, or whether it
must be concluded that, desiring to secure as a husband
a man she honoured and respected, Marie Jeanne Phlipon
was led to make use of language that implied a degree of
affection she did not feel.

Turning to Roland, it is difficult, reading his im-
passioned phrases, to believe that the woman to whom
they were addressed can have regarded him as sans
sexe. Whether or not he desired, at all the stages of
the long-drawn-out affair, to marry her, it cannot be
doubted that he was genuinely in love — as he had been
in love with the Italian widow at Leghorn and, possibly,
with Henriette Cannet. It must further be repeated that j
the mist of years, the mist also of a new and engrossing j
passion, obscured Madame Roland's vision at the time I
her memoirs were written, and that, whatever conclusion |
is arrived at, she may have been guiltless of a deliberate
colouring of facts.

It is unnecessary to linger over the months following j
upon Roland's return to France. Manon's private life j
was marked by no events of importance. Marriages were I
suggested and weighed by her with practical common I
sense, and were declined ; the family fortunes, sinking!
lower and lower, continued to supply her with a cause]
of disquietude and unrest. Her father's manner of life!
was likewise a source of distress to the daughter who,!
in spite of the dissimilarity of their tastes and characters,*
never ceased to feel a certain affection for him so long as)
she remained under his roof.

Whilst abstract questions were eagerly studied by her,.
it is noticeable that she remained curiously untouched
by public events, or by history in the concrete. Ex-

citi

Indifference to Politics 63

ing as were American affairs, she confessed that she
knew little of them, the world in which she lived being
so destitute of knowledge or intelligence that to her
Paris counted for little more than the provinces. She
was un pen fdchee when England seemed destined to
subdue the rebels, and declared that she watched the
revolution across the Atlantic with interest and recog-
nised its importance, desiring that America should vin-
dicate its right to liberty. But it is clear that political
changes, at home or abroad, mattered little to her at
this time. On one of the rare occasions upon which
she alluded to politics in her letters, it was to say that
the best course, in her opinion, was to maintain a
stationary attitude, since otherwise worse might super-
vene, and she anticipated no improvement. She was
above all things a student, affected but slightly by what
went on around her : " I have my breviary — my excellent
Jean-Jacques. When I can permanently add [to my
library] Plutarch and Montaigne, these three excellent
guides will make up my daily company."

They did not, nevertheless, content her. In the
letter to Sophie she had quoted in her answer to
Roland's — written no doubt in a mood of melancholy
and discouragement — the hardihood and spirit she com-
monly displayed in meeting the mischances of life
appeared to have failed her, and, analysing as usual the
dejection by which she was overcome, she described its
symptoms to her friend : <c The magnificent spectacle of
the universe seems covered by a veil ; a sort of mist
surrounds and confuses the objects I desire to fix my
gaze upon. Sensation is languid ; my ideas succeed one
another coldly ; I live without passions or tastes. I
am becoming a stranger to enthusiasm, to compassion.
The unhappy will receive my care and my support, but
I shall remain unmoved. ... I am only twenty-three ;
already the sweetest illusions have perished, even before

64 Life of Madame Roland

I had tasted all their charm. . . . To live in peace and
forgotten, and to die in silence — this would be my desire,
had I the courage to form one."

Rousseau, Plutarch, and Montaigne had not sufficed
to raise her to the true philosophical level. In Voltaire
she took little interest, regarding with something like
contemptuous disapproval the ovation the old man re-
ceived when, in the February of 1778, he visited Paris.
"Sneering Paris," says Carlyle, "has suddenly grown
reverent ; devotional with hero-worship." Nobles and:
fine ladies vied with each other in doing him honour;
crowds followed him in the streets. The city — always
craving for a new sensation — was swept off its feet
by enthusiasm. But Marie Phlipon looked coldly on.
As a poet, a man of taste and intelligence, she allowed
him to be worthy of admiration. As politician and
philosopher, she rated his claims to authority low. He1
had better have enjoyed his renown in quiet at Ferney
than have come to Paris to exhibit to the world the
absurdities of an old man eager for incense.

In the consideration of her future she had ample causej
for preoccupation. M. de Sevelinges was still, in the)
spring of 1778, attempting to reconcile his need for some!
measure of her society and friendship with the duty hd
conceived himself to owe to his sons. Receding, never-!
theless, from the position he had taken up a year earlier j
he was delicately insinuating that Mademoiselle Phliporl
had misunderstood his proposals when she had imagineq
that they included the offer of his hand ; and Manor!
somewhat tardily discerned a louche and uncertain ton<j
in his communications.

Disappointed in Sevelinges and the ideal she hacj
formed of his character, the summer of 1778 also mark
the first serious change in the intimate and confidentia
terms existing for more than eleven years between Manoi
and the Cannet sisters. For this Roland was responsible

I

3

» >
! c

>

Friendship with Roland 65

It would appear that the anticipated meeting between
Manon and the returned traveller had not taken place
at once, his journey to Paris having been postponed by-
illness. The date of their meeting is left uncertain ; but
in March she describes a visit — it can scarcely have been
the first — he had paid to the quai de l'Horloge.

" I received some days ago a visit from M. Roland
de la Platiere," she wrote. " He was grave ; I was reveuse ;
we talked of life's sorrows, of the griefs continually assail-
ing times sensibles " ; and she begged her friends, should
the conversation turn upon her, never to let him hear
anything to her father's disadvantage. In May another
mention of him occurs — to which a letter to be presently
quoted gives the commentary. " I only very rarely
receive visits from M. R. de la P. He seems one of
the busy men who do not give themselves to all the
world. You may think it strange that, loving painting,
I have not exercised it in making his portrait. I do not
see him often enough to hope to catch the likeness . . .
he is, as far as I am concerned, at the end of so long a
telescope that I might believe him to be still in Italy. I
imagine, however, that he has not left this town."

The letter — Manon is convicted out of her own lips
— was written with the deliberate intention of conveying
a false impression. Roland, often at Amiens, was, for
private reasons, keenly anxious that his intercourse with
their friend should remain unknown to the Cannet
sisters. It might seem singular that Manon, priding her-
self upon a high standard of sincerity, should have agreed
to carry out his wishes and to enter upon a course of dis-
simulation. It is less surprising when it is remembered
that she had, for years and upon principle, made a practice
of deception with regard to religion, with the object of
avoiding giving pain or scandal to others. She now felt
apparently no scruple in deceiving, for the sake of a man
who did not as yet occupy the position of a lover, the
5

66 Life of Madame Roland

friends she cared for most in the world ; and was probably
convinced that in doing so she was right.

" I have never erred except by force of reasoning,"
she wrote to Roland some months later, pursuing her
habit of self-dissection. "Of all that I have done or
said under different circumstances, what needed correction
has not been least the result of reflection. . . . The only
thing contributing to my peace of mind, or at least to
the softening of my regrets, is my natural mania for
arranging my intentions on so good a basis that I suffer
no self-reproach on their account."

If, in the matter of her dealings with the Cannets|
she had settled the affair satisfactorily with her conscience,
the situation presented undeniable difficulties, accentuated
by the fact that in June Sophie was paying a visit to
Paris. Even in the joy of reunion something of dis-
appointment mingled. Sophie was undemonstrative, and
Manon almost suspected her of a desire that she should
love her less. In religion the divergence of views was
increasingly marked. Yet Manon asserted in a letter
to Henriette that the intimacy in no way suffered. Each,
she said, equally upright in intention, frank in thought,
and candid in speech, unveiled her mind and opened her
heart without constraint or reserve.

After this, it is somewhat of a shock to read a
letter addressed to M. Roland in August. Sophie,
still in Paris, had invited Manon and her father to meet
their common friend at dinner ; and Manon thought it
well to warn her fellow-guest beforehand of what he
was to expect. She was afraid lest one of those nothings
might escape M. Phlipon which would serve to betray
to the hostess the little dissimulation she had practised.
"To avoid many pretences, I had hastened to make a
single one . . . saying that I had seen little of you. . . .
You have established a measure of reserve in the midst
of the greatest confidence. My simplicity and bonhomie

Growing Intimacy 67

have taken fright at the embarrassment that might arise
from forgetfulness or from want of aptitude for these
finesses." She did not reproach him. He had judged
silence to be needful for reasons she had never doubted.
But she felt it necessary to write to him on this subject.
" To you alone can J complain of the change of which
I was aware in the pleasure of meeting you at my friend's
house, and the opposition I therefore offered to her
arrangements. "

In October Sophie left Paris, and though her pre-
sence had been an embarrassment, a letter Manon
addressed to her betrays no weakening of the old
affection. Self-upbraiding may indeed have dictated the
ardent language. " Your departure," she wrote lament-
ably, "tore my soul from me. The earth seemed to
give way beneath my feet ; I appeared to fall, forsaken,
into a new universe, surrounded on every side by silence
and night and where I was becoming stupefied or mad."

Roland had also returned to Amiens, and by a letter
written to Manon in December it appears that outward
formality continued to be observed. He had seen
little of the Cannets and was working harder than ever
before. One of Manon's friends, doubtless Henriette,
was in a disquieting condition and in fear of death.
Confused, broken, and enigmatical phrases follow, referring
apparently to the share he may be supposed to have had
in her present state. " But you know . , . and though
I presume indeed that this has nothing to do with it,
yet . . ." then breaking into Italian ..." the afflicted
brother said something showing that he still thought of
it, and she knew well that . . . nothing, nothing,
nothing."

Roland was plainly disturbed. Manon, for her part,
replied that she was grieved to hear of Henriette's sad
condition, and saw with sorrow that her sensibility was
perhaps hollowing out a grave for her.

68 Life of Madame Roland

During the winter of 1778-9 the friendship grew and
prospered, but was nothing more. Nor was it until the
spring of 1779 — when the acquaintanceship was three
years old — that a fresh element was introduced. From
this time it is clear that Manon's desire and intention was
— could she compass it — to become Roland's wife.

The inauguration of this phase is indicated by a
letter from her, following upon an interview wherein
he had assumed the attitude of a lover. She finds
herself in a new situation, so she tells him, not with-
out its sweetness, but a sweetness counterbalanced by
agitation and disquiet. She is dissatisfied with herself,
and he is the cause. Let him not show her that trouble,
fear and danger are almost inseparable from the most
sacred friendship between a man and a woman. " It
seems to me," she concludes, in Italian, " that friendship
is less ardent in its caresses, is very gentle, natural, and
candid. I no longer recognised it, and my heart took
fright. Why give birth to trouble and disquiet in my
simple soul ? Leave me in peace to love you always —
always."

Roland's reply should have been easy, but he was
not apparently at the moment prepared to make it. He
read her letter with tears, pleaded his sense of her worth
to justify his madness ; reproached her with the evenness
of mind which could preserve an impartial view, and with
the security and firmness which, praiseworthy as they
were, tore his heart. In impassioned sentences he offered
her the heart that was already hers — but made no mention
of marriage.

In her reply Manon showed herself mistress of the
situation ; nor can her letter be better described than
by quoting M. Join-Lambert's summary of it.

" It is the finest programme a woman could form
and dream of realising. She gives a resume of her
life, the history of her opinions and of her sentiments.

*

Correspondence with Roland 69

e has vibrated under the influence of a passion by
which the most inert nature is stirred. The passing
disturbance of the senses has not reached her head.
The opportunity presents itself of taking up a position
and striking a blow, of expressing once for all what she
is — what she will always remain. I may be the victim of
sentiment^ but I will never be any man s plaything. Roland
is warned. He will speak of marriage or she will see
him no more. The confession of faith is superbly allur-
ing. Its language, always elevated and wide, is here
accurate, almost perfect. . . . The style proves that
Marie Phlipon has read and re-read the Nouvelle Heloise,
that Julie is her model, almost to the point of weakness.
She knows that to lower her weapons would be not
kindness but imprudence. . . . Playing a bold game,
Marie Phlipon ends by this mise en demeure, ' Restore
your friendship to me, or fear ... to compel me to
see you no more.' " l

The interchange of letters after this crisis was rapid —
now couched in formal terms, now abandoning the vous
for the tu of familiar intimacy. Yet, in spite of the
language of passion, of asseverations of devotion on one
side and on the other, the correspondence had some of
the features of a fencing match. Vehemently disclaiming
any sentiments calculated to offend, Roland nevertheless
refrained from unfolding any definite plan ; whilst
Manon's letters, at times seeming to dissuade him from
a disadvantageous connection, at times confessing that
the obstacles she raises are meant to be surmounted,
are admirably adapted to tighten her hold upon a man
who loves her. A few sentences, taken almost at random,
give the key to her attitude. "Spare me," she writes,
" the cruel and delightful emotions which follow upon
delirium and the forgetfulness of wise reserve. ... I
am familiar with struggles, I may dare to say with
1 Le Manage de Madame Roland, A. Join-Lambert, Int. 1, li.

70 Life of Madame Roland

victories. Do not rob me of the last and render me
incapable of keeping up the first. ... I have not enough
of your philosophy ... to surrender myself to the
domination of a passion which would become, in me,
transport and madness."

Of the condition of her fortunes she had given a
candid account. Fourteen thousand francs alone remained
of her inheritance, and out of this pittance it had been
arranged that she was to pay her father for her board,
besides, by filling the place of a maidservant, enabling
him to economise in wages. The situation was further
complicated by the suit of Phlipon's sole remaining
pupil, whose addresses were favoured by her family.

Manon deserved the more credit for her candour,
because, genuinely in love as Roland was, he was by no
means indifferent to the worldly disadvantages of the
match, remaining acutely sensible of them throughout
the whole course of his love-making. He never forgot
that he was marrying below him. On the other hand,
his position and social standing may have strengthened
Manon's desire to become his wife. " He would impart
to her existence honour, influence, reputation, perhaps
glory. Would he suffice to give her happiness ? It
is a delicate question. In speaking of love to him,
does she deceive him ? She does not lie ; for she feels
a great need of tenderness, of bestowing much happiness,
of receiving a little. She will pay her debt." Such is
M. Join-Lambert's inconclusive reply to the question
he raises.

Meantime, whatever might have been his misgivings
when first he had yielded to her charm, Roland had
become ready and anxious to marry her. Though in
his letters impatience and disapproval might alternate
with expressions of passionate devotion, he plainly looked
forward to a future to be spent together and a common
home to be inhabited at no distant date. His injunction

Correspondence with Roland 71

of secrecy continued nevertheless in full force. Neither
Phlipon, the Roland family, nor the Cannets were to be
given a hint of the position of affairs. The motive of so
much mystery is difficult to fathom, since a man of honour,
such as Roland, can scarcely have desired to keep a
way of retreat open. Manon, however, had no choice
but to yield ; and she pledged herself to take all
necessary precautions.

In thus obeying his will she may have been wise ;

in other respects she was less so. Domestic cares,

pressing ever more heavily upon her, no doubt threw

te future she hoped to share with Roland into the

lighter relief; but to dwell upon them in her letters,

:onstantly and minutely, was not a method of rendering

iat future secure. She had done what was honourable

md upright in disclosing at length the condition of her

ither's affairs, in attempting no concealment as to his

insatisfactory character and habits, or the ruin that had

>vertaken her financial prospects. To continue to pour

>ut day after day, in wearisome detail, interminable

iccounts of sordid vexations resulting from Phlipon's

conduct, was to keep her disabilities perpetually before

the eyes of the man she hoped to marry. Again, if she

may have considered it due to her future husband to

acquaint him with the difficulties she encountered in

dealing with the passion conceived for her by her father's

apprentice — usually alluded to as " le jeune homme " — to

fill pages with descriptions of the young lover's maladies

(she had nursed him through an attack of measles), of

lis accesses of despair, his contemplated suicide, and the

rengeance he had vowed against his unknown rival, was

>nce more to introduce a distasteful topic into her com-

Lunications. Further, if it was unpleasant for a man

)f Roland's stamp, position, and age to be constantly

•eminded that the woman he hoped to make his wife

ras persecuted by the addresses of a love-sick shopboy,

72 Life of Madame Roland

it was not less so to learn — again Manon's diffuse
candour trenches upon folly — that she had listened not
unfavourably to proposals from a suitor of his own
standing which were in Roland's eyes little less than insult-
ing. The episode of her relations with Sevelinges —
who had not yet abandoned the attempt to keep up
his intercourse with her — was indeed visited by the in-
spector of commerce with a violence of condemnation
meekly endorsed by the culprit.

The affair would in any case have required care-
ful and delicate treatment. If love was to triumph,
the victory would not be an easy one, and the way to
secure it must have cost Manon many anxious hours.
Roland, irritable, overworked, tenacious of his dignity,
over-conscious of social superiority, had yielded to her
charm so far as to overlook the disadvantages of her
birth and of a father shifty, needy, and of indifferent
reputation and morals ; but a false step might be fatal,
and it behoved her to move cautiously.

In July she took the decided measure of making her
father acquainted with the understanding existing between
herself and Roland. If M. Join-Lambert is justified in
believing that there was an element of strategy in the
act, and that the communication was made in order to
clench the matter of her marriage, no trace of any doubt
as to the view Roland was likely to take of it was
allowed to appear in her announcement of the fact.

" Kiss my letter," she wrote, " tremble with joy ;
my father is pleased ; he esteems you ; he loves me ;
we shall all be happy " ; and she related with apparent
rapture the manner of the disclosure.

It would have been difficult for Roland to show
displeasure ; he must have been aware that he had no
right to insist upon the matter being kept from Phlipon's
ears ; and if the tone of his response did not wholly
correspond to that of Manon's announcement, he accepted

Correspondence with Roland 73

it with a good grace. Yet before long he was writing
to her after a fashion she might well have resented.
Comparing her and Robespierre, Michelet points out
that they had one defect in common — each was ne
scribe. If Manon was an accomplished letter-writer,
she was so voluminous a one that the perusal of her
closely written pages was a tax upon the leisure of a
busy man, and may possibly have contributed to produce
the impatience that sometimes found vent in his replies.

" How you pass from one thing to another, physically
and morally ! " he wrote. " I own that I could not go
from one extreme to the other with equal rapidity, the
rather because, as you rightly say, it is all accompanied
by ample dissertations upon cause and effect, means and
results, the probable and the certain, good and evil, the
beautiful and the ugly, cold and heat, greatness and little-
ness, etc., and with periods not only squared, but with
many faces, rounded, pointed, long and short, etc."

The passage serves to show that plain speech was
not absent from Roland's wooing. Nor is it a solitary
instance of language displaying not only irritation but a
desire to bring home to Manon a sense of her faults and
shortcomings. She continued, nevertheless, to over-
whelm him with details of domestic troubles. Earlier
in the summer she had watched devotedly by the death-
bed of her old and faithful servant, Mignonne. Next
she has to tell of the malady of a cousin's maid, to whom
she had also ministered. Her father too was ill, and his
symptoms were described to the unsympathetic Roland.
Fearing injury to her health from constant strain, he
considered it a personal hardship that he, who had
reckoned upon obtaining comfort from her in his
troubles, should find that she was subjected to constant
agitation and was manifestly suffering from it.

A crisis was reached in September. Complications
had arisen with regard to pecuniary matters ; and Roland

74 Life of Madame Roland

declared hotly that he had already failed sufficiently in his
duty to his family by the silence he had maintained on
the subject of his relations with Manon without also
placing their fortune at the mercy of a spendthrift like
Phlipon. " Were I to die by reason of this act, I would
seal it with my blood," he exclaimed somewhat grandilo-
quently.

In the letter from which the last quotation is taken
Roland mentions that he is writing to M. Phlipon by the
same post. It was only now that he had overcome
his reluctance to take the definite step of suing to a man
for whom his contempt was unmeasured for his daughter's
hand ; and considering the mood in which the demand
was made, it is not to be wondered at if it was couched
in terms that give some colour to the hypothesis that he
intended to court a refusal. " My father," says Madame
Roland, " thought the letter dry. He did not like
M. Roland's stiffness ; did not care to have as his son-in-
law an austere man who assumed the attitude of a censor.
He answered him with hardness and impertinence, and
only showed me his letter when he had dispatched the
reply. I wrote to M. Roland that the event had too
well justified the fears I had entertained with regard to
my father, that I would cause him no further vexation,
and begged he would abandon his project."

It would seem that Roland did not reject the offer of
his liberty. Indignant at the tone of Phlipon's response
to his overtures, he told Manon plainly that her father's
language revealed a spirit he had not before been
acquainted with, and which horrified him. She was as I
dear to him as ever ; he would give his life for her, and
his greatest wish was to possess her love . . . " mais
ton pere, mon amie, ton pere ! " His family would
be afflicted and might even be alienated. He had sent a
copy of the offensive missive to his relations, in reparation
of his former silence.

A Rupture 75

Manon's answer was marked by dignity and self-
restraint. Recognising the difficulties of the position,
she again implied that Roland was released by her father's
conduct from his obligations towards her, and left him
free, should he desire it, to go his way. Roland was in a
difficulty. In spite of her formal acknowledgment that
he was at liberty to withdraw, a man of honour could
scarcely feel it easy to do so. Further, though
curiously sensitive to the disapproval of his kinsfolk, he
loved Manon. Distaste for his prospective father-in-law,
however, carried the day, and the marriage, if not put out
of sight, was indefinitely postponed.

Manon submitted. The Roland family, she agreed,
could not be expected to condone her father's action,
and she counselled her lover to relinquish the thought
of a union. Her sentiments were made plain in a letter
containing, some weeks later, the announcement of her
determination to quit her home, and to take refuge
in the convent where a year of her childhood had been
spent. Recapitulating the recent course of events, she
gave, not without a touch of bitterness, the reasons for
her determination. " I decided upon our mutual re-
nunciation. The step taken, the effort made, I looked
around me shuddering. I turned back to the past, I
forecast the future. I sought my vanished hopes, I
found nothing but a terrible void and precipices at every
step. I gazed at you ; you were sad but firm. I
hardly recognised the man who had loved me." Was
it possible that two reasonable beings, certain of making
each other happy, should suffer and part because an ill-
tempered man had been pleased to commit a folly
repented of in a couple of days ? Reproaches followed.
In showing Phlipon's letter to his family, had he not
sought to obtain a weapon against his own heart ? Still
she loved him, alike proud of her love and despairing.
But she had regained the mastery over herself, recognising

7 6 Life of Madame Roland

that, if her father's letter was the ostensible cause of
separation, the way must have been prepared by a cooling
of Roland's ardour, owing to absence and divers other
causes. She had no complaint to make. Both had
missed happiness ; friendship must make up for the
ills each had occasioned the other.

Such was the formal and ostensible winding-up of
the affair. It is impossible not to suspect that the
writer knew it to be no more than suspended.

CHAPTER VIII

The rue Neuve Sainte-Etienne — Offer of a post at court— Roland's
indecision — His visit to the convent — And renewed proposals —
Marriage.

TV ft ANON'S decision to retire to a lodging in the
1V1 convent in the rue Neuve Sainte-Etienne was
a not unwise one. Daily intercourse with the father
guilty of the ruin of her prospects would have been
difficult to carry on without friction, and the fact that
she was living apart from a man he disliked and
despised might be expected to be welcome to Roland.
At all events, her purpose was fixed. On November i
she wrote to communicate her determination to Sophie,
having previously borrowed from her the sum necessary
to carry it into effect.

Her conduct towards the faithful friend of many
years is difficult wholly to excuse. Throughout the
months occupied by the absorbing interest of her re-
lations with Roland — introduced to her, be it remembered,
by Sophie — his strict injunctions of secrecy had been
observed to the point of duplicity. " She is your friend,
benissimo," he wrote of Sophie, "but for nothing in
the world would I have you unveil my secret to her."
Manon, if reluctantly, had consented to keep silence,
and the allusions to Roland that occur in her letters
might have reference to a common acquaintance or,
possibly, a friend, but nothing more. There can be no
doubt that she was thereby placed in a false position.

77

78 Life of Madame Roland

The friendship, foolish and extravagant as it had been,
was of long standing, sincere and genuine. When
Manon was in money difficulties, Sophie had hastened
to offer her assistance ; Henriette, at a later date, was
to give a more signal proof of her enduring affection ;
and Manon must have been aware that both had just
cause of complaint. Roland, however, had insisted, and
she had not only yielded him blind obedience, but
after she was in the convent, and when Sophie had
discovered part of the truth and had charged her with
it, she continued to lie hardily and boldly. Admitting
that Roland had frequented her father's house, any
suggestion of intimacy was set aside. She regarded him
as a friend for whom she had a great esteem ; had
received him as such, and would continue to do so,
though doubtless less frequently than before. If she had
omitted to give details as to his visits and conversation,
it was owing to the same reason which had led her to
avoid dwelling upon her domestic vexations. Depression
had rendered her idle in the matter of letter-writing.
It was thus that she opened her heart to the friend
of her youth ; and it says much for Sophie's placability
that, when the facts became known, no permanent
breach ensued.

Meantime, with the future uncertain before her, and
deciding that the quai de l'Horloge had become for the
present intolerable, Manon had entered upon the experi-
ment she had resolved to try. In her memoirs she has
given a brief account of the weeks spent under the roof
of Les Dames de la Congregation, of her frugal fare —
" potatoes, rice, haricot beans cooked with salt and a
little butter . . . supplied my kitchen " — of her weekly
visits to her father's house, that she might carry away the
linen that needed mending, and to her grandparents.
" The rest of my time ... I gave myself up to study,
shut up under my roof of snow, as I called it, for I lodged

neai

At the Convent 79

ar the sky, and it was winter." Agathe, the lay sister
who had loved her as a child, came evening after even-
ing to spend half an hour in her company ; and if she
was melancholy, melancholy had its charms. " If I was
not happy I possessed in myself what was necessary
to produce happiness and could be proud of knowing how
to dispense with what was lacking to me."

The term of her residence in the rue Neuve Sainte-
Etienne was not destined to be prolonged. Manon
cannot have expected that it would prove more
than an interlude. If Roland had in some sort
accepted his dismissal, he continued, to use her words,
to write as a man who had not ceased to love her, and
the end can scarcely have been uncertain. Her letters
had caught nothing of the infection of the tranquillity
of the cloister.

" I die to see you," she wrote, " and live only
for that moment. I am intoxicated with the thought
of belonging to you — you know if I love you. My
friend, come to me."

Would Roland come ? Or would he, in spite of
his lover-like letters, in spite of the strong affection
which was to prove more durable than hers, decide to
consult his safety by remaining at a prudent distance ?
This was the question with which she was chiefly occupied
during the earlier weeks of her retirement.

Another question had been raised. An alternative
had presented itself in the shape of the offer of a
place at court, procured through the interest of a
woman with whom she was acquainted. It is curious
to speculate upon the consequences had she accepted
it as a solution of her present difficulties. Though she
would have been truly an incongruous figure at Versailles,
with her bitter scorn for the combination of power and
incapacity, and her growing spirit of rebellion against
inequality and injustice, a more intimate acquaintance

80 Life of Madame Roland

with those who were increasingly to incur her fierce
contempt, and personal association with the woman who
was unwittingly earning the hatred of the people, might
have modified her opinion of the representatives of
tyranny. Untempered dislike is difficult to preserve
at close quarters for a woman as warm-hearted and
generous as Manon. But the experiment was not tried.
The offer, not without consideration, was declined.

The refusal was wise ; the post would have suited
Manon no better than she would have suited the post.
In any case, it was not long before a more attractive
prospect opened before her. By the middle of January
Roland had yielded so far as to visit her at the convent, j
" Will you have the courage to pass through Paris with-
out seeing me ? " Manon had written in one of the
missives of reproach, of passionate devotion mingled with
recrimination, rapidly exchanged during the closing weeks
of the year. Roland had not that courage ; and though
she herself places his first visit to the convent at the end
of five or six months, she had in reality been there no
more than some ten weeks when he came. The interview, !
if not at once, proved decisive. To Sophie Cannet, <
making casual mention of it, Manon might say that
philosophy had been discussed assez bonnement^ but
Roland's letter, following upon this renewal of intercourse, !
was far from philosophic.

"Into what a condition have you thrown me ! " he
wrote. " Say, after this, that I do not love you. ... I
imagined the sight of you would alleviate all my ills ; it fl
has put the climax to them. . . . Explain me to myself, j
Render me less unhappy."

Manon's explanation must have been ready. Happi-
ness, if it depended upon the possession of Marie
Phlipon, was in Roland's hands, and he cannot have
been ignorant of this ; nor can she have failed to
recognise the fact that he would not long consent to forgo

I

Marriage 81

it. Her answer, however, was marked by a prudent
reserve, the earlier violence of her grief being replaced by
a tone of dignified resignation to what she affected to
regard as his unalterable decree of separation. " To speak
accurately/' she wrote, " I am not unhappy — I no longer
have the least pretension to happiness. Hope, fear,
desire — all are dead in my heart. I make no complaints."

The victory was in truth won. Roland came again,
made her an explicit offer of his hand, and through his
brother — a Benedictine — pressed it on her acceptance.
He was now plainly in earnest.

" Do not let us make monsters for the pleasure of fight-
ing them,', he wrote on January 20 in a letter which closes
the correspondence. " I know at last, and know positively,
that my family love me, and desire my happiness. ... If
you have confidence enough in me — if you have it in
yourself — I shall see you on Friday. Cause me no more
grief; you have had too much grief yourself. Adieu."

KA week later she was writing to Sophie Cannet to
form her that the marriage contract had been signed and
the banns were to be published on the following Sunday.
" Penetree intimement, sans etre enivree, £tourdie, j'en-
visage ma destination d'un ceil paisible et attendri."
The cherished wife of a man she respected and loved, she
would find her happiness in the inexpressible charm of
contributing to his.

To Sophie it was natural that she should represent
the affair in quiet and unexaggerated colours. The
account given of it in her memoirs is equally destitute of
enthusiasm. " I did not disguise from myself that a man
of less than forty-five would not have waited for five
months to make me change my mind, and I admit that
this fact stripped my sentiments of illusion. I considered,
on the other hand, that his persistence, very deliberate as
it was, assured me that I was appreciated. ... In truth,

I marriage were, as I believed it to be, a strict tie, a union
6

82 Life of Madame Roland

in which the woman is commonly charged with the happi-
ness of two individuals, was it not better to exert my
faculties and my courage in this honourable task than in
my present condition of isolation ? "

This was the light in which Madame Roland, looking
back, regarded the conclusion of what has been called
her roman vecu. Her letters give a totally different
impression, and the two accounts can scarcely be re-
conciled. Yet it must be repeated that too harsh a
judgment might easily be passed upon her, and it is
difficult to determine what was her condition of mind at
this time. Her true spirit in entering on the marriage is
probably to be found rather in her announcement of it to
Sophie Cannet, than either in the coldness of her memoirs
or the extravagance of her love-letters. Marie Phlipon
had again and again shown that she refused to purchase
comfort or security by marriage with a man she could
not entirely respect and in some degree love. There is
no reason to believe that in Roland's case she bought
these goods at a price she had hitherto uniformly declined
to pay. It cannot, on the other hand, be denied that she
was a woman of phrases, or that, sincerely and genuinely
attached to a man who loved but hesitated to marry her,
she had recognised the necessity of persuading him that
her passion had reached or overleapt the height of his
own. If there is a taint of duplicity in the exaggeration,
few women in her circumstances would perhaps have
remained altogether guiltless of it.

She returned to her father's house, whence she
went to become the wife of M. Roland and to begin a
new life. In a tone of serene content she wrote to Sophie,
u My confidant, my friend, my guide, and my support
is at my side. Duty and inclination are united and
mingle."

And so ended Marie Jeanne Phlipon's girlhood.

MADAME ROLAND.
From an engraving by Hopwood.

CHAPTER IX

First years of marriage — Domestic 'happiness — At Paris and Amiens —
Views on the position of women — Eudora's birth — Visit to Paris —
Madame Roland solliciteuse — Her failure — And success.

THE years following upon Madame Roland's mar-
riage were perhaps the happiest of her life. She
had exchanged an existence shadowed and dogged by
sordid cares and dependent upon the conduct and
caprices of a father of opposite tastes and principles
for a different and congenial environment. Over
her attitude towards life a perceptible change had like-
wise passed. To Marie Jeanne Phlipon, child and
woman, her personality had represented the central point
of the universe. As so often with the young, her
sentiments, affections, opinions, beliefs or unbeliefs, had
absorbed her attention, to the dwarfing, if not exclusion,
of other subjects. The relative unimportance of the
individual is one of the lessons life has to teach, whether
it is enforced through a widened apprehension of outside
interests or through the more painful process of an
increasing conviction of personal insignificance. By most
the lesson is mastered by slow degrees; by some it is
never learnt ; and Madame Roland, it may be — not
inexcusably — failed to the end to make that knowledge
her own. But there are circumstances, such as a strong
affection, which cause the centre of interest temporarily
to shift, and Manon's eyes were for the moment turned
from herself to be directed upon Roland.

83

84 Life of Madame Roland

It might be true that the love he had inspired was
not all that she was capable of feeling. From the
standpoint of later years an existence shared with him
may, in spite of affection and respect, have appeared
to her, not untruly, devoid of some of the elements
rendering life most worth living. But in contemporary
documents no evidence is found of early disillusion-
ment. Rather, again and again, is her pride in her
husband, her full satisfaction, manifest. Her former
pursuits, her studies, her occupations, her friends, were
all willingly and gladly subordinated to his requirements.
As she writes of home, of husband, afterwards of
child, she is a different and a softer woman from the
girl who passed her time in self-analysis and the cultiva-
tion of her mind. Her gaiety is more light-hearted and
spontaneous ; she has almost ceased to take herself too
seriously ; the attraction she undoubtedly possessed for
those brought under the sphere of her influence is more
easily understood.

Nevertheless, as before, it is curious to turn from
the past unveiled in her letters to the judgment she
pronounced upon it.

" Married in all the seriousness of reason,'' she
states in her memoirs, " I found nothing to draw me
out of it ; I sacrificed myself with a completeness
more enthusiastic than calculated. By dint of study-
ing the happiness of my partner alone, I perceived
that something was wanting to my own. I have not
ceased for a moment to see in my husband one of the
most estimable of men, to whom it was an honour toi
me to belong ; but I have often felt that equality was
lacking between us, that the ascendancy of a dominating
character united to that of twenty years more of age
rendered one of these two superiorities too great. If we
lived in solitude, I passed some painful hours ; if we went
into the world, I was loved by men some of whom

I

Early Married Life 85

perceived might touch me too closely. I plunged
myself into my husband's work — another extreme not
without its inconveniences. I accustomed him to be
unable to do without me for anything in the world or
at any moment.1 '

Such was the summary Madame Roland, looking
back, gave of her earlier married life ; such was no
doubt the shape it gradually and insensibly assumed.
That it had not at all times been so neutral-tinted is
clear.

The first year was spent for the most part in Paris,
whither Roland had been summoned by his superiors,
engaged in issuing new regulations with regard to
commerce and manufactures. They were not in con-
formity with his principles of freedom, and he found
himself in conflict with the authorities on the subject.
Other work also pressed upon him — the results of his
inquiries into different arts were to be printed, the
manuscripts he had sent home from Italy to be revised
and published in the form of letters. In all this his
wife, proud to share his labours, acted as his amanuensis,
submitting her judgment to his with a humility she
remembered with a smile when time had lent her suffi-
cient confidence to permit her to contradict him. Studies
in natural history and botany ran side by side with the
duties of the copyist and proof-reader, and alternated
with the necessity of providing with her own hands
food more appropriate for Roland's delicate health than
that supplied by the hotel garni where they lodged.
Italian conversation was a recreation sometimes practised ;
nor was Manon's music altogether neglected.

It was a happy if a busy life. To be busy, Madame
Roland once told a friend, is already to be half-happy ;
nor was she disposed to complain of the absence of her
former leisure. For outside interests or friends she had
little time to spare, and even Henriette Cannet, then in

86 Life of Madame Roland

Paris, she seldom saw. She paid few visits ; the limited
space at her command did not facilitate the reception
of guests, and she wrote to Sophie that it was scarcely
conceivable how the constant presence of some one
beloved, with the pressure of duties, absorbed both soul
and leisure.

In the course of the summer she paid a short visit
to her uncle the Canon, but was in haste to return.
" I dream of you," she wrote to Roland in Italian. . . .
" What are you doing, or thinking ? Alas ! how are
you ? I cannot escape a sort of uneasiness. You are
always in my mind. The distance weighs upon my
heart ; it hurts me."

During the autumn another visit was paid, this time
to the Beaujolais, where Manon was presented to her
husband's family. If not entirely approving the marriage,
they had accepted it with a good grace, received the
bride with cordiality, and at Villefranche, where the
meeting took place, all went well. Of the octogenarian
mother, still full of brightness and gaiety, severe towards
herself, indulgent to others, the newcomer had at this
time nothing but good to say. In Roland's brothers
she felt that she had acquired brothers of her own.
And there were other joys — hours when she and
Roland, forgetting their laborious days, escaped together
into the fields like children on a holiday, and experienced
for a brief space the charm of a country life, so new
to the town-bred girl, " the blue sky, the wholesome
air, the delightful evenings. ... I do not know how
it is, but I find that to enjoy is a thing that absorbs
all one's time and leaves none for anything else." The
words read pitifully when it is remembered how short
were to be the writer's opportunities of enjoyment.

When after two months, she returned to the routine
of Parisian life, it was with real regret, so far as regret
was possible when Roland was her companion. But with

»At Amiens 87

im at her side, she admitted that she needed no one
lse.

At the beginning of the year 1781, Roland's work
in Paris over, he returned to Amiens, his wife spending
some weeks at Rouen and Dieppe before joining him
there, partly with the object of making acquaintance with
his Norman friends, partly to superintend the printing
of his Lettres cT Italic

At Rouen she was the guest of the demoiselles
Malortie — the same faithful friends who gave Roland
shelter twelve years later and from whose house he
went forth to die. Under their hospitable roof Manon
laboured at business connected with the publication of his
book, sending notes of its progress to Amiens in letters
ever breathing the same spirit of devoted attachment.

Roland, for his part, was preparing to introduce his
bride to the society of Amiens. Writing of the expectations
there entertained concerning her, " The women are terribly
afraid of you," he said, " which is better than the
reverse. ... 1 frequently go to see my neighbour " —
Madame d'Eu, wife of another government official —
V you are often spoken of. They are afraid of you. I
say you are bonne enfant, etc."

It was not an accurate description. Sophie had also
expressed a fear that her friend might be found alarming.
Nor was it unlikely. The inhabitants of the provincial
town had little in common with the newcomer, nor would
the society to be enjoyed there offer many attractions
to a woman always disposed to be fastidious in her
choice of associates. By the end of February she was
settled in her new home.

Over the three years of peaceful obscurity spent at
Amiens it is not necessary to linger long. Happiness
is commonly uneventful and the record of it monotonous.
The outside world, its interests, its cares, appear to have
been almost forgotten in the delights of domestic life,

88 Life of Madame Roland

Even friends counted for little. The prospect of living
within reach of Sophie Cannet would once have been
hailed by Manon with rapture, and she had anticipated
with satisfaction a renewal of intercourse. Roland, pre-
ferring to keep his wife to himself, discouraged the
intimacy ; and though, in Madame Roland's maturer
judgment, he had been mistaken in his desire to separate
her from her former companions, she yielded to his wishes
and meetings were infrequent. Upon the society of the
country town she brought a critical judgment to bear,
her opinion of the girls she met at Amiens being specially
unfavourable. They possessed the assurance of women
who had lost their timidity ; and their ways and manners,
as they talked or gambled, were those of routieres.

The judgment was perhaps severe. Madame Roland
had no liking for emancipated women ; her views on
their position and duties being in direct opposition to
those held elsewhere at a date when the subject was
beginning to attract attention. In her eyes wifehood and
motherhood was the crown of a woman's existence.
With the exception of Madame de Stael the most
intellectually brilliant Frenchwoman of her day, destined
to become the most prominent feminine figure of the
Revolution, she regarded with contemptuous dislike the
assumptions usually to be found amongst the advocates
of women's rights, and her attitude towards men, at least
in theory, would in itself have rendered her anathema to
the clamorous and belligerent sisterhood.

" What is the deference, the consideration of your
sex for mine," she wrote to a friend, " but the care
bestowed by power and generosity upon the weak who
are alike honoured and protected ? When you assume
the tone of a master, you cause it to be thought that,
in spite of your strength, resistance is possible. Do you
render us homage ? It is Alexander treating as queens
the captives who are none the less aware of their depen-

Eudora's Birth 89

dent condition. In this matter alone civilisation has not
placed us in conflict with nature. The law almost makes
our minority perpetual ; custom awards us all the little
honours of society. In action we are of no account ;
in appearance everything. Do not imagine that I deceive
myself as to what we can exact, or what you should
properly claim. I believe — I will not say more than
any other woman, but as much as any man — in the
superiority in every respect of your sex. You have,
first of all, strength, with all that belongs to it and
results from it, courage, perseverance, wide views, and
great talents. It is for you to make political laws,
scientific discoveries, govern the world, change the
surface of the globe, be proud, terrible, clever, learned.
All this you can be without us, and by means of all this
you should dominate us. But without us you would be
neither virtuous, loving, lovable, nor happy. Retain
authority and glory in everything ; we have, we desire,
no empire but that of morals, no throne but in your
hearts."

In the autumn of 178 1, a little daughter and only
child, was born, and her mother's felicity was complete.
Refusing to put the child out to nurse after the fashion
of the day, Madame Roland devoted herself to the care
of it, and during her husband's absences in Paris or else-
where her letters to him are filled with details of Eudora's
health, her physical and mental development, and house-
hold affairs. With these matters, no doubt interesting
to the anxious husband and father, the general reader
is only concerned as evidence of the entire absorption
in the ordinary routine of domestic life of a woman
subsequently to show herself in so different a light.

At Amiens, as at Paris, Madame Roland continued
to co-operate with her husband in his manifold
labours, including voluminous contributions to the new
Encyclopaedia, attended him devotedly in his frequent

90 Life of Madame Roland

sicknesses, and lightened as far as possible his toil. She
continued her botanical studies, made a herbarium
of the Picardy flowers, and cultivated in her little
garden plants not intended to produce the gaudy
blossoms admired by the vulgar crowd, but interesting to
scientific research. A constant correspondence was carried
on with M. Louis Bosc d'Antic, also a naturalist,
employed in the Post Office at Paris, with whom Madame
Roland had become acquainted during her first year of
marriage, at a course of botany both were following
at the Jardin du Roi. Not more than twenty-two at
that time, he had formed with her and with Roland a
true and enduring friendship, and when they left for
Amiens, letters were almost daily exchanged.

To Bosc, as he came to be called, Manon painted
in charming colours the life she was at present leading,
with frequent references to the baby Eudora, who at
eighteen months old was a little fool who could not
throw her ball straight. It would be a bad business if
she never learnt to take better aim ; but patience was
necessary in all things. If only Bosc had a Eudora of
his own ! And if only a man like him, in eighteen years,
could think so too — well, then her mother would almost
sing her Nunc Dimittis.

Eighteen years ! Long before they had passed away,
when Eudora, blue-eyed, serene, and placid as her mother
had never been, was no more than twelve, she had been
left to find her way in the world alone ; and it is a
singular fact that three years later Bosc himself had fallen
in love with the child of fifteen, and was only deterred
by honour, the sense of his position with regard to her —
in some sort that of a guardian — and her comparative
wealth, from making her at once his wife. Eudora had
appeared willing ; delay proved fatal to his hopes ; her
constancy did not stand the test of time and separation,
and she married the son of M, Champagneux, another

Indifference to Politics 91

(friend of her mother's, to whose care Bosc had committed
her. Thus ended the romance so curiously foreshadowed
in Madame Roland's letter.
During these happy years it is a continual surprise to
find still completely absent from the mind of so shrewd
an observer any presentiment of the upheaval destined
to prove disastrous to the little household, nor does a
reflection appear in the gay and affectionate letters dis-
patched to Bosc of any public anxiety. As in the days of
her girlhood, it would seem that events affecting the public
rarely so much as roused in her a passing interest.
Politics she found frankly tiresome.

" An excellent man," she wrote of a certain M. de Vin,
ntroducing him to Bosc, " . . . but I could make it a
■eproach that he is singularly occupied with a politique
azetiere qui mennuie, to the exclusion of all the fine litera-
ure I love." Or again, in making mention of u parlia-
entary diatribes " in Paris, it is only to observe that,
here, pamphlets or witticisms were cause or result of the
ravest affairs, and good and evil alike were turned into
dicule in order that people might be consoled for the
xistence of the latter, and the impossibility of the first ;
roceeding to inquire about the more interesting subject
f Bosc's botanical pursuits. The same note of indifference
s repeated in a letter from Sailly, where she had gone for
change of air. " I have no concern with politics," she
wrote, " and can talk only of the dogs, by whom 1 am
awakened, of the birds who console me for want of sleep,
of the cherry-trees in front of my windows, and the goats

(grazing on the grass outside."
The letter was dated from the country home of Sophie
Cannet, lately married to the Chevalier de Gomiecourt.
Madame Roland's influence had contributed to decide her
upon accepting a man considerably her senior, and she had
assured the bride that a country life ministered to the
happiness of pure souls. She now confessed that, having

92 Life of Madame Roland

inspected her friend's domains, counted her chickens,
gathered her fruit, and agreed on the superiority of these
occupations to the pleasures of a town, she was impatient
to return to Amiens. Was not Roland there ? and the
week spent apart seemed an eternity when she thought of
the harm overwork might do him in her absence.

A longer separation was to follow. It was at this
time that Roland had conceived the idea of soliciting
lettres de noblesse. His family had enjoyed this dis-
tinction, with its attendant privileges, for centuries,
although in an untransmittable form; he had the ex-
pectation of inheriting their estate, had laboured in the
public service for thirty years, and craved his reward.
If the demand was subsequently made a ground of re-
proach against the republican minister, his wife is justified
in declaring that at the date it was preferred not a man
would have been found to condemn it. Neither Roland
himself nor the daughter of the Parisian engraver
affected to underrate the advantages of rank and position ;
neither were as yet committed to any course of action
inconsistent with a desire to achieve such advancement,
and the boon would have carried with it immunity
from taxes, a settled income, and liberty to devote his
energies to the pursuits he loved. It was accordingly
decided that Madame Roland should repair to Paris,
bringing with her the memorial containing the statement
of her husband's lineage, genealogy, and claims ; and on
March 18 she left Amiens, accompanied by her faithful
maid Marie Fleury, and took up her abode at the H6tel
de Lyon, where also a young doctor, Lanthenas, lodged,
with whom Roland had made acquaintance in Italy and
with whom he and his wife were on terms of close in-
timacy, to continue unbroken till within a few months
of the end.

From Paris she wrote day by day, giving reports
of her indefatigable endeavours to accomplish the pur-

I"Lettres de Noblesse" Solicited 93

pose for which she had come. There was no fear that
she would leave any means untried. a I shall not go to
sleep, nor do I believe that I shall be dumb," she told
Roland. In leisure hours Bosc — though oppressed by
domestic anxieties — and Lanthenas were her constant
companions, and amongst old acquaintances revisited was
the lay sister Agathe who had been her devoted friend
from childhood. With her father it would seem that
the breach had been complete, since she told Roland
that Phlipon, visiting the convent, had complained of
her firmness in declining to write to him. For the
rest, her letters, like her days, were chiefly occupied
rith the business in hand and with her attempts to
nterest the possessors of power or influence in her
tusband's cause.

c< Here I am tout de bon solliciteuse et intrigante" she
rote from Versailles in April — " it is a stupid trade !
iut I practise it, and not at all by halves ; otherwise it
ould be useless to meddle in it. I have seen many
•eople, and am no further advanced ; I have indulged
ielightful hopes, then terrible fears." She had visited
Collart at the office of the Comptroller-General ;
iad made interest with the first woman of Madame
.delai'de to solicit the intervention of her mistress ;
ad called upon divers other persons — all with the same
>bject. " In truth, it is pitiful and disgusting. Here
I am, thrown into it like a ball that has been flung
in this direction. Where I shall go God knows —
perhaps to break my nose."

It is useless to follow in detail her vain endeavours
to obtain the coveted distinction. Roland's new superiors,
jealous as she believed of his length of service and greater
knowledge, distrustful also of his principles of free trade,
gave his claims cold support. Conscientious, industrious,
and upright, he was stiff-necked, obstinate, and un-
bending— all qualities calculated to render him disliked,

94 Life of Madame Roland

and his wife's charm failed to overcome the obstacles
in her path.

Her activity was amazing. Officials were propitiated,
persons in authority won over, hindrances removed. She
was so conversant with the part she had to play, she
wrote, that she could have performed it before the King.
That Roland had no son was considered to be against
him, and she did not hesitate to insinuate that the
birth of another child was expected. She might have
spared herself her pains. Roland was not to be
ennobled, and she was to go home defeated.

Though much must have been repugnant to her in
the pursuit of her object, to find herself once more in
contact with the vivid life of the capital after three years
of absence may not have been unwelcome to the
Parisian born and bred. In spite of her detachment
from public affairs, she cannot have failed to be
affected by the general excitement at a time when Paris
was crowding to look on at the Manage de Figaro^
produced after years of prohibition, the nobles against
whom the farce was directed being loudest of all in their
amused applause. Mesmerism was another source of
interest. Most of all, to a woman of her temperament,
the exercise of her own power of dealing with men
must have afforded satisfaction. That power was soon
to be acknowledged by all, to be a danger to be reckoned
with by her enemies, a weapon in the hands of her
friends. At Amiens it had been in abeyance. In Paris,
brought by her mission into relations with all sorts and
conditions of men, she had ample opportunities of
trying and testing it, and the result must have been
gratifying. That she was conscious of it is plain.
Were she in Paris, in possession of a certain income
and able to devote herself to business or even to intrigue,
she said lightly, it would not cost her much trouble to
produce great effects. At the time the words might

Roland's Removal to Lyons 95

have seemed an idle boast, but the future was to justify
it. Bosc shared her confidence. "She is astonishing,"
he told Roland.

Defeated in the main object of her mission, she did
tot allow herself to be discouraged nor consent to go
Lome empty-handed. Abandoning for the present the
lope of letters of noblesse, she determined, as a pis aller,
obtain promotion for her husband in his profession,
id succeeded in having him transferred from Amiens
the more important post of Lyons, with the additional
[vantage of placing him in his native province and near
us family.

If it was not all she had hoped for, it was a real
:hievement, and with pardonable triumph she wrote to
Poland, May 22, that the thing was done, and that
[. Tolozan, one of the intendants of commerce, whom she
had been wont to call "the Bear," had told her that she
might leave Paris if she wished to do so, that he would
care for her interests and make them his business ; adding,
after prolonged counsels as to Roland's future duties,
kindly advice as to the wisdom of modifying his stiffness
and hot temper. Farewells were then taken after an
affectionate fashion, and Madame Roland was at liberty
to consider her labours at an end, and to look forward
to returning to the home she longed to see again.

" How much grown I shall find Eudora ! I hope she
will not be in bed when I arrive. I want to taste all that
is mine, to be in your arms and to take Eudora into my
own. O just Heaven ! may the delightful moments
hasten ! Adieu, my dear friend ; still a week to go by —
the longest in all my life."

It seems that she did not leave Paris after all alone,
but that some attack of illness caused Roland to join
her there ; and that the two made the journey to Amiens
together.

Absence from home, in spite of her success, had its

96 Life of Madame Roland

drawbacks. She might have created a favourable im-
pression in the capital, but — Eudora had forgotten her.
w Poor Eudora," she told Bosc, " did not recognise her
sorrowful mother, who had anticipated it, and yet cried
over it like a child. ... I cannot think of it without
a terrible swelling of my heart. ... I wish she still
wanted milk and that I had it to give her."

Before the move to Lyons was accomplished, a three
weeks' visit to England was paid. The prevalent Anglo-
mania was at its height. Serious French politicians
studied the English constitution ; philosophers admired
the English character ; men of the world — the future
Egaliti at their head — copied English fashions, and were
attended by diminutive " jokeis " ; English riding-coats
— redingotes — were worn ; English racehorses, with their
riders, were imported ; and Madame Roland, with her
insatiable longing for fresh knowledge, rejoiced in the
opportunity of studying the nation at home. It answered
fully to her expectations. " I shall ever," she wrote,
u remember, with singular interest, the country made
known to me by Delolme. He caused me to love its
constitution, of which I have witnessed the happy results.
Let fools exclaim and slaves cry out ; but believe that in
England there are men who have the right to laugh
at us." Had Bosc been there, she told him later, he
would have been in love with all the women — she herself
had come near to it. He was to believe that whoso did
not feel esteem for Englishmen, and a tender interest,
mingled with admiration, for Englishwomen, was a ldche>
a fool, or an ignorant sot.

The expedition had, in fact, proved an unqualified
success, and the home-coming was, on this occasion,
joyful. Eudora, in bed when the travellers arrived,
recognised her parents, kissed her mother with grave
affection, and gave a cry of surprise and joy on catching
sight of her father — the father she afterwards said shei

Removal to Villefranche

97

iad always adored, even before she had been capable
>f fully knowing him.

And so the sojourn of the Rolands at Amiens drew

:o a close. By October 3 Le Clos had been reached,

ind some weeks of country life were enjoyed before

:hey were installed in the family house at Villefranche

'here they were to make their home.

CHAPTER X

At Lyons — Domestic life — Friendships with Lanthenas and Bosc — Madame
Roland femme de menage — Life at Lyons, Villefranche, and Le Clos.

IN the discharge of his duties at Lyons Roland passed
the interval between his appointment to the post
and his summons to Paris. At Lyons the Revolution
found him and his wife, and thence it swept them away,
to their ultimate destruction.

It was on the whole a peaceful and happy time.
Though Roland's work lay in the town itself, his presence
there was only intermittently necessary, nor was it more
than occasionally, and for a couple of months in the
winter, that his wife and child made it their home ;
the remainder of the year being spent either at Ville-
franche, where they shared the old family house with
his mother and brother, or in the freedom of country
life at the Clos de la Platiere.

The advantages of the joint household at Villefranche
were obvious. It was an economical arrangement, whilst
the duties of which her mother-in-law, " as old as the
century," was incapable and the master of the house, a
Canon and town councillor, was weary could be devolved
upon Manon. But it carried with it considerable draw-
backs. Nearer acquaintance with Roland's aged mother
was destined to reverse the favourable impression made at
first sight upon her daughter-in-law. Her temper was
violent and her criticism sharp. With her husband's
brother, a man of the world and of importance in

98

Life at Villefranche 99

his native town, Manon was on better terms. But
there could never have been much in common between
the two ; and the Canon's habits and prejudices could
not fail to bring him into conflict with a younger brother
of opposite views, obstinate and proud, and tenacious
of his freedom.

Had Manon not been rendered independent of her
environment by closer interests, Villefranche would have
been a place of abode little to her taste. The town it-
self, with its flat roofs, open drains, and general absence
of cleanliness, was not attractive. Luxury in the matter
of food, the ugliness of the buildings, the attention paid
to dress, and the habit of constant gambling, were the
leading characteristics of the little country town noted
by the newcomer. On the other hand, she admitted
that its inhabitants were intelligent and talked well, the
men being more agreeable and less provincial than the
women.

Madame Roland would probably have preferred in
most cases the society of men. Since the decline of

(her friendship with the Cannet sisters, no trace of any
intimacy with a woman as yet appears ; and before
she left Amiens a definite breach had taken place be-
tween her and Sophie, owing to a quarrel with the
husband of the latter. The affair had caused her real
sorrow, and in writing of it to Bosc she said that other
vexations of a similar kind had led her almost to
echo his words, to the effect that more ruptures had
occurred in a week than during the whole course of his
previous life.

The blank was filled in part by the closeness of the
tie with Lanthenas and with Bosc himself. If Bosc
was for the most part detained in Paris by the duties
of his post, Lanthenas had much leisure on his hands,
and was received, at Villefranche as at Amiens, on terms
of brotherly familiarity. At the Clos de la Platiere he

ioo Life of Madame Roland

was so frequent a guest that a room continued for long
to bear his name ; and, as was the case later on with
Bancal des Issarts, he desired at one time to become a
permanent member of the household — a suggestion
approved by Roland, but negatived, from obvious reasons
of prudence, by his wife. Though not blind to the
defects and deficiencies of the young man, Manon was
genuinely attached to him, and her disappointment when
he failed to stand the test applied by the Revolution
was sincere.

Her friendship with Bosc, notwithstanding temporary
eclipses, lasted to the end, having been from the first
untouched on either side by sentiment. " Many people
believed," he afterwards wrote, " owing to my intimacy
with her, that we had relations de cosur ; but she never
inspired me with the wish to possess her." The affection
uniting the older woman and the young man was cordial
and true, and the shadows by which it was temporarily
obscured caused Madame Roland real concern. Bosc,
it would appear, was peculiarly liable to take offence, and
though sensitiveness of this kind is apt to render the cost
of a friendship too great, she never grew weary of sooth-
ing his wounded feelings or endeavouring to recapture
his trust and affection. About the date of the move to
Lyons he had strangely resented the fact that Roland, for
whom his father, a doctor, had prescribed, had had re-
course— the elder Bosc being dead — to another physician.
A scene ensued testifying to the condition into which
the indignant son had been thrown by so excusable an
infidelity ; and Bosc left Madame Roland crushed,
motionless, and in tears. An additional cause of com-
plaint seems to have been that his friends, acquainted
with the young man's idiosyncracies, had thought it well
to take the step in silence. " Young, sensitive friend,"
wrote Madame Roland in reference to this reserve,
u will you punish those who love you for having treated

Quarrel with Bosc 101

Iou with the management their own sensitiveness felt to be
ue to yours ? "
Bosc remained unpropitiated ; nor was it till months
ad passed that the cloud was dispelled. The letters in
rhich Madame Roland strove, now by loving remon-
strance, now by impatient or serious protest, to recover
the young man's confidence supply attractive examples of
her fashion of winning hearts. The day would come,
she told him again and again, that he would do his friends
justice and would make up to them by a perfect trust
for the confidence he withheld. Let him meantime
accept a good box on the ear and a very friendly kiss —
she was hungry for one of his old letters. Little Eudora
was made to join in pleading for the renewal of his former
affection. He was the child's friend. He would not
impute to her the faults he ascribed to her parents, and
in that character alone he had a claim on her mother's
love. The patience displayed by Madame Roland in
dealing with the situation, the tact and grace of her
remonstrances, her resolute refusal to take offence or to
shut the door against full reconciliation, were rewarded,
and the old terms were gradually re-established.

Meanwhile, Roland had lost no time in getting to
work, and was obtaining an honourable position amongst
the foremost inhabitants of Lyons and Villefranche.
Elected a member of both academies, his contributions
to contemporary literature, scientific and practical, were
many and various. Whilst he laboured for the public
good, his wife's hands were full. The care of her child,
constantly under her eye, domestic avocations, the
necessity of keeping her mother-in-law company when
other guests did not relieve her from the obligation — all
these duties filled her days at Villefranche, almost to the
exclusion of the studies she loved. She had become
* femme de menage avant tout," and the higher know-
ledge was to be buried until such time as it should be

102 Life of Madame Roland

necessary to unearth it for Eudora' s benefit — Eudora, the
object of her mother's absorbed attention, whose cough,
when she catches a cold, tears her mother's heart, whose
habits and temperament, the moods in which she is a
dSmon, the oath she has learnt from a servant, the dangers
she may run from vipers, her awakening intelligence, all
find a place in her letters. Roland and Eudora fill her
world. " For me — I feel it," she wrote to her husband —
" I see nothing but you two." To Roland, looking back
to this time in days to come, when neither he nor Eudora
were to occupy the first place in his wife's heart, the
remembrance of what had been may well have caused an
agony of regret.

Less admirable than the zeal she displayed in the
performance of domestic duties was Madame Roland's
practice of a religion in which she had ceased so much as
to wish to believe. Her brother-in-law, the Canon, was
a religious man ; he was also a prominent inhabitant of
Villefranche ; and she believed that it was incumbent
upon her to act up to the relationship. " I leave him the
satisfaction of thinking that his dogmas appear to me as
evident as they seem to him ; and I behave in a manner
becoming the mother of a family in the provinces, who
should edify all the world. . . . The sincerity, the dis-
position of my heart, the ease with which I shape myself
to what is good for others, without damage or detriment
to honesty, renders me all that 1 should be quite naturally
and without the least difficulty." So she told Bosc,
enjoining him to keep her confidence to himself. Once
more, it is hard to reconcile a deliberate system of dis-
simulation with the genuine candour and sincerity
distinguishing Madame Roland in most other respects ;
and it can only be classed as one of the inconsistencies
that startle us in human nature.

Thus the months slipped by, after a fashion the ex-
Parisian admitted would be " tres austere " had not

At Lyons 103

her husband been a man for whom she had infinite love.
As it was, she found the life delightful, each moment
being marked by tender affection and a sweet trust.

Visits to Lyons or Le Clos afforded some relief from
the " austerity " of Villefranche. There at least she
had husband and child to herself ; the old mother
with her terrible temper was left behind ; no scoldings
had to be faced, no criticism to be endured. Peace
and freedom reigned; and having made her escape,
Manon could take a philosophical view of her trials.
Imagining that her mother-in-law had a heart, she had
laboured to win it. Having arrived at the certainty
that she had none, indifference and something like pity
replaced her anger. After all, with a husband such as
hers it would be paradise here below had she no
counterbalancing causes of trouble.

At Lyons Roland had taken an apartment in a
pleasant quarter of the town, large enough to accommodate
his family, and with a room for Lanthenas when he liked
to occupy it. A friend lent . his wife a carriage ;
acquaintances were made ; there were plays to be seen,
visits to be paid, dinners to be eaten ; and Manon con-
fessed that she would not have objected to bear Roland
company for the three months he was to spend there.
During one of her first stays at Lyons she was reminded
of an old mistake. Her former lover, La Blancherie,
was visiting the town, and tales of his vanity and
egoism reached her ears. Having begged the Director
of the Academy to admit him to a stance, he had been
met by the courteous inquiry whether he desired to
become an associate. The reply was in the negative.
He could be a member, he declared, of no Academy ;
he would in that case have to belong to all those of
Europe. It is not surprising that public opinion in
Lyons pronounced his fatuity insufferable.

" Between ourselves," added Madame Roland — alas

104 Life of Madame Roland

for vanished illusions ! — tc I am not altogether surprised ;
for it seems to me that he showed some tendency that
way ten years ago, and so long an interval, spent in
worldly intrigues, must have served to develop it
wonderfully."

Her happiest days, however, were passed neither at
Villefranche nor at Lyons, but in the country. There,
on the old Roland property, the Parisian born and bred
found herself curiously at home, throwing herself with
characteristic energy into the pursuits and pleasures
of the life around her, and winning the hearts of the
simple country people as she won those of men in a
different sphere.

The Clos de la Platiere, according to a traveller
who made a pilgrimage there some fifteen years ago,1
is a square-built white country house on the outskirts of
the village of Thieze, shut in by high yellow walls and
flanked on one side by farm and vintage buildings.
Upon the other side, the garden where Madame Roland
cultivated the flowers she loved lies between stone
terraces commanding a wide view of the Beaujolais
country, its vineyards and orchards, woods and hills.
In the far distance it is possible, when the atmosphere
is clear, to catch a glimpse of the summit of Mont Blanc.

Here it was that more and more of her time was
spent as the years went by, preserving her fruits,
superintending the vintage, gathering the almonds and
nuts, drying raisins and prunes. Here it was that
she learnt to understand and to love the peasants
around her ; using the knowledge of medicine she
possessed on their behalf and becoming the physician
of the village folk.

" How easily the countryman gives his trust ! " she
wrote afterwards, her thoughts reverting to the peaceful
days at Le Clos. " They say he is not grateful. It is

1 MissTarbell.

Ul

ha
m

Domestic Life 105

rue that I never claimed to place any one under an
bligation ; but they loved me, and when I was absent
ey regretted me with tears."
Winter, too, though passed under less favourable
ircumstances, was not without its pleasures. Little
escriptions, full of tender touches, give a picture of
aceful hours when, seated by the fire, Eudora knitting
at her side, Roland at his writing-table, and the snow
falling without, Manon counted as nothing the petty vexa-
tions of her lot. She was not of the number of the
unfortunate who only recognise that they have been
appy when happiness is past ; she enjoyed every
oment as it came with the fullness with which it was
granted to her to enjoy, and the woman who was soon
to show herself in so different a light was more than
content to remain buried in obscurity, to be the house-
keeper of a provincial family, Roland's companion and
friend, to assist him ungrudgingly in the routine of
business, and to spend her days watching over Eudora's
health and devoting herself to the child's discipline and
training.

It was, it is true, no more than a stage in her
career ; but of this she was ignorant ; nor is there any
sign that she would not have been content to let it last
for ever, the only changes in her mode of existence
being supplied by her three places of residence, Lyons,
Villefranche, and Le Clos. According to which of these
three was her habitation, her private barometer, she
once explained, varied. At Lyons she was possessed with
a spirit of mockery and gaiety ; her imagination was
stimulated, and a jest might be met by a retort with
a sharpened edge. At Villefranche she was occupied and
serious, was properly impressed by what went on around
her, and showed it. Everything received its due
weight, and she could sermonise on occasion. She
might feel, but she also reasoned. In the country

106 Life of Madame Roland

she had forgiveness to bestow upon every one ; her
friends might show themselves in their true colours, be
original, might sermonise — they might even be surly
if necessary. Her indulgence would be unfailing, her
affection tolerant of all and suited to every mood. So
she wrote, with a return to the old spirit of self-observa-
tion and analysis of her girlhood.

If Madame Roland's friends would have chosen to
visit her at Le Clos, one thing remained the same whatever
her environment might be. Everywhere the note of
devotion to Roland is apparent ; nor does it lessen as
the years slip by. Should business call him away, it
was in the country that she could best endure his absence
— thus she wrote in reference to a separation occurring in
the course of the year 1786. When Roland was in Paris
and his wife and child awaited his return at Le Clos
w we talk of you," wrote Madame Roland of the five-
year-old Eudora ; " she loves you much, more than she
loves me, she tells me plainly. I kiss her for her
sincerity, I tell her she is right, and we end by asking
each other ' When will he come back ? ' I go to bed
at ten, I rise at seven ; . . . when 1 feel a little tired
I go down to the garden and walk on the terrace ;
the scented air regenerates and moves me ; I think of
you, or rather I do nothing but feel. My brain is at
rest, and I vegetate delightfully, with my heart so full
of you that its beating and your existence seem to me
one and the same thing."

In alluding to a belated letter her tone is again that
of a lover, and in the joy of reunion all other pleasures
are merged and lost. Roland, herself, Eudora — all else
was of secondary importance.

MI am well; I love you to madness, and I am
inclined to laugh at everything else," she wrote one
evening in 1787, when Roland was kept by his duties at
Lyons. And so the years went by.

CHAPTER XI

^intage-time at Le Clos — The approach of the catastrophe — Succeeding
ministers — Madame Roland passive — Fall of the Bastille — The
Rolands' revolutionary enthusiasm — Disturbances in the Beaujolais
— Madame Roland an extremist in politics.

""XT THY do you not write to us — you who have
* ^ no vintage to attend to ? Are there any other
occupations in the world? But you are lost to sight
in politics, and exhaust yourself in dissertations upon
the good which should be done and will never come to
pass. What is become of M. Necker ? They say there
is a terrible party against him. And the great devil of
an Archbishop ! He was reported to have gone to Rome.
Now they say he is kept under supervision. May God
grant peace to the good and destroy the wicked ! Give
a little remembrance to your friends at the end of the
world, who have not forgotten you."

Thus Madame Roland wrote to Bosc in Oct. 1788,
in one of the letters constantly sent him — letters
sometimes affectionate, sometimes impatient, now dis-
playing a charming gaiety, more seldom reflecting a
mood of dejection, and ever full of sympathy in all
that concerned her friend. It was the very eve of the
Revolution, yet she remained, it would seem, all un-
conscious of the approaching catastrophe. u The fool
says in his heart, How shall not to-morrow be as yesterday,
as all days which were once to-morrows ? " Not fools
alone are prone to forget that an end must come to all
things and that a long life is premonitory of its close

107

108 Life of Madame Roland

rather than an assurance of immortality. Madame
Roland was not singular in her blindness. The Revolu-
tion might be to many a familiar term ; but the
significance attached to the word was far removed from
the sense in which it was to be used after it had
become a reality. What did it mean, for instance, on
the lips of Calonne, the minister, when he suggested
that a poet should use as his theme the Assembly of the
Notables "and the Revolution that was in preparation"?
What did Madame Roland understand by it when she
wrote, in reference to changes in the administration of
the law, that on the whole all the little tribunals at Lyons
were pleased with the " Revolution " ?

Yet there were indications enough of what the word
might come to signify to make men pause before they
employed it. One administrator of the finances after
another had attempted to solve the problem they presented
during the years that Madame Roland was carrying on
Eudora's education, preserving fruit at Le Clos, and
superintending the domestic arrangements at Villefranche.
One by one they had tried their hands at reducing
disorder to order and averting the impending bankruptcy ;
one by one they had failed. The Assembly of Notables
had been convened and dismissed, with little or no result
from their deliberations. Lomenie de Brienne, Arch-
bishop of Toulouse, had succeeded Calonne when Calonne,
courtier as he was, had been driven to propose to subject
all classes alike to a land-tax, and had fallen from office
in consequence. Lomenie, in his turn, had been com-
pelled to suggest not only a land but a stamp-tax, also
to be levied from all classes — a measure of which the
Parlement of Paris barred the way by a refusal to register
his edicts. Only the States-General, it affirmed, could
assume that responsibility. And the demand that the
Three Estates should be summoned to assemble was
caught up and spread through France as a popular cry,

th

Eve of the Revolution 109

the Parlement meanwhile — its contumacy having been
met by lettres de cachet and exile to Troyes in Cham-

agne — occupying the little-merited position of a band

f martyrs.

By these events, and many more, the situation was

aking its gravity felt. It was in that winter of 1787-8
that the Queen, asking Besenval his opinion of the
condition of affairs, received from him the uncourtier-
like reply that the King's crown was in danger — to
which she returned no answer. It must have been hard
to believe that matters had reached that point.

Throughout the following spring and summer the
struggle between the royal authority and the Parlement
went on. If the Parlement had refused the King the
money he required, Lomenie had devised a counter-
stroke — the institution, namely, of lesser courts of law,
Grands Bailliages, which would replace the Parlement

I'n trying the lesser lawsuits, would cheapen justice for
he public and diminish the Parlementary fees ; whilst
t Plenary Court, composed of great dignitaries and
princes, charged with the duty of registering the royal
edicts and decrees, would, if not reduce the Parlement
to obedience, render its disobedience inoperative. The
secret of this last measure, in spite of the precautions
taken to prevent the news of it getting abroad until all
was ready, was betrayed. Paris, on May 3, 1788, heard
the news, and popular indignation rose to fever heat.
Not only the Parlement of Paris, but every provincial
Parlement, was in revolt ; between the metropolitan
body and the King was open war ; the two leaders of the
opposition were arrested and sent into captivity ; their
colleagues were dismissed, the Palais de Justice left
empty ; the Plenary Court — described by a wit as an
M heroi-tragi-comedie en trois actes et en prose, jou£e
par une societe d'amateurs " — met once and no more.
The States-General, in concession to popular clamour,

no Life of Madame Roland

were to assemble in May 1789. Till then the new
measures were to remain in abeyance.

" It is the first beat of the drum, of ill omen
for France," Marie Antoinette told Madame Campan,
announcing to her the King's decision. In the mean-
time, and in the absence of cash, Lomenie invited, as
a last resource, Necker to resume the management of
the finances. With Necker's refusal Lomenie fell ; and
by the end of August the popular minister was recalled,
not as Lomenie's subordinate, but to carry on the
government in his own right.

His return was welcomed with enthusiasm. The
sanguine multitude anticipated that all would now be
well, and it was celebrated by triumphant riots in
Paris. Crowds gathered on the Pont Neuf — where
Manon Phlipon no longer looked on at the demon-
strations— to do honour to the statue of Henri-Quatre,
symbol of a democratic royalty, and to force the passers-
by, whether Princes of the Blood or personages of less
note, to pay homage to the King who had been the friend
of the people. Collisions took place between mob and
soldiers ; there was a cavalry charge, and many were
killed and wounded before the tumult was quelled.

On September 22 the Parlement returned from its
provincial exile, and for twenty-four hours enjoyed the
popularity resulting from it. The next day, having
declared itself in favour of a form of the States-
General in which the Third Order would be prac-
tically subordinated to the united noblesse and clergy,
it fell for ever into disrepute with the people. The
future figalite, on the other hand, promulgated the
maxim that the Third Estate constituted in itself the
nation, and by some men a lingering hope was enter-
tained that it might make common cause with royalty
against the two orders by whom it had been oppressed
and robbed.

Madame Roland's Indifference in

No more than the bare outline of the events that
were taking place during these momentous months can
be given ; yet it is necessary to bear them in mind if
Madame Roland's strange passivity at this time is
to be given its value. Was the lightness of her
allusions to politics the result of incredulity of the
possibility of radical changes ? It is certain that it
could not be owing to ignorance. At Lyons, as at
Amiens, Roland had been brought, by reason of his
position with regard to commerce and manufactures,
into intimate personal contact with the crying grievances
of the class whose interests were entrusted to him ; with
the restrictions on the produce of materials ; with the
taxes and imposts by which the producers were crippled ;
with the difficulties and expenses attending the privilege
of exercising a trade. All these were only too well
known to a man by principle and sympathy a lover
of freedom and justice. Nor would his wife and
fellow-labourer have been less cognisant of them than
he. Lyons had become an object-lesson in the ruin
that was overtaking the entire kingdom. Unfortunate
in having attracted the attention of the Government
by its mercantile prosperity, the town had in consequence
been reduced by forced loans and other exactions to a
condition verging on bankruptcy. If it required money,
it was granted the fatal privilege of self-taxation ; and
the streets were filled with beggars. All this was going
on at the time that Madame Roland was writing to
complain that Bosc was immersed in politics and to
ask gaily whether any other business save that of the
vintage existed. Hopeless of amelioration, was she
resolutely refusing to face the fact that, for better or
for worse, it had become imperative that radical changes
should take place ? Did she, as M. Perroud con-
cludes, believe that the present condition of things
would endure, and strive, therefore, to accommodate

ii2 Life of Madame Roland

herself to it ? If she could not fail to feel regret, it
was a passive regret. " Let us wait and see. Let us
bless America, and weep beside the waters of Babylon " —
so she wrote, and the words reflect the spirit in which,
when politics were forced upon her notice, she was
inclined to regard them. What is to be noted is that,
conspicuous amongst revolutionists as she was destined
to become, it was the Revolution that sought her, not
she the Revolution, and that until she received her
call to take a part in it, she had been more than content
with the obscurity of a happy domestic life.

u Let us wait and see." The time of waiting was
not to be long. By July of the following year the
National Assembly had met and the Bastille had fallen.
Liancourt's historic reply to Louis' exclamation had been
made : " It is not a revolt ; it is a revolution." The
Revolution was indeed begun.

The earlier part of that summer had been a period
of trouble and alarm at Lyons. Roland had fallen ill
at the beginning of June, and for three weeks his life
was in danger. The condition into which his wife was
thrown is shown by a short note addressed to Bosc on
June 9. " I am experiencing in long draughts the loss
of all I have dearest in the world. A smile on my
lips and death in my heart, 1 hold out hopes all day
that I no longer feel. Pity me, weep for me ; for
soon my grief will no longer know tears."

It might have been better for him, if not for both,
that, loving and loved, Roland's life had then ended.
This was not to be, and he was presently undergoing
a long and tedious convalescence. Meantime, through
the length and breadth of France, the news from
Paris spread, striking terror into some hearts, awakening
others from the apathy of despair into the fierce activity
of hope. Of Madame Roland's frame of mind at this
juncture a letter dated twelve days after the decisive

Her Awakening 113

stroke had been dealt is descriptive. It shows that, once
for all, once for ever — the short ever that remained to
her — she was roused from her attitude of contemplation
and expectancy and was ready to fling herself into the
battle, eager to keep alight the fire that had burst into
flame, and to urge men on to complete the work begun.
She would seem to have recognised the influence that she,
the wife of a provincial official, was presently to exercise
and to feel within her the capacity for swaying men.

" No," she told Bosc, " you are not free. No one yet
is free. Public confidence has been betrayed ; letters are
intercepted. You complain of my silence ; I write to you
by every post. It is true that I say little of our personal
affairs. Who is the traitor who has any other affairs now
but the affairs of the nation ? . . . You are no more than
children ; your enthusiasm is a fire of straw ; and if the
National Assembly does not formally institute proceedings
against two illustrious heads, or that some generous

Decius does not strike at them, you are all If this

letter does not reach you, may the cowards who read it
blush on finding that it is from a woman, and tremble in
thinking that she can create a hundred enthusiasts, who
will make millions more."

It was the voice of a woman who knew her power.
The letter was written at a moment of intense excitement,
mingled with panic. The air was full of reports, true or
false, of what was going on in Paris and in the provinces —
of plots hatching at court, of English brigands subsidised
to intimidate the country, of pirates hired to intercept
vessels in the Mediterranean laden with corn. Bourg-en-
Bresse, not far from Lyons, was petitioning Louis to
prosecute those by whom he had been deceived — the
phrase being intended to designate the Queen and his
brothers. " La grande peur " was creating a panic in
the country. Madame Roland herself, leaving Roland
still incapacitated by sickness at Lyons, was hastening
8

ii4 Life of Madame Roland

to Le Clos to care for the safety of the property,
deemed to be in danger. She was not a timid
woman, and was soon reassured as to any imminent peril.
Three or four landowners, she wrote, had intrenched
themselves in their chateaux with guns and ammunition,
and had been seconded by certain brigands escaped from
Lyons, of whose number a dozen had been arrested at
Villefranche. One of the little "seigneurs" had there-
upon come with ten followers, sword in hand, to demand
the release of their comrades, had been met by the
citizens, and had hastened to retire. This was all.

Whilst Madame Roland was at Le Clos, Roland was
writing to Bosc, begging for information as to what was
going on at Paris, and was expressing his opinion, in
terms no less energetic than those employed by his wife,
of the necessity of drastic measures. " There are many
secret enemies, who will continue to work underground
so long as heads are not forfeited without distinction of
rank or number.', The higher the position of the
criminal, the more dangerous he became, and the more
summarily must he be dealt with. Letters of this date
corroborate the statement Madame Roland afterwards
made, to the effect that the Revolution was from the
first welcomed by both her and Roland with enthusiasm.
" Friends of humanity, worshippers of liberty, we believed
it had come to regenerate the species, to destroy the
withering misery of the unhappy class by which we had
so often been moved ; we received it with transport."

Philosophical theories seemed suddenly to have become
workable, life-giving principles ; dreams were transmuted
into actualities ; and all the energies of body, soul, and
spirit were called into play to aid in the redemption
of humanity. Madame Roland was a practical woman.
In a happy domestic existence she had lost her interest
in speculations, to quote her own words, " upon the good
that should be done and would never come to pass."

Natural History 115

At the root of what might wear the guise of indifference

Wnd was at the least quiescence, the old question, cut bono ?
light have lain. To what end should heart and mind
ue wearied with the ceaseless contemplation of ills that
could not be amended ? Now all was changed, nor,
where good could be effected, was she the woman to
spare herself or those she loved danger and fatigue.
Yet even now she may have failed to realise, save at
intervals, how the entire life of the nation and of
individuals was destined to be absorbed in the revo-
lutionary current ; and a letter written not more than a
month after the event with which all France was ringing
shows her with thought and attention to devote to her
ordinary pursuits.

" It is not only the citizen I address to-day," she
wrote to Bosc, u but the naturalist. We do not abandon
politics — they are too interesting at the present moment,
and we should not deserve to have a country were we
to become indifferent to public affairs. The days, never-
theless, are long . . . and one must have more than
one subject to feed upon." She therefore wished to
learn whether Erxleben was the latest authority on some
aspects of natural history, or whether his work had been
superseded by more recent writers ?, Some of his ex-
planations, too, were expressed by figures which neither
she nor Roland understood. Would Bosc interpret ?
" Fiat lux. It is your business."

tBosc, naturalist as he was, probably had little leisure
Paris for scientific investigation. The time that his
correspondent herself would devote to these matters was
also drawing to a close ; and ten days later she confessed
her readiness to forsake science in favour of politics.
At demonstrations alarming to more timid natures she
looked on with approval. In the present condition of
things insurrections appeared to her inevitable ; it was
not possible to sweep away corruption and rise to liberty

n6 Life of Madame Roland

without convulsions " un peu vives." They were the
salutary crises of a serious malady. The rights of the
people must be made clear, be submitted for the general
assent, and the constitution should follow. Meantime,
for her part, " one must stay at one's post and not
be a rebel to surrounding influences.,,

If the words were calm, the temperament of the
writer was not of a kind to remain uninfected by what
was going forward, nor could the contagion of the
prevailing excitement be long withstood. The middle
classes of Lyons, like other bourgeois, feared change
and shrank from it, and revolutionary opinions were
unpopular. But Roland and his wife were not disposed
to abstain from the avowal of their opinions. Madame
Roland flung herself with ardour into the work of
proselytism, preached the new gospel where she could
gain a hearing, contributed to the Patriot Frartfais, a
paper lately started by Brissot, and boasted that she had
induced a surgeon and a cure to take it in. Progress,
however, could be but slow. Villefranche, like other
provincial towns, had an aristocracy of its own — risen, as
she contemptuously observed, from the dust and imagining
that it could shake it off by affecting the prejudices of
a higher class. Her brother-in-law the Canon was
obstinate and zealous in opposition to the new ideas,
and introduced an element of friction into family life.
Nor would Madame Roland, any more than the priest,
have been inclined to conciliation. She is to be ranked
— even from these early days — amongst the extremists
of her party. Others might advocate half-measures of
reform, might wish to make terms with the authorities,
might feel compassion for those who were the victims
of a vicious system rather than personally responsible
for it. But Marie Jeanne Roland, like the English
Puritans, would have no compromise with the abuses
she denounced, would have the evil cleared away root

Madame Roland an Extermist 117

and branch. The pathetic scenes in Paris left her un-
moved. " I am convinced/' she had written in July
with reference to the visit paid by King and Queen to
the National Assembly, " that half the Assembly was
fool enough to be touched at the sight of Antoinette
commending her son to them. Morbleu^ it may well
be a question of a child ! It is a question of the well-
being of twenty millions of men." Perhaps the indignant
scorn of the mother of Eudora — of whom in this same
letter a detailed picture is given — might have been less
had she, like the foolish members of whom she wrote,
been a witness of the appeal of that other mother and
child. Imagination was never her strong point, and it
is easy to remain unaffected by a tragedy performed at
a distance.

A biographer is not an apologist. Madame Roland
was no saint, nor, the days of her devout childhood
past, would she have aspired to the title. She was the
woman of her age, with its faults and its virtues ; its
courage, self-sacrifice, and generosity ; its lost faiths
and its new creeds ; its large-hearted pity for suffering
humanity, combined with something of hardy indifference
to individual pain ; its fierce revolt against the oppression
of centuries ; and finally, the boundless hopes which for-
bade those who cherished them to take account of side
issues. To forward the realisation of these hopes she
would have given — she did, in fact, give — her life and
the lives dearest to her. It would have been vain to
expect her to be turned from her purpose by what she
would have looked upon as the weakness of a blind
compassion.

Of her girlhood self-love had been, by her
confession, a dominating force. In marriage it had
been replaced by love of the man to whom she had
given herself, with whom she identified herself Now
family affection in its turn was superseded by the love

u8 Life of Madame Roland

of her country. She recognised unflinchingly its right
to the first place, and was ready to sacrifice all upon
its altar. " The terror of reform," says Emerson, " is
the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or
what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit
that has consumed our grosser vices." Private interest,
domestic happiness, must not be permitted to weigh in
the balance. w I know not whether you are in love,"
she told Bosc, " but I do know that, under our present
circumstances, no honest man can follow the torch of
love if it has not first been lit at the sacred fire of the
love of country." And again, some months later, the
same note is sounded. " What ! you too," she wrote,
" would find consolation in distraction ? Is that the part
a patriot should play ? Your courage, with that of all
good citizens, should be kindled ; you should put forward
your claims, should thunder, should terrify. . . . Adieu.
If you grieve, I shall say that you are playing the part
of a woman — a part that I would not take upon myself.
Either one must watch and preach to one's last breath,
or else have nothing to do with revolution."

From beginning to end Madame Roland carried out
the programme she traced. To her last breath she
worked and watched and preached.

CHAPTER XII

Madame Roland absorbed in public affairs — An interlude at Le Clos—
First acquaintance with Bancal des Issarts — Her relations with
him — Eudora a disappointment — Roland sent to Paris.

IN the autumn of 1789 one of the last links between
Madame Roland and her childhood was broken by
the death of her uncle, Canon Bimont, to whom she had
always continued attached, with the hope of one day
inducing him to share her home. The sorrow came
at a moment when she had little attention to spare
for personal losses. Troops had been summoned to
rersailles, and a counter-revolutionary blow was expected.

rith the possibility of the triumph of the Court in view,
>ther misfortunes were dwarfed.

" All sorrows cease, all grief is suspended," wrote

[adame Roland, " all private matters are obliterated.

despotism has thrown off the mask ; the nation a pris
son elan : let right-minded people rally together, and may
their intimate union strike terror into the bad ! Courage
and arms : this is already recognised, but it is not enough.
There must be a regulated administration, sure methods,
a wise course of action, and an enlightened vigilance/'
and she went on to give her opinion as to the best
means of proceeding. It is curious that, writing at
Lyons and before the news of what had taken place in
Paris on October 5th and 6th had reached the provincial
town, she laid stress upon the necessity of transferring
the National Assembly from Versailles to Paris — a stroke
which was then accomplished.

119

120 Life of Madame Roland

Thus, in anxiety and hope, the months went by. If
much remained to be done, much had been achieved.
" The Revolution, all imperfect as it is," she wrote to
Brissot early in 1790, "has changed the face of France.
It has developed in it a character, and we had none. It
has given truth a free course by which its worshippers
may profit."

Yet, absorbed as she was fast becoming in the political
situation, there were lulls — breathing-spaces in the life
of strenuous excitement which was replacing the serene
content of earlier days — times when in the quiet of
Le Clos she could turn for a moment to the studies and
occupations she had loved, and, resting in her country
home, could gather strength for the approaching battle.

An interlude of this kind she enjoyed in May 1790.
Hope was still new and yet well assured, and freedom
was regarded as so certain as almost to have become
a fact. All France, from north to south, was forming
itself into federations, and a universal federation of all
Frenchmen was in contemplation — an oath of brother-
hood which should obliterate the distinction of province
and town and merge all local differences in a common
bond.

At Le Clos Madame Roland had signed a temporary
truce with politics. The weather was delightful ; the
earth was breaking into sudden green ; spring was
triumphant ; and under the influence of the country
and its quiet, she confessed that she could willingly have
forgotten public affairs and the disputes of men, satisfied
with putting her house in order, watching her hens as
they hatched their chickens, and caring for the rabbits.
In Lyons it was a different matter. Misery and wealth,
as they jostled each other in the town, added fresh fuel
to her hatred of injustice, and all her thoughts and
aspirations were fixed upon the triumph of the principles
containing in them the redress of centuries of oppression.

Bancal des Issarts 121

She and her husband had become objects of suspicion to
the party of reaction. A young man of Lyons — Cham-
pagneux — had started a local newspaper to which both
contributed ; and when Roland offered himself as a
candidate for the post of Mayor, party spirit ran high.
It was not likely that Madame Roland, his wife and true
comrade, would remain long buried at Le Clos, and at
the end of May she was once more at Lyons and assisting
at the demonstration in honour of the formation of a
local federation, when fifty thousand men took the civic
oath. An account of the proceedings was communicated
by her to a newspaper and was widely circulated.

In the following July she first met M. Bancal des
Issarts, who played an important part in her life during
the coming months. The son of a manufacturer at
Clermont, he had attended the local college and the
University of Orleans, had filled the post of a notary
for some five years in Paris, where he had become
acquainted with the members of the revolutionary party,
especially Brissot, Lanthenas and Bosc, had been made an
elector of Paris, and had devoted himself to political and
philanthropic work. One of the earliest members of the
Jacobin Club, he also became a writer in Brissot's paper,
the Patriot Franfais, to which he continued to contribute
when, abandoning his profession, he returned to Clermont
in 1790. It was some few months later that, supplied with
letters of introduction from Lanthenas, he spent some
days with the Rolands at Lyons, accompanying them to
Le Clos for a single night before proceeding to Paris
to represent Clermont at the approaching festival of
Federation on July 14.

Four years older than Madame Roland, and a gentle,
kindly and high-principled man, an intimacy between the
two grew up with characteristic rapidity. Times of
revolution, Manon wrote in one of the earliest of the
long series of letters she addressed to him, were favour-

122 Life of Madame Roland

able to the swift formation of enduring ties, since at these
junctures men's natures were laid bare, and the customary
preliminaries of examination and investigation were
rendered unnecessary. Bancal, it is true, demurred at
her explanation, his protest and his anxiety to prove
that the friendship was not the mere result of the
Revolution calling forth an amused response from his
correspondent. To whatever cause its quick development
was due, it became for a time one of the absorbing
interests by which Madame Roland was liable to be
subjugated ; and letters were constantly exchanged,
sometimes dealing with personal topics, sometimes with
the political situation, or, again, with the disturbed
condition of Lyons and the theory that the people were
deliberately incited by the Government to insurrection,
with the object of gaining a pretext for quartering troops
in the town for use in case of an invasion.

From Paris Bancal had written a full account of the
great festival of July 14, when the federation of the
entire kingdom had proclaimed the brotherhood of
Frenchmen, and all orders alike, including the citizen-
King — sharing for a moment in the popular enthusiasm
— had sworn fidelity to the constitution which was, in
the estimation of the sanguine, to prove the regeneration
of France. Marie Antoinette, with her boy in her arms,
made part of the show. <c O my enemies — there are
no longer any enemies ! " Michelet's epitome of the
spirit of those early days is supremely applicable to
the short fervour of reconciliation, soon to become a
thing of the past.

As Madame Roland read of the proceedings she
longed to have been present, and provincial life did not
gain by comparison. Petty dissensions, calumny, and
slander were rife at Villefranche. Improbable tales were
circulated and believed ; and she herself was reported
to have bribed the outcasts of the town to rise in revolt.

Bancal des Issarts 123

What was worse, her brother-in-law, the Canon, had
lent credence to the story, and refused, in answer to
her indignant protest, to own himself in the wrong.

" If I had been assured that, owing to fanaticism, you
had put your brother to death," she told him, " I should
at once reject the tale, notwithstanding my knowledge
of your opinions."

The remonstrance was not marked by a spirit of
conciliation, and the priest declined to be convicted
of undue credulity. One could only answer for oneself,
he told his sister-in-law, and could not always do that.

Such being the character she bore at Villefranche
and Lyons — where she was so little known that her
husband had often been taken for an abbe — Le Clos was
a more desirable place of residence. It was pleasanter
still when, towards the end of August, her new friend
Bancal, accompanied by Lanthenas, came to pay a second
visit, extending over some five weeks. She had looked
forward to a renewal of their intercourse so eagerly as
to cause her to wonder whether she had a right to the
society of a man whose duty might be supposed to lie in
Paris. " If I believed," she wrote on August 11," that
your journey had no other motive but to see us, I
should not be without scruples. Public affairs seem to
me to require as urgently as ever the eye and action of
good patriots in the capital. ... I feel this as strongly
as the desire to gather our good friends around us,
and these conflicting wishes would be not a little em-
barrassing did I not reckon in your anterior schemes and
your reasons for pursuing them. Searching my con-
science also, it appears to me that these reflections ought
to have been present with me sooner, and I am surprised
that they should have only occurred to me at the last
moment, when all your arrangements are made. I almost
doubt my good faith." She is sure, however, that he
will have taken the interests of the country into account,

124 Life of Madame Roland

and the description of her searchings of spirit is only
the preface to a lengthy discussion of affairs, public
and private, written with the more openness as an
opportunity had offered of sending a letter direct, instead,
as was commonly the case, through some third party.
" Reflecting that it is to go from us to yourself alone,
I am like a schoolboy out of the beaten road."

Of course Bancal came — would have come whatever
claims Paris had upon him. But the time of his visit
was not alone occupied in holiday-making. Every one,
Roland wrote to Bosc, was in his private workshop,
writing no one knew to whom or of what. Work over,
there was play. Bancal, serious-minded as he was, was
induced to join in a game of battledore and shuttlecock,
was taken for walks upon the wooded hillsides, and
was utilised for the indoctrination of the village priest
and the schoolmaster with revolutionary ideas.

Roland fully shared his wife's friendship for Bancal.
* I give you no message from my friend," she had
written to the latter ; "we have but one soul, and what
one of us says assures you of the sentiments of the
other." From Roland appears to have emanated
the suggestion that Bancal should make a stay of in-
definite duration at Le Clos, if not take up there his
permanent abode. His wife's steadfast affection, hitherto
proof against the strength of any newer interest, and his
confidence in her, may have blinded him now and at
other times to obvious dangers. Perhaps it was to
the honour of husband and wife alike that, so far as
other men were concerned, he should, in Michelet's
phrase, have "un peu oublie qu'elle fut une femme."
It might, nevertheless, have been better had he remem-
bered it — remembering too his twenty years of seniority.
In spite of her age — she was thirty-six — she had re-
tained much of youth. In 1789 Arthur Young could
still speak of her as young and beautiful ; and if, as seems

I

cle

Bancal des Issarts 125

clear, she had no claims to actual beauty, his description
testifies to an attraction that supplied its place. Lemontey,
acquainted with her in pre-revolutionary days, also fell
under her charm, including in the picture he paints
her beautiful figure, hair, and eyes ; the freshness of her
colouring and a combination of reserve and frankness
making her look singularly young. Lacking, in his
opinion, the ease and grace of a Parisian, she had nothing
of awkwardness, and talked well — too well, indeed,
Lemontey declared — though nothing was laboured and all
unstudied. The effect she produced on men of all kinds
in Paris was soon to be seen ; yet Roland, in spite of his
own love, seems never to have taken into account the
dangerous attraction she might possess for others, or the
chance that — honour, high principle, devotion to duty
nothwithstanding — the attraction might be mutual. His
former suggestion that Lanthenas should make his home
at Le Clos was followed by a proposal that Bancal
should do likewise.

" Come, my friend," he wrote. *' Why delay ? You
have seen our frank and open ways. It is not at my age
that a man who has never varied changes. . . . We
preach patriotism ; we lift up the soul. The doctor
[Lanthenas] carries on his profession. My wife is the
apothecary of the sick of the district. You and I will
attend to business."

Another scheme of a common existence had been
started by Lanthenas, Brissot, and others. Why should
not they, with the Rolands and Bancal, acquire some of the
confiscated church property, to be had cheap, and live
a community life adapted to minister to the regeneration
of mankind ? Bancal fell eagerly in with the suggestion
— very likely to commend itself to the unpractical idealists
of the day ; and it was probably in reply to a letter from
him on the subject that Madame Roland replied in one
characterised by Michelet as " adorablement imprudent."

126 Life of Madame Roland

It is manifest that she had been startled by the pro-
posal, more swift to grasp its bearings and dangers than
either husband or friend.

" Why are my eyes darkened with tears that fall only
to reappear ? " she wrote. "My will is upright; my heart
is pure ; and J am not at ease. * It would be the great
charm of our life, and we should not be useless to our
fellow-men,' you say of the affection uniting us. And
these comforting words have not restored peace to me."
And why ? Because she was not assured of Bancal's
happiness and feared he might connect it with a forbidden
hope. True, the affection of kindred spirits should give
new value to life — to this rock she clings in the storm.
But a reaction, the result of emotional excitement, might
follow. . . . Yet is she not, after all, wrong? Would
Bancal not be superior to danger ? The idea of his
strength lends her strength, and she is ready to taste of
the felicity offered her by Heaven.

What her feelings in truth were for Bancal, what his
were for her, must remain uncertain. The most likely
theory is that the friendship was strongly coloured with
sentiment on either side. Writing to him three or four
months later, she shows plainly how intimate was the nature
of the tie cemented in those few summer weeks. She had
not spent the time of his absence, she then told Bancal,
without committing to paper divers things intended for
his eye, to be seen by him in due course, since she had
indulged no thought unworthy to be entertained by her,
or known by him. When deeming herself for some
moments dying, she had taken steps to ensure their reach-
ing him. " The twilight of the tomb conduces more to
truth than the dazzling brilliance of the sun."

All things considered, it was fortunate that the
experiment of a community life was not destined to be
tried. By November 1790 Bancal had decided to pay a
visit to London, with the object apparently of establishing

thei

Bancal des Issarts 127

ere a species of propaganda, and perhaps of studying the
working of free institutions ; the Rolands' plans were
likewise altered, and schemes for the future were neces-
sarily postponed. The friendship with Bancal, under these
circumstances, went the way of most intimacies of the
kind. The correspondence between him and Madame
Roland was carried on at first with an enthusiasm somewhat
diminished by the lapse of time, a change passing over it as
the months went by. " All unspontaneous ; at a distance
interest does not remain the same. Her correspondence
languishes" — such was the commentary inscribed upon
one of her letters by Madame Roland's absent friend.
Perhaps, too, the right of free speech she always claimed is
more safely exercised when proximity, the softening effect
of face and voice, ensure to it forgiveness, and reproof or
blame are less easily digested when administered by post.

" What ! you — you too would seek consolation
[from political disappointment] in distraction ? " she wrote
in January 1 791. " Is that the conduct of a patriot?"
and he was stirred to hot indignation when, repeating
the opinion of some of his comrades that Bancal, required
in Paris, was mistaken in lingering on in England, she
expressed her personal conviction that he had had the
will (youlu) as much as any man to serve his country.

" Voulu ! what an expression ! " he again added to her
letter, underlining the offensive phrase. Was he, after all
he had done and suffered in the cause of liberty, to be
credited with no more than the will to be of service !

No breach took place, the friendship finding by
degrees its proper level, and naturally proving less
absorbing on the woman's side amid the fresh interests
and excitement of the life upon which she was soon
to enter. The episode, though ephemeral in its more
emotional phase, nevertheless points to a change in
Madame Roland. It serves to indicate the approach
of a day when husband and child might not suffice, as

128 Life of Madame Roland

heretofore, to constitute her world, and the existence she
had found so satisfying to heart and soul would seem
lacking in some of the elements she desired. It is true
that in a letter of this date she could still write, with
undoubted sincerity, that it would be enough for her
could she contribute to the happiness of a sage, be the
comfort of good people, and gather some flowers of
friendship. Yet at the stage she had reached, keenly
open to impressions from without, whether private or
public, and increasingly conscious of her powers of
persuasion and influence, it is difficult to believe that
she would have continued content to remain per-
manently at a distance from the scene of action and
occupied alone with the programme she had traced.

Other facts may have helped to detach her from the
purely domestic life she had been leading. For some
years after Eudora's birth the child had filled a place in
her mother's thoughts scarcely less than that assigned to
Roland himself. But Eudora was destined to prove a
disappointment, and the hopes entertained concerning
her were already undergoing revision. As may chance
more frequently than parents are willing to admit, the !
natures of child and mother were unsympathetic ; and
Madame Roland, clear-sighted in spite of her love, was i
painfully awakening to the consciousness of it. She was
also becoming aware that the conditions of her life, as J
Roland's companion and fellow-labourer, made it difficult
for her to do her duty by her little daughter. Was what '
was lacking in Eudora to be laid to the charge of a faulty
system of education ? she had speculated anxiously in a
letter to Roland belonging to the year 1787. Had she
departed too far from the rules laid down by Rousseau ?|
had she exacted a degree of study and application the!
child had not to bestow ? If Eudora displayed none of
the tastes and inclinations her parents would have desired
to see, were they not perhaps to blame for having failed

I

Eudora 129

inspire them. She resolved, for her part, to amend
her ways, never to display anger or impatience, and if
punishment should be necessary, to administer it as
calmly and coldly as if she were justice itself. Her object
should be, in spite of the difficulties interposed by her
work, to strive to render the child happier with her than
with any other person, and when collaborating with
her husband in his literary labours, she would seek to
impose none of the restraints hard to bear upon a child's
natural tendency to noise and interruption.

The rules were doubtless salutary ; but results do not
invariably correspond with the pains taken to produce
them, and a letter to Lavater in the course of the follow-
ing year sounds a note of defeat. " Teach me/' Madame
Roland begged the philosopher, " to conquer and direct
an indocile nature, a trempe insouciante, over which gentle
caresses, like firmness and privations, have little power.
This is my daily torment. Education — a task so dear to
a mother who loves her child — appears to be the hardest
trial I am to undergo." An extreme lightness of mind,
fickleness, wilfulness, frustrated all efforts to establish a
solid basis. In 1789 it appears that the attempt, so far
as Madame Roland was personally concerned, had been
abandoned. Partly no doubt owing to the limited
accommodation supplied by the small apartment in Lyons,
where the summer was spent, but partly, one imagines,
by reason of her mother's failure to cope with the child's
wayward will, Eudora was entrusted to the care of a Dr.
Frossard, a Protestant minister in the town. That the
experiment was unsuccessful is to be inferred from a letter
to Bosc, of June 1790, breathing the same spirit of de-
spondency as before. " I should speak more of Eudora
were I less occupied with her," the mother wrote. " I
am clever enough at guiding sentiment ; but I cannot
give birth to it in a cold heart. This coldness disconcerts
me — me and my method. I know not what hold is to
9

130 Life of Madame Roland

be obtained over a brain which is never concentrated,
and a character that nothing affects."

A further experiment was to be tried upon the victim
of educational theories, and, withdrawn from the care of
the Protestant minister, Eudora was assigned to that of
the nuns of the Visitation at Villefranche. Her mother
may have been right in relinquishing the endeavour to
reconcile her duties as Roland's collaborator with personal
supervision of her child ; but a letter to Bancal shows
that the decision had cost her a struggle, and for the
first time a complaint as to the conditions of life
necessitating it finds utterance.

" This fresh separation," she wrote, " brings again
before me with bitterness all the reasons making it need-
ful, and my heart is torn. . . . What is the care of
suckling one's child compared with the formation of its
heart ? The first was so dear to me that I would have
bought it with all my being and paid for it with my life, j
Why cannot I give myself up to the other ? " Men
were not born to be writers, but citizens and fathers ;
women were not made to share all the pursuits of men. j
Happy those whose duties did not clash, and who were
not forced to sacrifice some of them to others.

By the end of the year Eudora was to be at a j
greater distance from her parents. In the meantime \
Lyons was not an agreeable place of residence. Full of!
dissension and conflict, distrust reigned between class and I
class ; and belonging by birth to the noblesse, by sympathy j
to the people, Roland had enemies in all parties. With \
regard to calumnies spread concerning herself, Madame j
Roland desired no refutation to be made — " Justifier une j
femme, e'est presque toujours la compromettre," she
wrote. She felt, however, that measures should be taken
to disprove the charges directed against Roland. In the
end his uprightness, industry, and just dealing obtained
recognition, nor could the town afford to refuse to avail

The Rolands in Paris

131

itself of the services of a man of tried and practical ability
and integrity. Though not without opposition, he was
made a member of the municipality of Lyons — a demo-
cratic, though by no means revolutionary body — and
when the town, deeply in debt and urgently requiring
assistance, resolved to send a representative to Paris
to solicit aid from the Constituent Assembly, the choice
fell upon Roland. It was determined that his wife should
accompany him, and Bosc, enchanted with the prospect of
renewed intercourse with his friends, was entrusted with
the task of finding them lodgings. He selected an apart-
ment in the Hotel Britannique in the rue Guenegaud,
and before the end of February 1 791 they had taken
possession of it, and Madame Roland was studying the
Revolution at close quarters.

CHAPTER XIII

Visit to revolutionary Paris — First impressions — Madame Roland's
salon — Her opinion of Robespierre — Buzot — Madame Roland at the
conferences of the leaders — Mirabeau's death — The flight to Varennes
— Massacre of the Champs de Mars — End of Roland's mission.

IT is not difficult to imagine the interest with which
Madame Roland took up her residence in Paris.
The party consisted, besides herself and her husband, of
a colleague associated with Roland in his official work,
of whom little is heard, of a man- and maidservant, and
lastly of Lanthenas, who in spite of Madame Roland's
refusal to accept him as a permanent inmate, was
at present a member of the household. The absence
of Eudora, at her convent school at Villefranche, it
was true, left a blank. Whatever might be her little
daughter's shortcomings, the mother felt the separation
keenly, and before she had been a month in Paris she
declared herself ready to leave it, confessing that the
child was a powerful magnet attracting her home.
Other reasons were not wanting that would have re-
conciled her — or so she imagined — to a return to
Le Clos and provincial life.

M I have embraced my relations. I have seen my
native place once more. I am ready to go back without
regret to the depths of the country. It seems to me
that the days spent at my hermitage, as each one draws
to an end, leave my conscience more certain of having
used them for the good of my fellows than those I pass
here. The retreat where I dwell, so to speak, with

132

In Paris 133

my heart, is preferable to a place where the mind alone
is at work."

Whether or not she was right in believing that she
would have been content to resume the daily routine
of life in the Beaujolais — and the sequel goes far to
prove that she was mistaken — the days of which she
spoke, of quiet and retirement, were nearly run out.
Her lines were for the future to be cast elsewhere, in the
midst of the whirling, eddying life of Paris.

In spite of passing regrets, she had thrown herself

eagerly into all that was going on around her. On

her first arrival she had found a charm in revisiting

he places associated with her youth, and had been glad

o renew her intercourse with the relations that remained.

he present was nevertheless too full of interest and

xcitement not to throw the past and its memories into

e background. She was making acquaintance with

he practical working of the Revolution, was bringing

er shrewd powers of observation to bear upon the men

itherto known only to her by name, and was assisting

t the debates in the Assembly with enthusiasm indeed —

d she not been a patriot already, she said, the Assembly

ould have made her one — but with an enthusiasm soon

o be tempered by discrimination and criticism.

" 1 saw the powerful Mirabeau, the amazing Cazales,
the audacious Maury, the astute Lameths, the cold
Barnave ; I observed with vexation, on the part of the
noirs, the species of superiority conferred in such
assemblies by the habit of representation, by purity of
language and by distinction of manners. But force of
reasoning, the courage of uprightness, the illumination
of philosophy, acquaintance with official works and the
ease learnt at the Bar, should ensure the triumph of
the patriots of the Left, were all of them pure, and
could they remain united."

The last words suppose a state of affairs difficult

■

134 Life of Madame Roland

at all times to bring about, and in the fluid condition
of the revolutionary parties of the day, impossible. Of
those who were to render her aspirations vain and to
wreck the cause she had at heart, no critic was to prove
more severe and uncompromising than the woman who
now gazed around her with dazzled eyes " witnessing
the liberty of her country and admiring every proof
of it."

She was soon brought into intimate and personal
relations with the revolutionary leaders. During the
spring and summer months passed in Paris she was
vindicating her claim to be regarded as a person of
importance to the party with which she was in sympathy,
nor was it long before her salon in the Hotel Britannique
became a political centre. Men who had been to her
no more than representatives of principles stood before
her in flesh and blood. With Brissot — " the least
Brissotin," as his comrades would say, " of all possible
Brissotins" — she had already corresponded, and there
was an additional interest in comparing the leader of
the Gironde as she came to know him with the
conception she had formed of the revolutionary
writer and propagandist. In some respects the result
of the comparison was, as such comparisons are apt to
be, disappointing. Curly-headed, gay, naif, and as in-
genuous as a boy of fifteen, he seemed to her made
to live with the wise and to be the dupe of the bad.
Though she liked the simplicity of his manners, there
was a levity about him incompatible with the weight of
a philosopher. A student of social problems and of
the means of producing happiness, he was, she observed,
a good judge of man, and totally ignorant of men.
Recognising the existence of vice, he was incapable of
believing in the wickedness of any individual with whom
he was brought into personal contact. This was her
shrewd estimate of the editor of the Patriot Franfais

MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE.
From an engraving by Fiesinger.

P- 134]

I

Madame Roland's Salon 135

pi:

-

and the Moniteur, and the chief of the party which was
to become her own.

Through Brissot the Rolands became quickly ac-
quainted with Petion, like himself a native of Chartres
and a member of the Constituent Assembly, who stirred
Madame Roland to a degree of enthusiastic admiration
that must have been inspired rather by his reputation
as an uncompromising extremist than by any personal
charm. Other introductions followed, and it was
arranged that meetings of like-minded men should take
lace four times a week in the Rolands' apartments,
cupying a convenient central position. The gatherings
were held between the rising of the Assembly and the
evening meetings at the Jacobin Club, Petion, Brissot,
Claviere, Robespierre, Buzot, and of course Lanthenas
and Bosc, being the guests most regular in their attendance,
with others frequently added to the number.

Of the most notorious of the group, as he showed
himself in the intimacy of these informal conferences,
his hostess has left a graphic picture. Robespierre, she
says, spoke little, often sneered, gave utterance to a
few sarcasms, and never offered an opinion. Listening
to the discussions carried on, he would make use, at
the Assembly next day, of what had been said and
the arguments put forward ; excusing himself lightly
when his conduct was made the subject of gentle re-
proach by his comrades. He was, in Madame Roland's
opinion, a man upon whom it was impossible to reckon.
His self-love might lead him at any moment to act
independently of his colleagues, in order to obtain
the personal credit of an achievement or a successful
stroke of policy. In these early days, however, she
was not disposed to judge him otherwise than indul-
gently. He loved liberty, and she ascribed his errors
to excess of zeal, his want of candour and openness to
timidity.

136 Life of Madame Roland

Amongst the members of the party who constantly-
met at the Hotel Britannique, one was to become of
supreme importance in the short space of life remaining
to the hostess. This was Buzot. Of him as he appeared
to her she has left a detailed portrait. Proud and
courageous, ardent, melancholy, and indolent, his character
was made up of extremes. A passionate lover of nature
and imbued with the principles of philosophy, he
seemed formed for a life of domestic happiness — he
would have forgotten the universe in intercourse with a
heart worthy of his own. Having thrown himself into
public life, he was austerely just, easily roused to indig-
nation by injustice, and would make no compromise with
crime. Unlike Brissot, he was the friend of humanity at
large, but severe in his judgments of individuals and
made few friends. Such was the man whom, as we
now know, Manon, before her death, so passionately
loved. Born in 1760, and six years younger than her-
self, he had married, some seven years earlier, a cousin,
plain and somewhat deformed ; with whom — though
considering her below her husband's level — Madame
Roland was at this time on friendly and even cordial
terms. It was not possible that the intimacy should
last, and after the termination of the Rolands' present
visit to Paris, the two scarcely met.

The gatherings at the Hotel Britannique were a tribute
and a testimony to the attraction exercised by a woman
who, neither as wife to a provincial official nor by
virtue of her antecedents, would have naturally occu-
pied a position of influence or prominence. Madame
Roland was in fact come into her kingdom — a kingdom
she had won for herself by means of a charm which was
eminently personal. To the student of her life and
her writings, her rare intellectual gifts, her powers of
language and thought, her sagacity and penetration, her
genuine ^kindliness, strong principles, and uprightness

Her Position 137

are all apparent. Her charm must be sought — and found
— in its effect upon others. From the early days in
the rue de l'Horloge onwards men of all kinds had been
drawn to her, had sought her society, her never-fail-
ing sympathy, and so it continued until the end. She
had the talent of transmuting the copper coinage of
common intercourse into something very like gold ; for
friendship she had a genius. " I know not what friend-
ship is for many who talk of it — in my eyes it is the
sweetest sentiment that can bind hearts together," she
once wrote, and she was always faithful to her ideal.
There was another fact to which her success may
ave been in part due. If she was in some respects
asculine, more especially in respect to intellectual attain-
ents, she was careful to keep, so far as the public was
ncerned, in the background, and to emphasise and
ccentuate her womanhood. In the same way that, as
girl and with the instincts of the writer abnormally
eveloped, she had shrunk from the very idea of pub-
cation, so now that her initiation into practical politics,
as distinct from political dreams, was taking place, she
was heedful to abstain from putting herself forward,
.working, as undoubtedly she did work, behind the scenes.
I Her views upon the position of women were, as before,
^strongly defined. " I knew the role becoming to my sex,
and I never departed from it." Always present at the
conferences held in her salon, never losing a word of what
ras said, inwardly by turns approving, impatient, or critical,
she had the strength of mind to maintain the attitude
of a simple listener — perhaps of a learner — as, withdrawn
from the group of speakers, she stitched at her needle-
work or wrote letters, repressing, though with difficulty,
her desire to intervene in the lengthy discussions of
good and wise men whose ears she confessed she would
have liked to box. When it is remembered that she
was by common consent one of the best talkers of her

138 Life of Madame Roland

day, the self-restraint exercised becomes the more re-
markable.

Yet she estimated at its full value a woman's power,
and her self-effacement, if owing in part to taste, may also
have been the result of policy. If she had no desire to
forfeit her influence by competing with men on their own
ground, it cannot be doubted that she felt that the time
might come when she too would have a share in directing
the course of the current. Was not the very presence
of the revolutionary leaders in her house a sign of it ?
Was not one of those who took counsel there the husband
who leant so securely upon her judgment ? Had it not
been since he had become acquainted with her that
Buzot, hitherto almost silent in the Assembly, had been
transformed into one of its most active members?
Were not all the men present brought together in some
measure by the influence of the woman who took no
overt part in their deliberations ?

The Rolands' first visit to revolutionary Paris was to
last over seven months. It may be regarded as in a sense
the beginning of the end. Had it not come to break
the routine of life at Lyons, Villefranche, and Le Clos,
it is conceivable that Madame Roland's days would
have continued to be spent in patient toil only redeemed
from drudgery by affection and in the tranquil practice
of the domestic virtues. Having once shared in the
vivid existence of Paris, a return to that past was
hardly possible. From occupying the position of a
mere spectator of the great drama that was in course
of being enacted, she was transferred suddenly to the
very centre of the whirlpool, where she participated
in the hopes and fears, the triumphs and disappoint-
ments, the excitement and the discouragement of each
succeeding day. In her presence occurrences stirring
the imagination of the whole civilised world and affect-
ing the destinies of generations unborn were discussed

Death of Mirabeau 139

by the makers of history who met under her roof.
She had found her feet in a new environment. The
nature of the change that was wrought in her the future
was to show.

The Rolands had reached Paris at a critical moment.
Not two months later came the death of Mirabeau, in
whom alone had lain the hope of moribund royalty.
Madame Roland had barely had an opportunity of
listening to the eloquence of " the one man of the
Revolution whose genius could direct men, and give
the motive impulse to an Assembly ; great by his gifts,
little by his vices ; but ever superior to the common
crowd and certain of the mastery when he would take
the trouble to command." Thus she wrote of the
leader whom all France united to mourn, and many
must have been the discussions in the rue Guenegand
as to who was to fill the place he left vacant. As
Madame Roland became better acquainted with the
materials making up the party to which she belonged,
disappointment was her dominant sentiment. In a mood
of special discouragement she wrote to Bancal that she
saw in the Assembly not a single man belonging to the
Left uniting to an ardent love of goodness courage to
stand against the storm, adding that the best amongst
the patriots were more occupied with personal fame than
with the great interests of the country — they were all
men of mediocrity, even with regard to talent. They
had cleverness ; not Vame.

The Constituent Assembly in fact pleased her, as she
became acquainted with it, as a whole not at all ; and
when, on April 28, it decreed that only citizens act if s
had the right to be enrolled in the National Guard —
thus excluding the poorer classes — her indignation knew
no bounds, and found vent in a letter to Brissot, pub-
lished in the Patriot Franfais.

Ho Life of Madame Roland

" 1 watched to-day that Assembly which cannot be
called National. It is hell itself with all its horrors ;
reason, truth, justice, are there stifled, dishonoured,
despised. . . . My heart is torn. I vowed this morning
to return no more to that abominable den where justice
and humanity are derided."

* Must one only learn to despise men the more one
watches them ? " she afterwards asked sadly in reference
to the Jacobin Club, which had also failed to realise
her expectations. She was beginning throughout that
summer to acknowledge that liberty and regeneration
might only be purchased by blood, and that the calamity
of civil war itself would be "a great school of public
virtues." More clear-sighted than those who believed
that the work was done and looked forward with con-
fidence to the future, she foresaw a coming crisis,
confessing that it might be more salutary than none
at all.

At Easter came the object-lesson on the King's
position supplied by the frustration of his attempt to
spend the festival at Saint-Cloud. The fact that he
was no longer a free agent was made plain. Lastly,
the flight to Varennes brought matters to a climax.
" Voila la guerre declaree," was Madame Roland's
comment upon it in one of the letters to Bancal which
kept him informed of what was going on. The escape
of Louis and his family appeared to her, during the
brief space when it seemed to have been effected, far
from a misfortune, provided energy and good sense
were brought to bear upon the situation, provided also
that those who dealt with it were united. The people —
Madame Roland's trust in the people was still strong
— took a just view of what had happened, and the
word " republic " was everywhere uttered.

Yet it was as considering themselves " under the
knife " that the leaders of her party, and she with them,

The Flight of Varenncs 141

met that afternoon at the house of Potion to consult how
best the public safety was to be secured ; how each, before
losing his life, could best serve the common cause. As
Madame Roland watched those thus gathered together
she was struck by the alarm displayed by Robespierre.
In his opinion, the action of the King portended a con-
spiracy in the capital ; he apprehended a general massacre,
and did not expect to live another four-and-twenty hours.
Petion and Brissot, on the contrary, held that the King
had ruined his chances by flight. The Court was shown
in its true colours, and it was made plain that Louis did
not intend to adhere to the oath he had sworn to the
Constitution. Now was the moment to prepare the
minds of the people for the Republic.

" Robespierre, sneering as usual, and biting his nails,
asked what a Republic was ? "

His fears were quickly allayed. In the arrest of the
royal family, regretted by his colleagues as a return to the
former state of things, he saw safety. Whether for good
or ill, the King was to remain in Paris. The question to
be considered was what course was now to be pursued.
The Assembly could not be trusted to take the strong
measures considered necessary by the party of progress.
The future was uncertain, and the general excitement is
reflected in Madame Roland's bulletins to Bancal. " As
long as there was peace," she wrote, " I adhered to a pacific
role and to the exercise of the influence which seemed
to belong to my sex. When the departure of the King
declared war, it appeared to me that every one should
give themselves up unreservedly, and I went to be
enrolled in the National Societies. ... I cannot stay
at home, and am going to visit the good people
I know, in order that we may all be stimulated to
action."

By July 1 she was forced to confess that the oppor-
tunity had been lost. " We have let slip the fairest

i42 Life of Madame Roland

opening for liberty . . . but the future is big with
events. We are only beginning the Revolution, and are
on the eve of a fresh crisis."

The Cordelier Club had been first in the field in
demanding that either Louis should be tried as a traitor
or that the country should be invited to pronounce
sentence upon him. The question was debated in the
Assembly, the Right maintaining the inviolability of
the Sovereign, whilst Buzot took a prominent part in
supporting the views held, with the Left, by Madame
Roland. The Jacobins had followed on the same lines
as the Cordeliers, and when, on the evening of July 15,
the proposal for the King's trial was moved in the Club,
she was present and listened to the exhortation addressed
to all patriots to resort on the morrow to the Champs
de Mars for the purpose of signing the petition in
favour of Louis' decheance. She was likewise at the
Champs de Mars the next morning, when the announce- i
ment was made that, the Assembly having already j
determined upon its course of action and the victory j
of the anti-republican party being won, the petition
was withdrawn. It was not to be expected that the mob I
would accept the decree without resistance. Ail was I
in confusion and uncertainty. " I could not paint to i
you our present condition," wrote Madame Roland tot
Bancal on Sunday the 17th. " I feel as if surrounded
by a silent horror — the heart settled into a solemn and J
melancholy calm, ready to sacrifice all rather than cease
to defend principles, but ignorant of the moment on
their triumph and with the single resolve to set a great)
example."

The immediate result of what had been done was
soon seen. On the same day that the letter was written
crowds resorted to the Champs de Mars, there to affix
their signatures to a petition by which the one with-
drawn by the Jacobins had been replaced ; the people

Massacre of the Champs de Mars 143

and the troops commanded by Lafayette came into
collision, and what was called the massacre of the
Champs de Mars was the result.

Details as to one of the most familiar landmarks
of the advancing tide of revolution are unnecessary.
The official party, responsible for the bloodshed, counted
the number of the dead at twelve ; the popular estimate
raised it to hundreds. Panic prevailed. The leaders of
the Left imagined themselves to be in danger. Des-
moulins, Freron, Marat — all journalists — disappeared,
even Danton vanished. Roland, level-headed as he was,
shared the alarm of the moment, and was as exaggerated
in his account of what had taken place as others. People,
according to ihim, were imprisoned by hundreds ; a
foreign war was imminent ; " there is nothing but treason,
lies, poison. . . . There were hundreds of deaths at the
Champs de Mars : husbands killed their wives ; rela-
tions, relations ; friends, friends. St. Bartholomew, the
Dragonnades, were not more horrible."

Robespierre remained in Paris, in a condition of
terror again described by Madame Roland. " I know
no horror comparable to that of Robespierre under
these circumstances," she wrote. " His trial was, in
truth, spoken of, probably in order to intimidate him.
It was reported that a plot was hatching at the
Feuillants " — the new moderate club recently started
by the Lameths and others as a rival to the Jacobins —
"against him and those who had shared in drawing
up the Jacobin petition. Roland and I indeed felt
uneasy on his account. We went at eleven o'clock at
night to offer him shelter ; but he had quitted his
domicile. We then went to Buzot, to say that, with-
out abandoning the Jacobins, he would do well to join
the Feuillants, to find out what was going on and to
be ready to defend the objects of persecution. Buzot
hesitated for some time. * I would do everything to

144 Life of Madame Roland

save that unfortunate young man,' he said, speaking
of Robespierre, c though I am far from sharing the
opinion entertained of him by some people. He thinks
too much of himself to love liberty so well ; but he
serves it, and that is enough for me. Nevertheless, the
public must come first. It would be inconsistent with
my principles, and would produce a false impression,
were I to resort to the Feuillants. I dislike a role
which would give me two faces. . . . Nothing can be
done against Robespierre without action on the part
of the Assembly. I shall always be there to defend
him/ He added that although hitherto he had seldom
frequented the Jacobins, the kind of thing, more espe-
cially in noisy gatherings, being repulsive to him, he
should attend the club regularly so long as a persecution
directed against a society useful to the cause of liberty
lasted."

The words, Madame Roland observes, paint Buzot
well ; and for that reason and because he was the man
who was destined to win — if he had not already won —
her heart, his answer is given at length. It has been
suggested that Buzot — at thirty-one — was not unlike
a younger Roland ; and there is something in his attitude
at this juncture that lends colour to the assertion. Up-
right, disinterested, calm and, at a moment of excite-
ment and ferment, capable of weighing arguments and
trying conclusions, with a suspicion of the superior person
and the pedant about him, it is perhaps strange that,
out of all the men with whom she was brought into
daily contact, it should have been Buzot whom Madame
Roland, hot-hearted, impulsive, and vehement, should
have singled out to love with all the passion of which
she was capable.

Madame Roland had spent the evening of July 17 —
the day of the struggle on the Champs de Mars — at th
Jacobins, where she found a species of panic prevailin

:

FRANCOIS BUZOT.

From an engraving by Baudran,

p. 144]

Refugees 145

The hall was reported to be surrounded, and she herself
expelled, by making him ashamed of his terror, a man
who had taken refuge in the women's gallery. When
she returned, at eleven at night, to the Hotel Britannique,
she found her apartment occupied by a couple of unin-
vited guests — M. Robert, editor of the Mercure National \
and his wife, also a journalist, a daughter of Guynement
de Keralio. Madame Roland knew them only slightly ;
but their presence was soon explained. Belonging to
the advanced section of the revolutionary party, Robert
had been one of the earliest advocates of a republic, and,
a marked man, had taken a conspicuous part in the pro-
ceedings on the Champs de Mars. Accosting her with the
confidence of an old friend, Madame Robert announced
to the involuntary hostess, with compliments as to her
character and patriotism, that, afraid either to go to their
lodging or to the houses of those known to be their
associates, she and her husband had come to beg for
shelter.

Madame Roland, whilst thanking the refugees for
the confidence placed in her, and declaring herself
honoured in affording an asylum to the victims of per-
secution, pointed out that the retreat was ill-chosen.
The hotel was much frequented, and the landlord a
strong partisan of Lafayette. The Roberts persisting in
their demand for hospitality, if but for a single night,
she made arrangements for their accommodation. When
on the morrow they not only displayed themselves on
the balcony, but invited a noisy newsvendor of their
acquaintance who passed below to come up and discuss
the events of the previous day, Madame Roland's patience
began to give way ; and when Vachard, the newcomer,
was heard loudly boasting of the feats he had performed,
including the sabring of a national guard, she felt it was
time to warn her guests that though she had opened her
house to them, she could not receive acquaintances cal-
10

146 Life of Madame Roland

culated to compromise her habitual visitors. Vachard
was accordingly dismissed, and by the afternoon she had
succeeded in disembarrassing herself of the Roberts
themselves ; Madame Robert adorned with feathers
and rouge, and her husband in a sky-blue coat upon
which his hair descended in black curls and with a
sword at his side, by no means wearing the appearance
of a couple anxious to escape notice. It was with un-
feigned satisfaction that Madame Roland received their
farewells.

During the remaining weeks of the Rolands' visit to
Paris the completion of the constitution occupied the
Assembly, by this time on the eve of dispersing. A
revision of the whole had been in contemplation, but it
was manifest that it would have been difficult to carry it
out at a moment of excitement and in the teeth of the
warring influences at work, when the members of each
party were regarded with fierce suspicion by the rest.
As Buzot and Petion came home, late and weary, one
evening from the Assembly, the latter sat playing with
a puppy upon the ottoman, until, man and dog alike
tired out, the two fell asleep together. Buzot laughed
as he pointed to them.

" Look at that factieux" he said. " They glanced 1
askance at us as we left the hall ; and our accusers, \
excited on behalf of their party, imagine that we are
carrying on intrigues."

It was as extremists of the republican party that the
two were under suspicion. The time was not far off '
when, stigmatised as traitors to the Revolution, they f
would be flying for their lives.

To them, as to Madame Roland, the constitution j
to be presented to the King appeared no better than a
compromise, arrived at by means of the coalition between
the moderates and the nobles. " Only a small number 1
of men," she wrote, " dared to fight for principles ;

Roland's Mission Ended

H7

and in the end these were reduced to Buzot, Petion, and
Robespierre."

In the meantime Roland's mission had been accom-
plished. He had obtained for Lyons what it had instructed
him to solicit, and in September he was ready to turn
his face homewards, and to superintend the vintage of
Le Clos.

CHAPTER XIV

A new friend — Quarrel with Bosc — Return to Le Clos— Madame Grand-
champ's visit — Madame Roland discontented — Eudora.

BEFORE the Rolands had returned to the country
and resumed — as it was to prove, for no more
than a few months — the routine of life in the Beaujolais,
Madame Roland had made a new friend. It has been
seen that since her estrangement from the Cannets
there had been no trace of any intimacy with a woman,
nor does she appear to have formed close ties with the
wives of the men with whom she associated in Paris.
If a community of interests brought her and Madame
Buzot together for a time, the connection was not lasting.
For Madame Petion, afterwards her fellow-captive, she
seems to have had a kindly liking, but no more ; and
Brissot's wife, whom she allowed to possess strength of
character and good sense, was absorbed in household cares,
ironed her husband's shirts, and personally inspected her
guests through the keyhole before admitting them.
Bosc and Lanthenas, her most constant companions, were
unmarried.

Before the move to the country had been made,
she had, however, with characteristic rapidity, formed a
sudden friendship which, with its note of exaggeration,
almost recalls the early days in the convent garden
where she and Sophi efirst met.

There was a Madame Grandchamp — also a Sophie —
a friend of Bosc's, to whom he had described the Rolands,

148

Madame Grandchamp 149

announcing with delight in February 1791 their
approaching visit to Paris, Madame Grandchamp taking
it for granted that he would lose no time in pre-
senting her to the woman who had been the subject of
his enthusiastic praise. Her anticipations were not
realised. It may be that he thought, not unwisely, that
friends, however true, are best kept apart — nor was it
until the middle of August that he one day invited
Madame Grandchamp to accompany him and the Rolands
to a meeting of the Jacobin Club. Wounded pride dic-
tated a refusal, but self-respect yielded to curiosity ; she
decided to condone the lack of cordiality he had displayed,
and permitted him to take her to his friends' apartment.

'* Here is an Athenian," he said, in the language of
the day, " whom 1 present to a Spartan/ '

Madame Roland, in an amazon dress, her black hair
cut short en jokei, her colour bright, her eyes at once
gentle and penetrating, welcomed her guest ; and the
evening spent together at the Jacobins was long re-
membered by Madame Grandchamp, her reminiscences
proving that it was not alone for men that Manon
possessed attraction. When they parted, Sophie went so
far as to regret that the long-deferred introduction had
taken place, since she could not always enjoy the company
of her new acquaintance.

Disappointment followed on this beginning. Two
attempts made by Madame Grandchamp to find Madame
Roland at home were unsuccessful ; and admitted on
the third occasion, she was received with constraint and
embarrassment. Others were present, notably Roland
himself, tall and spare, his refined, intellectual counten-
ance seeming to the guest to express causticity and
contempt. Madame Grandchamp was not encouraged to
repeat her visit, and was the more surprised when one
morning Madame Roland, coming to her house, greeted
her with effusion.

150 Life of Madame Roland

" You will have condemned me," she said. <{ I am
aware that appearances are against me. I could not
explain " — it is probable that Madame Grandchamp had
been admitted by accident to a political conference —
" this is the first moment I have had at my disposal,
and I have come to justify myself, to make myself
known. Our souls are en rapport — we must love each
other."

The two became friends on the spot. But how was
the friendship to be developed ? The Rolands were
on the eve of leaving Paris. What time remained to
cement the tie ? Madame Roland was, however, a woman
of resource. Why, she asked, should not Madame Grand-
champ accompany her to Le Clos ? and when, amongst
other objections, her astonished acquaintance suggested
that Roland might not fall in with the plan, his wife,
whilst frankly allowing that this was possible, explained
that he was detained in Paris for three weeks, that he
would, moreover, call on Madame Grandchamp the next
day, and that she was confident as to the result. When,
in fact, Roland corroborated the invitation given by
his wife, Madame Grandchamp allowed her misgivings
to be overcome, and it was arranged that the two women
should start together for the Beaujolais on September 3.

The concluding days of Madame Roland's stay in
Paris were marked by a passage of arms with the faithful
Bosc. In the group surrounding the Rolands the cult of
friendship was carried to an inconvenient and exacting
height, an offence, though slight, against the strictness
of its code coming near — even in days when men might
have been supposed to be engrossed in the stress and
strain of the political situation — to assuming the propor-
tions of a tragedy. Unusually sensitive, Bosc had on
the present occasion been deeply wounded by the fact
that he had not been informed of Madame Grandchamp's
proposed visit to Le Clos. He had apparently made

I Quarrel with Bosc 151

nown his sentiments on the subject to Madame Roland ;
tid in a letter, dated 1 1 p.m. on the day preceding that
xed for her journey, she made answer to the reproaches
e had addressed to her accompanied by the intimation
that, under the circumstances, he should not come,
according to promise, to make his adieus.

The explanation of the silence he so bitterly resented
was simple. Bosc himself having made no mention of
the plan, she had imagined that Madame Grandchamp
had her reasons for concealing it, concluding that she
was contriving a surprise for him when he should come
to take leave of his friend. " I had made a charming
picture," wrote Madame Roland, " of what we should
feel, share, and express to-morrow evening ; and it is
when my heart was nourishing the sweetest affection
that you imagine it deficient in that trust without which
friendship does not exist," entreating him not to adhere
to his determination of allowing her to depart with no

I farewell taken.
Bosc remained obdurate ; and on the following day
another long letter, written at 2 p.m., describes how,
weary with preparations for departure and with little
leisure, Madame Roland had sought him in vain both
at his office and at his lodgings, so that she might not
carry away the grief of leaving him in his present state
of mind. A friend had at least the right — granted by
the law to the guilty — of a hearing. After which she
enters at length into the subject of her rapid intimacy
with Madame Grandchamp, with fresh explanations of
the silence he resented. " Adieu, mon ami, mon fils,"
she concludes — " you will ever remain both."

The incident is too characteristic of the terms upon
which Madame Roland stood with her friends, and the
importance attached on both sides to trifles, to be omitted.
Whatever might be the exigencies of public life, the
immense interests at stake, the details of personal inter-

152 Life of Madame Roland

course never lost for her their place or importance,
exaggerated in the present instance to the verge of
caricature.

Forgiven or not, the two friends set out on their
journey to the Beaujolais on the evening of September 3,
room having been made for Madame Grandchamp in the
crowded diligence by the exclusion of a maid.

The interval spent by Madame Roland mainly at
Le Clos before her final return to Paris in December, is
like an interlude in the melodrama into which her life
was fast resolving itself. If echoes of Parisian excitement
reached her, they were inevitably dulled by distance, and
in the stillness of the country other interests, the local
affairs of the province, the domestic duties of Le Clos,
above all, the consideration of the development — or non-
development — of little Eudora, reasserted their sway.

Tired and worn out with her journey — she had been
unwell before leaving Paris — she found Villefranche en
fete, every one at a fair in the neighbourhood, and her
brother-in-law, the Canon, ready to welcome her, having
returned from a health cure for that purpose. Eudora,
too, at the convent to which she had been relegated, was
impatiently awaiting her mother's arrival and received her
with such transports of delight, sobbing with joy, that
Madame Roland did not so much as venture to say that
she had contemplated leaving her at the convent
until the following day, but carried the child off
forthwith. Yet Eudora — poor Eudora — was still, as
before, a disappointment. " We must not deceive our-
selves," she wrote to Roland. " Your daughter is
affectionate. She loves me ; she will be gentle ; but she
has not an idea, no grain of memory. She looks as if she
had just left her nurse, and gives promise of no intellect.
She has embroidered a workbag for me prettily, and does
a little needlework ; otherwise she has developed no
tastes, and I begin to believe we must not persist in

At Le Clos 153

ecting much, still less in exacting it." To Bancal she
wrote that the child had no desire for any knowledge
save that her mother loved her, and little capacity save
that of returning her love. To some mothers this
would have been enough ; but that her only child should
lack most of the qualities and gifts she prized was a
sore trial to Madame Roland.

Whatever doubts Madame Grandchamp had enter-
tained as to the wisdom of the experiment upon
which she had entered had been quickly dispelled. Both
women were flattered — the guest at the desire for her
society proved by the invitation, the hostess by the fact
that so long and troublesome a journey had been under-
taken for her sake. Nor was Madame Grandchamp dis-
posed to regret it. c' In that wild place,' ' she afterwards
wrote, " in that profound solitude, I felt the value of
intercourse with the most fascinating of women." The
time slipped by with alarming rapidity ; and if, at times,
the claims of home duties recurred reproachfully to her
memory, in her new friend's society all else was forgotten.

On Roland's arrival the spell was broken. He wished
to talk of himself and his writings ; produced the latter
for Madame Grandchamp's perusal, and desired to obtain
her opinion of them. The elections were going forward,
and had resulted in a defeat, so far as Lyons was con-
cerned, for the party to which he belonged ; he had
decided upon a country life, and begged the guest to use
her influence to reconcile his wife to the prospect. This
would not be an easy task. When she had left Paris
she had declared herself weary of it. After contemplating
so many fools and knaves, she had longed for a sight
of her trees ; but the capital gained in charm at a
distance. She had become sensible of the t€ nullite de la
province," regretted its silence and obscurity on Roland's
behalf, believing public life to be more necessary to him
than he knew ; and would have liked Eudora to be irr

154 Life of Madame Roland

Paris. " Such is the stupidity of our only child," she told
Roland frankly, " that I see no hope of making anything
of her except by showing her everything possible and
providing her with some object of interest." For herself,
it is impossible not to feel that the atmosphere of the
capital and the electric excitement pervading it had
become the very breath of life. It is true that in a
lengthy letter addressed from the " fond des deserts " to
Robespierre she declared that no one who, born with a
soul, had maintained it in health could have seen Paris
of late without sighing over the blindness of a corrupted
nation, and the abyss of ills from which it was so difficult
to emerge ; that her own observation had taught her that
work must be performed for the good of humanity for
the sole pleasure of doing it, and with no expectation of
gratitude or justice ; that, embracing her child, she had
sworn with tears to forget politics and study nature
alone, and to find, with Roland, refuge in country labours
mingled with occupations belonging to the study, and to
seek, in the practice of private virtues, an alleviation for
public misfortunes. She was probably quite sincere. It
was the sincerity of a mood, and of one which would
have passed away quickly. She was far from finding
peace and contentment in the existence she described.
It is at this date that the change in her sentiments with
regard to the man whose labours she had once been
proud to share becomes evident. Duties, indeed, she was
in no wise a woman to evade ; but they no longer sufficed
her, and she craved for an admixture of other interests.
Though in her letters there is no word of complaint,
in Madame Grandchamp's account of her visit to
Le Clos a certain dissatisfaction on the part of her
hostess with the conditions of her life is plainly dis-
cernible. At a distance the quiet of the country may
have appealed to her ; at closer quarters it was not with-
out disadvantages. If she had wearied at Paris of fools

Discontent 155

and knaves, they were not wanting in the provinces,
where, in addition, the monarchy was still, with the
majority, an object of faith, the idea of a republic
detested, and liberty little more than a name. The
rumour, too, had gained ground that Roland had been
arrested as a " counter-revolutionist," and cries of " Les
aristocrats a la lanterne " from the minority with whom
she was in sympathy greeted his wife.

She had more personal grounds of discontent.
Having taken her guest to Lyons, in order to show
her the antiquities of the town, they were pursued
thither by urgent summons from Roland, impatient for
their return to Le Clos, and she openly deplored the
necessity of resuming her wearisome and irksome labours.

" How greatly I am to be pitied ! " she lamented.
" The work I do " — taking notes for the Dictionary
of Manufactures, to which Roland was a contributor —
" disgusts and exhausts me. Shut up henceforth in the
country, no distractions will interrupt the melancholy
uniformity of my life or soften secret sorrows." To
Bancal she deplored the prospect opening before her
for the sake also of Roland and Eudora. " From the
moment that my husband has no other occupation but in
his study, I must be there to distract him and to sweeten
his daily work, according to a habit and a duty which
cannot be escaped. This existence is absolutely contrary
to what is fitting for a child of ten in no way inclined to
study. Were Roland happy after his own fashion it
would be a different matter."

In the company of Madame Grandchamp she found
some consolation. With her at hand, she imagined
that she would have been better able to endure existence
and the sacrifices demanded from her. Madame Grand-
champ, however, had duties and ties, and was like-
wise becoming conscious that Le Clos was not a
desirable habitation. As the autumnal season advanced.

156 Life of Madame Roland

her first illusions concerning it vanished. The soil was
dry and stony, the mountains, with the approach of
winter, were sombre and sad, the house was ugly and
inconvenient. The Parisian was, in short, beginning
to long for home, nor was it long before she went her
way thither.

Madame Roland had taken too premature and gloomy
a view of the future awaiting her. One of the last acts
of the Constituent Assembly had been the suppression
of the posts of inspectors of manufactures ; it was
desirable to press Roland's claims to a pension ; it
would also facilitate his work on the Encyclopaedia
were he in the capital. It was therefore decided that
the coming winter should be spent in Paris. By
November Madame Roland, with Eudora, was at
Villefranche, preparing for departure, and on the
30th she was writing to Roland at Lyons to urge his
early return, " for I am hungry for a sight of you and to
make our final arrangements with you."

It would appear that the unfortunate Eudora had again
been the object of criticism, on this occasion from her father.

" I read your daughter what concerned her," the
mother wrote ; " she burst out sobbing, and exclaimed
in an original and energetic fashion, c Ce papa me gronde
toujours; $a m'ennuie.' I answered as you may imagine,
pointing out that if you loved her less, you would scold j
her little ; that it was your great desire to see her behave 1
well which caused you to take notice of her faults, and
that she should therefore be the more eager to correct
herself. ' That does not encourage me,' she replied,
still crying — * on the contrary ' ; ending, however, by
calming herself and making good resolutions." For the
rest, mother and daughter were reading the Iliad together
and found it very entertaining ; and with Paris in prospect
Madame Roland was disposed to take a more cheerful
view of the world in general, including her daughter.

CHAPTER XV

Arrival in Paris — Relations with Madame Grandchamp — Disappointment
— Changes in the capital — Madame Roland's despondency — Roland's
appointment to the office of Minister of the Interior.

IT is sometimes a shock to compare forecasts with
what was to follow upon them. When the Rolands,
in December 1791, returned to take up their residence
in Paris, not two years of life remained to either. Yet,
in spite of a theoretic belief in the insecurity of their
future shared with many of the chief actors in the drama
that was going forward, they probably looked on to
many years of labour and exertion. Roland thought
of starting a Journal des Arts, of other literary work,
of summers at Le Clos spent in the development of
the estate, varied perhaps by winters in Paris and the
political employment to be found there. Madame
Roland's forecasts will have taken a different colour, as
she mused upon the problem her marriage was beginning
to present, unaware that a solution of it was close
at hand. One peril had been at all events averted ;
her home was not to be permanently and uninterruptedly
fixed in that " depth of the desert " from which she had
addressed her letter to Robespierre, and for this she was
doubtless thankful.

Madame Grandchamp had been commissioned to
secure an apartment for the friends her influence had
contributed to bring to Paris, and had prepared a lodging
for them in the same hotel they had inhabited before,

158 Life of Madame Roland

though now on the third storey. Yet, notwithstanding
the demands made upon her, and to which she had gladly
responded, a breach came near at this moment to ending
the connection between the Rolands and their friend.

Madame Grandchamp, as the sequel shows, was true
and faithful, and to her, as the single woman who re-
mained on intimate terms with Madame Roland during
the last months of her life, a certain interest attaches.
But the course of their friendship was not destined to
run smooth. Emotional, self-conscious, and liable to
suffer from wounded feelings and outraged affection, she
was apt, like Bosc, to take offence and to demand explana-
tions. After her departure from Le Clos she had been
ill content with the tone of Madame Roland's letters.
They were witty. " Wit," cries Madame Grandchamp
lamentably — " wit addressed to one you love, whose
departure you wept, whom you desire to rejoin, who
is about to venture everything to make you happy ! 1
Madame Grandchamp had even meditated upon some
plausible pretext to keep the culprit at a distance. It
was too late ; the Rolands had made their arrangements
to winter in Paris.

Madame Grandchamp awaited their arrival in a con-
dition of emotional excitement rendering the blow the
greater when she received a note begging her not to
meet the travellers at the Hotel Britannique, as Roland
and the child would be tired by their journey. " Ce
trait," Madame Grandchamp adds, " m'accabla." Worse
was to follow. When, overcoming wounded feelings,
she sought them later, Roland seemed scarcely to re-
member her, and his wife's greeting was agitated and
embarrassed. On this occasion it was plainly Roland
who, annoyed by her criticisms of his work, was in
fault, and a dignified letter from Madame Grandchamp
— of which she kept a copy — produced so good an effect
that he hurried to her house to offer his apologies, and

(Changes in Paris 159

scene of reconciliation ensued. " Alone, the room
nlighted, my head leaning against the chimney-piece,
I was giving myself up to a thousand conjectures. The
bell is rung, I open ; I perceive a man wrapped in a cloak.
Whilst I hesitate to allow him to advance, he throws it
precipitately aside. It was . . . Roland himself." All
was, for the present, well.

Much had changed in the capital since the Rolands
had left it. Events followed in rapid sequence during
these years. At the end of September Paris had kept
festival. The constitution had been accepted by the
King, and his action had elicited an outburst of en-
thusiasm and loyalty, as if the nation was persuaded
that Louis and his subjects were like-minded and at
peace. Lafayette had moved a universal amnesty, and
all offences committed in the course of the Revolution
were to be blotted out. Brotherhood, from a theory,
was to become a fact.

The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly had
been followed by the election of its successor, the Legis-
lative Assembly. On October i it had met — a body
made up of political novices, the members of the pre-
ceding one having been declared ineligible for seats in
it. Some of the former deputies remained in Paris, to
look critically on at the proceedings of those who replaced
them ; others, for a longer or shorter period, had returned
to the provinces or gone abroad. Certain of the men
who were to form the ill-starred party of the Gironde
— Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne, Ducos, Valaze — were
becoming a rallying-point and centre for others of like
principles, Brissot, with a seat in the new Assembly,
heading the group.

On Roland's return to Paris there was no indication
that he would be called upon to play a conspicuous
part in the political arena. It is true that the seven

160 Life of Madame Roland

months he had spent there had not been without their
fruit, and that when his party counted up the men upon
whom it could depend, he was not overlooked. With
no brilliance or originality, his capacities were solid, his
power of industry was great, and he was well accus-
tomed to technical and official work. Amidst the general
youth of the party of progress, his age, too, may have
carried weight, no less than his reputation for upright-
ness, loyalty, and singleness of purpose. If a certain
mediocrity marked his talents and gifts, Lamartine may
have been right in believing that, safeguarding him
from jealousy, it helped, rather than the reverse, to
win him recognition. A man to be trusted and used,
there was no fear that he would too greatly distance
competitors.

For the present, however, he was allowed to remain
in the background ; and whatever may have been his own
sentiments, there can be little doubt that disappointment
was keenly felt by his wife. The meetings of the leaders
at the Hotel Britannique had not been resumed. Of
those who had been used to attend them, some — Buzot
amongst them — were in the country ; Brissot had become
a member of the Assembly ; Petion, carried on a wave of
popular enthusiasm to the mayoralty, had little time for
old friends, and when Madame Roland hastened to the
Mairie, his wife — perhaps dazzled by her new honours,
perhaps adhering too strictly to the rule she had adopted,
and which Madame Roland herself afterwards imitated,
of receiving no women — welcomed her so coldly that she
was not disposed to repeat her visit.

Nor was the condition of public affairs inspiriting.!
The King's popularity had been of brief duration ; in the.
Assembly something approaching to chaos reigned ; one,
minister succeeded another ; decrees were passed in haste ;(
the more important bills — such as those relating to emi-
grants or to the priesthood — being rendered inoperative

Situation in Paris 161

by the royal veto. The nobles, gathered in force at
Coblentz, offered a permanent menace to the newborn
constitution ; war with the foreign powers was daily
more imminent.

On the other hand, the municipality had been
captured in the November elections by the patriots.
Danton was a member of it with Billaud Varennes,
Tallien, and others of their opinions ; and Petion's
successful candidature for the mayoralty had been sup-
ported by Marie Antoinette herself, on the grounds that
— unlike his rival Lafayette — he was too great a fool to
become the head of a party.

The true centre of power had shifted from the
Assembly to the Jacobins. There measures were debated
before they were placed before the Assembly, and the
questions of the hour were discussed in the presence
of the fifteen hundred the hall could hold. There
Robespierre reigned supreme, in harmony, so far, with
the Girondist party. Many of the Rolands' friends were
influential members of the club. Bosc, Bancal, and Lan-
thenas occupied prominent positions in it, and Roland
himself, admitted to the society on his arrival in Paris,
later on filled a post on the Committee of Correspondence.

Though adhering steadily to the party of extremists
and to its principles, Roland was chiefly occupied at this
time with his scholastic and literary work. In order to
spare his wife fatigue, for which her health at the moment
rendered her unfit, Madame Grandchamp had volunteered
to act as his amanuensis ; and at her house he was accus-
tomed to spend the morning hours, the evenings being
passed by the three either at the Hotel Britannique or
at the Jacobin Club, whither Roland would sometimes
insist upon conducting his wife and her friend.

It is possible that Manon's interest in political affairs
was, like her health, flagging. Yet from the thought of
a return to Le Clos, to which Roland was again beginning
ii

1 62 Life of Madame Roland

to revert, she shrank more and more. Her usual courage
and buoyancy of spirit had temporarily failed her, re-
placed by profound depression and a mental lassitude
rendering her weary of life and effort, and even inspiring
her with a desire to put an end by death to the situation. ,
No more than a conjecture can be hazarded as to the
secret grief at which Madame Grandchamp hints — the
trouble that was embittering her mind and sapping her
strength. With Buzot it is clear that she had parted
in September on terms of simple friendship, sending, in
her first letter to Roland from Villefranche, an affectionate
message to his wife. " She cannot imagine how much ;
I was touched by the evidences of interest she gave
me [at parting]. I left her in haste, as I had to tear
myself away ; but I shall never forget that moment, j
Tell her, as well as her worthy husband, how dear they i
are to us. You can speak for us both, as you love them .,
as much as I do."

Since that parting no meeting had taken place, nor
was it till the autumn of 1792 that intercourse was ;
renewed, on Buzot's return to Paris as a member of j
the National Assembly. Yet, if it is plain that they I
had not parted as lovers, he may have been responsible j
for the strengthening of her consciousness that a life j
shared with Roland was not all that, under other circum- j
stances, it might have been made ; he may have given an
edge to latent discontent and stirred within her a more
definite regret for wasted opportunities. It can scarcely j
be doubted that her affection for Roland was waning, .
leaving her determined to remain true to her duty, but !
transforming the services she had loved to render into i
an irksome task. Whatever was the cause, life for the !
moment had lost its savour, and a discouragement foreign j
to her strenuous and elastic nature had possession of]
her. Though Eudora was at hand, the child continued!
to contribute to her sense of failure and disappointment ; | 1

Eudora's Character 163

and a passage in her memoirs may be taken as the
ultimate expression of it. " I have a young and amiable
daughter," she wrote in her prison, " but nature has
made her cold and indolent. . . . She will be a good
woman, with certain gifts ; but her stagnant nature and
her unelastic mind will never give my heart the sweet
enjoyment I had promised myself. . . . She will know
neither my strong affections, nor my sorrows, nor my
i pleasures."

Eudora, it is plain, was not adapted to make up for
what was lacking in her mother's existence. In March,
however, an event occurred sufficiently exciting and
important to rouse her from her dejection and to impart
a stimulus and interest to life. This was Roland's
appointment to the post of Minister of the Interior.

Many causes had contributed to bring about a wholly
unexpected development. Minister after minister had
failed in the hopeless attempt to conciliate all parties,
and to satisfy alike King and people. Louis had deter-
mined on the step of appointing a patriot ministry, and
it became a question who should be suggested for the
posts to be filled. Lanthenas, possessing more influence
than was warranted either by his talents or his personality,
and still Roland's devoted friend, was urgent on his
behalf; though recognising the fact that his quasi-re-
tirement from public life presented a difficulty. Why,
he asked Madame Grandchamp impatiently, why had
Roland isolated himself? Every one did justice to his
enlightenment and uprightness, but they were alarmed
by the stiffness of his character.

Madame Grandchamp, in spite of her affection for
Madame Roland — in which her husband was now in-
cluded— differed from Lanthenas with regard to his fitness
• for the post in question. She considered neither husband
nor wife — she did not dissociate them in her mind — well
adapted to conduct a ministry in times so stormy. It

164 Life of Madame Roland

would be to expose them to peril, without compensating
advantage to the public. Having led a provincial life,
engaged in literary work, they were conversant neither
with men nor with the Court, and would fall into every
snare set for them.

The choice of a minister did not lie with Madame
Grandchamp. At a meeting in Vergniaud's apartments in
the Place Vendome the question of Roland's nomination
as a fit candidate for the vacant post was raised, and by the
middle of March the subject had been broached to his wife.
In view of the possibility that the King might appoint a
patriot Ministry, she was told that the party were the
more anxious to put forward men of capacity and weight
since the scheme might be a trap laid for them by the
Court, whose purposes would be served should the choice
fall upon persons supplying it with just reason for com-
plaint. It was added that to many Roland's name had
occurred.

The suggestion made little impression on his wife.
The nomination of a man whose previous work had been
done in so subordinate a capacity to one of the highest
offices in the State may well have seemed to her merely
the hope of a friend. A few days later, however — it
was on March 21 — she received a visit from Brissot.
Finding her alone, he informed her that the question
was under practical consideration ; and when, answering
lightly, she demanded the meaning of his jest, he assured
her that he was speaking in all seriousness ; and that his
present object was to ascertain whether her husband
would consent to assume the burden of office. To this
she replied that, having spoken to him on the subject
when the matter was first put before her, she imagined
that, though sensible of the difficulty and even dange
to be apprehended, he would not shrink from the task.
She promised to find out his . views and to let Brissot
know them on the morrow.

:

:

Roland Minister 165

She proved right. With regard to the multiplicity
of duties belonging to the post, Roland observed with a
laugh that he had always observed so much mediocrity
in persons in office that he had felt surprise that any
business at all was done ; that he therefore felt no fears as
to his capacities ; that the situation was critical, but that
for whosoever only desired to do his duty and was in-
different to his chances of dismissal the danger was
minimised. Nor could a zealous man be indifferent to
the hope of being useful to his country. An answer in
the affirmative was accordingly sent to Brissot.

The evening of March 23 was spent by Roland —
anxious to escape a visitor of his wife's — with Madame
Grandchamp. Intimate as he had become with her, he
knew how to keep his own counsel ; for in discussing
the question of the hour and passing in review the men
likely to be chosen for office, he put the possibility of
his appointment lightly aside. " My obscurity at least
safeguards me from the fear of it," he said, " and under
these circumstances I bless it."

At nine o'clock he went home. Two hours later
two guests knocked at his door. Brissot was one, and,
with him was Dumouriez — himself the new Minister of
Foreign Affairs — come to " salute a colleague," and to
announce to Roland his appointment to the post of
Minister of the Interior ; also discoursing of the sincere
adherence of the King to the constitution, and his own
great satisfaction that a patriot of Roland's stamp should
be called upon to assist in the Government. Brissot
was no less flattering. The post allotted to Roland
was the most delicate and difficult of all, and it was
a weight off the minds of the friends of liberty to
see it entrusted to hands so strong and pure. Practical
details followed — the hour when the new minister would
be presented to Louis, would take the oath and be
admitted to the council — and the visitors departed.

1 66 Life of Madame Roland

Though, as it would appear, Roland had demanded some
hours for consideration, all must have known that his
decision was taken.

w That is a man," Roland observed, when Dumouriez
was gone, " who displays patriotism and shows ability."

" That is a man," was Madame Roland's verdict, " who
has a cunning mind, a false expression, and whom one
should perhaps distrust more than any one in the
world. ... I shall not be surprised if he has you dis-
missed one day." Integrity and candour incarnate on
the one side, a severe equity, no courtierlike habits,
nor any of the contrivances of a man of the world ; on
the other, the wit of a roue, the boldness that mocks
at all save self-interest and reputation — these were the
characteristics of the two men as they appeared to her,
and she asked herself how elements so much opposed
could combine.

Madame Grandchamp's history of these days supplies
additional details. She had parted from Roland at nine
o'clock. At eleven — it must have been later — a note
was brought her from his wife, conveying the momentous
news. u Dumouriez has just left us," she wrote. " He
came to make the announcement that the King has
named my husband Minister of the Interior and that
he will to-morrow receive the portfolio. Roland has
asked to delay giving his answer until ten o'clock. It
will be you who will decide it. Come as soon as
possible."

What the answer would be Sophie, in spite of
her friend's flattering assurance, well knew, and she
regretted it profoundly. Underestimating perhaps, as
her conversation with Lanthenas showed, the powers
possessed by the Rolands of dealing with changed circum-
stances, she foresaw, as before, difficulty and danger.
But she was acquainted with Manon. She had half-
divined a secret ambition on her part ; jealousy of men

GENERAL DUMOURIEZ.
From a lithograph hy Delpech.

Roland Minister 167

preferred to her husband ; mortification at the change
her position had undergone since the preceding year
and at 'c la nullite a laquelle elle se trouvait reduite " ;
and could scarcely doubt that she would seize the
offered opportunity of doing more than recover the
ground she had lost. Nor did Madame Grandchamp
omit to do justice to a worthier motive — her desire to
be of service to the cause she loved.

On the following day Madame Roland wrote to make
the announcement of the appointment to Champagneux,
still at Lyons. " I do not wish you to learn from the
public papers that our friend was yesterday nominated
Minister of the Interior. He had in the press a Journal
des Arts^ with which he was going to have occupied him-
self solely. He is called to other work ; to it he will
devote himself as calmly as he would relinquish the post
should he not be able to perform the duties belonging
:o it." To Bancal she wrote in the same sense.

Early that morning Madame Grandchamp had hastened
the Hotel Britannique, where in the humble apartment
iey occupied she found the Rolands both in bed, and
in emotional scene took place.

" I am losing you for ever," Sophie cried ; " forgive
ie if this renders me indifferent to the honours awaiting

rOU."

Roland energetically negatived the possibility of aliena-
ion. Friendship apart, she was indispensable to them.
Lcquainted from childhood with the court, it would be
For her to enlighten their ignorance. Furthermore, he
?gged that she would undertake the task of making
extracts each day from the newspapers of all it would
:oncern him to know.

That day was a fatiguing one. Practical matters,
Loney, purchases, had to be discussed ; a deputation
>f joy and congratulation from the markets to be received,
'hen, Madame Roland being incapacitated by her state

i68

Life of Madame Roland

of health, Sophie received in her stead the compliments
intended for the wife of the minister. Business followed,
taking Madame Grandchamp out ; and on her return to
the Hotel Britannique a surprise awaited her. She has
left an account of the scene that met her eyes.

" I thought, as I entered the salon, that I was
dreaming," she wrote. " My friend, who that morning
had seemed to be dying, had recovered her freshness
and her good looks. She was surrounded by a numerous
circle who were overwhelming her with praise. Roland
shared the homage and seemed well content."

The landlady, gratified at the unexpected advance-
ment of her tenants, had placed the entire house at
their disposal, and ministers, officials, and leading
members of the Assembly, filled the room. A couple
of lacqueys stood at the door. Was it all really
true ? Madame Grandchamp asked herself. Yesterday
a bedroom and a sitting-room in the attics, a simple
country servant, absolute neglect, a man uncertain as
to his life, a woman wishing to terminate her own.
In a single day all changed, everything transformed.
Looking on, Madame Grandchamp felt a not inexcusable
pang. When the world takes possession of man or
woman, private rights are apt to suffer.

And thus Roland entered upon official life.

MADAME ROLAND.

From an engraving by Baudran.

p. 168]

CHAPTER XVI

i Roland in office— Madame Roland's share in his promotion — Bosc's sus-
ceptibilities— Pache — Madame Roland's life at the Hotel de l'lnterieure
— The King and his ministers — Declaration of war.

r I ^HERE have been those, as there were sure to be,
1 who have seen in Madame Roland's satisfaction
at her husband's admission into the arena of politics
nothing but the vulgar pride of the bourgeoise at her
elevation to a sphere she could never have hoped to
reach. To the exclusion of all other causes of rejoicing,
they have continually dwelt upon the gratified vanity of
the daughter of the Paris engraver. To take this view
of the matter is to be as one-sided as to assert that
personal considerations had nothing to do with her
satisfaction. It is at all times pleasant to rise, nor had
Manon ever pretended to be indifferent to social distinc-
tions or been content with the environment into which she
was born. By talents, abilities, and taste she had long
ago vindicated her claim to admission to a region where
money and money-making did not constitute the main
objects of life, and even before Roland crossed her path
she had ever chosen for her friends men who had wider
interests at heart.

Of late years and since the novelty of married life
had worn off, the political situation and the enthusiastic
cult of freedom had engrossed her thoughts ; and
though forced to look on at the struggle from a

distance, she had done her best to animate and sustain

169

I

170 Life of Madame Roland

the courage and energy of those nearer the centre of
revolution. Under these circumstances it would have
been strange if, apart from any unworthy pride or vanity,
she had not rejoiced that Roland had obtained recognition ;
and that both he and she were to be placed where their
opinions would have weight, and she herself would
be at length free to employ her gifts in promoting the
public welfare. To man or woman conscious of con-
spicuous talents and abilities it must necessarily be a bitter
thing to be debarred from using them. That trial she
had endured, and who shall blame her if she was gladdened
by the knowledge that it was at an end ?

Another reason may have legitimately increased her
self-congratulation. She must have been well aware that
she had materially contributed to her husband's success.
" He walked into power," said Lamartine, " without
motion on his own part, carried on by the favour of a
party, by the prestige belonging to an unknown man,
by the contempt of his enemies, and by the genius of his
wife." Lamartine has been accused of unduly exalting
Madame Roland at her husband's expense. But Barba-
roux, who knew both, and admired and respected Roland,
concurs in the view ; and declaring that of all modern
men he approached nearest to Cato, added that it must
be admitted that it was to his wife that he owed his
courage and his gifts. It would now be seen how both
would make use of the opportunity afforded them.

In a letter addressed to Robespierre on March 27,
apparently in response to his congratulations, Madame
Roland did not disguise her sense of sharing in a measure
in her husband's responsibilities. Inviting him to dine at
the Hotel Britannique, where she was remaining for the
present, she promised that he would find, in the wife
of the minister, that simplicity which rendered her worthy
not to be regarded with contempt ; adding that it was
with the help alone of wise patriots that she could hope

Reconciliation with Bosc 171

to contribute to well-doing. c< For me," she added,
" you stand at the head of that class. Come quickly — I
am impatient to see you. . . ." The words read strangely
in the light of what was so soon to follow.

To the same date belong two notes addressed to
Bosc. It is very characteristic of Madame Roland that,
in the midst of the excitement and turmoil of these days,
she found leisure and thought to bestow upon her friends
and their grievances. Bosc had, it would seem, been again
suffering from wounded susceptibilities — unless, which is
unlikely, he had kept up the quarrel of the previous
September for six months — and her present communica-
tion seems to be in reply to a plea on his part for
reconciliation both with her and with Madame Grand-
champ. As usual Madame Roland was eager to respond
to the overtures of an old friend, and though doubtful
whether Madame Grandchamp would be found equally
placable, she was ready to use her influence to make
peace; a joint letter from the two, dated the same day,
testifying to her success. If Bosc, however, was to be
readmitted to all the privileges he had forfeited, Madame
Roland accompanied her affectionate welcome of the re-
turning prodigal with salutary admonitions. " Moins
d'exaltation, mon ami, plus de justice : le raison et le
bonheur le demandent egalement." Madame Grand-
champ, she also told him, was in a distressing condition,
required to be taken out of herself, and caused Madame
Roland to regret that she was no longer in a position
to give herself up, as heretofore, almost entirely to

I-iendship. Why could she not shed around her her
wn calm — a calm affected neither by prosperity nor
sverses ?

It is curious to compare Madame Roland's conviction
of her equability of mind and spirits with the account
given by Madame Grandchamp of her state some
weeks earlier. That she had not only recovered from

172 Life of Madame Roland

her strange fit of dejection, but had forgotten it, is proof
of the complete cure effected by the new impulse given to
her thoughts and energies.

Madame Grandchamp's " distressing condition " — to
whatever causes it was primarily due — was probably
accentuated by the verification of the forebodings she
had expressed as to the effect to be apprehended from
Roland's promotion. It was Madame Roland's mis-
fortune to possess friends whose demands were difficult
to satisfy ; and though she continued at first to pay
frequent, if hurried, visits to Madame Grandchamp's
apartments, " une circonstance," says the latter myste-
riously, " lui fit supprimer ses visites " ; and the two
seem to have met no more during Roland's first term
of office. Divergence of opinion on matters political and
moral may have contributed to render intercourse difficult,
more especially in the case of a man involved in the
machinery of government and with obligations of loyalty
towards his colleagues. Madame Grandchamp was in
no way disposed to practise economy of truth with re-
gard to her views.

"I asked Roland," she says, " what he could expect
of men who did not respect the most sacred ties of
society. I took my examples from amongst those he
esteemed and often received. . . . ' They will help to
destroy despotism,' was the reply ; l their private actions
have nothing to do with the truths they spread abroad.' '

Madame Grandchamp disagreed. By these very
private actions corruption, in her opinion, was propa-
gated and hope destroyed. Whatever may have been
the rights of the case, her denunciation of the Rolands'
friends and brothers-in-arms was not calculated to facili-
tate intercourse with them, and Madame Roland may
have felt it best that they should remain for the
present apart.

Meanwhile, if the prospect opened out was brilliant,

In Office 173

it was uncertain, and Madame Roland was not blind to
that fact. At the time of his appointment Roland had
taken a lease of an unfurnished apartment in the rue
de la Harpe, which, with Madame Grandchamp's assis-
tance, was in course of preparation as a permanent
dwelling-place. In spite of changed circumstances, the
work was carried on.

" The setting in order of the little apartment in the
rue de la Harpe is proceeding," Madame Roland told
Bancal. "It is a place of retreat to be kept ever in
view, in the same way that certain philosophers keep
their coffins under their eye."

To the uncertainty always attaching to an office
dependent upon the predominance of a party other
elements of doubt were added. It was a difficult
juncture for a novice in the art of government to
enter upon it. Every man was against every man ;
each party keeping an anxious eye upon the movements
of the others, the Court distrustful of all, and the
enemy at the gates. The ministers were, moreover,
confronted by the fact that their subordinates had
been placed in office by their predecessors, and could
scarcely be expected to lend cordial or whole-hearted
co-operation to the newcomers and their policy. At
the same time, to have removed those conversant with
official affairs in order to replace them by others whose
loyalty could be counted upon would have been fatal to
the orderly transaction of business. Face to face with
this dilemma, Roland strove to meet it by the appoint-
ment of a trustworthy secretary, whose duty it would
be to keep a strict watch on documents prepared by
less reliable officials, to convey important orders, and to
be at hand to undertake confidential business. The
expedient, had the right man been selected, was good.
That Roland's choice was unfortunate was mainly the
result of an error of judgment on the part of his wife.

I

174 Life of Madame Roland

Amongst her early friends had been one Gibert, a
post-office official, honest, upright, and with a taste
for the arts. By Gibert an intimate associate was
presented to Manon, named Pache, a man of very
simple manners, and cherishing so great a love of liberty
that he had retired to Switzerland, where devotees of
freedom were wont to take refuge. It was this Pache,
now returned to Paris, as simple as ever, and even
more disinterested, since he had given up a Govern-
ment pension on the plea that his private means were
sufficient for his needs, whom Roland appointed to the
post of confidential clerk.

A man of so exaggerated a modesty that, as Madame
Roland shrewdly observes, people were at first tempted
to adopt his estimate of himself, and to end by
feeling that injustice had been done him, he accepted
the proffered office with enthusiasm, on the sole con-
dition that it should carry with it neither title nor
emolument ; and Roland was provided with a coadjutor,
upright and patriotic, who arrived at the Hotel at seven
in the morning bringing a piece of bread for his daily
nourishment, and performed his duties with admirable zeal
and tact. It was not until later on that the true character
of this single-minded public servant was discovered.

Roland had likewise secured the aid of Lanthenas,
whose fidelity, so far, had never wavered, by making
him a Chief of Division in the office ; and before
Madame Roland had taken possession of the Hdtel
which had received so many occupants in late years that,
according to Carlyle, it was not so much a palace as
a caravanserai, she and her friend were busy with a
favourite scheme, now, like others, enjoying a chance
of realisation. This was the establishment of a corre-
spondence bureau in connection with the popular societies
started in the provinces, for the purpose of promoting
their political education by sending them useful literature

In Office 175

gratis and paying speakers who should propagate right
opinions. Before the project could be carried out it was
necessary to obtain the permission of the Assembly,
and Madame Roland suggested that members belonging
to Roland's party should be gathered together twice
weekly at the ministerial hotel with a view to furthering
this and other branches of ministerial work.

In this matter he was firm in his opposition
to his wife's wishes. " I want no other support but
my integrity and my zeal," he said loftily. "As a
private individual, I could communicate my views to
those who governed ; as a minister, such reunions would
cause me to be suspected of intrigue ; the very influence
they would exercise is sufficient to demonstrate the
danger of such methods. Public opinion must be
decided by my loyalty and candour."

It was well said ; it will be seen nevertheless that,
according to Dumouriez, Madame Roland carried her
point, and her house became the rendezvous of the party
of the Gironde.

Following the example set by Madame Petion at
the Mairie, she had wisely determined upon receiving
no women, thus safeguarding herself from the solicita-
tions of anxious wives or mothers who desired to obtain
advancement for the men belonging to them. An object-
lesson as to the persecution to which she was liable to
be subjected had been supplied by Madame Robert —
the same who, with her husband, had sought shelter at
the Hotel Britannique the day after the massacre of the
Champs de Mars.

Roland's appointment was not twenty-four hours old
when this lady appeared to claim the patronage of the
minister ; and in spite of Madame Roland's attempts
to satisfy her with vague assurances of her husband's
desire to serve the public by making use of competent
subordinates, she returned again and again to press her

176 Life of Madame Roland

husband's claims, until Madame Roland was forced to
inform her that the official posts were all filled, holding
out no hopes, in answer to further solicitations, that
Roland would apply on Robert's behalf to the Minister
of Foreign Affairs, or do more than testify to his
political views if called upon to answer for them. In
three weeks Madame Robert returned triumphant,
having obtained Dumouriez's promise of a post, of
which she begged Madame Roland to remind him.
When the latter did so, it was in the presence of Brissot,
who put in, with his customary good-nature, a word
for Robert — a genuine Revolutionist and a hot patriot.
The reign of liberty, he said, should be useful to those
who loved it.

Dumouriez, however, did not take the matter serious-
ly. M You are speaking of that little black-headed man,
as broad as he is long ? " he asked gaily. " Upon my
word, I do not want to disgrace myself. I shall not
send such a caboche anywhere," further explaining, in
reply to Brissot's kindly urgency, that it was no inferior
post to which the little tonneau aspired, but to
that of ambassador at Constantinople ; whereupon all
joined in laughter, and it was agreed that there was no
more to be said. At Madame Robert's next visit toi
the Ministry, Madame Roland warned her, with hen
accustomed candour, that discreditable rumours were afloat]
with regard to herself and her husband, and the]
acquaintanceship terminated. Danton subsequently tookj
Robert under his protection, and he and his wife be-l
came dangerous enemies to the Rolands.

The appointment of the "patriot ministry" had)
produced a certain stir at Court ; and the sight of Roland!
at the Tuileries wearing the Quakerish costume he
affected, his thin hair covered by a round hat, and hisi
shoes tied with ribbons, caused something approaching
to a shock.

Ministers and King 177

" Quoi, monsieur," whispered a functionary in
Dumouriez's ear, as he looked at the new minister,
11 no buckles to his shoes ! "

" Monsieur," returned the General dramatically, " all
is lost."

Dumouriez's view of his colleague was given later
on. He had, he considered, little ability, much infor-
mation, and would have made an excellent Minister of
Commerce in quiet times. The vanity of passing for
a man of virtue was the origin of his air of stiffness.
As for his dress, if it was affectedly antique, it was
at least clean ; and, not without dignity in the exercise
of his office, he made himself respected.

The fashion in which business was transacted by a
Cabinet composed of elements so dissimilar was curiously
informal. The ministers were accustomed to attend
the King, each in turn presenting the papers belonging
to his department for the royal signature; after which
a move was made to the council-chamber, where Louis
read the newspapers, wrote letters, conversed good-
naturedly with the members of the council on their
private affairs, talked sensibly of public matters, and
displayed or affected a desire for the success of the con-
stitution. Was it possible, the men responsible for the
Government asked themselves, that he was sincere, and
that, at length, all would go well ?

" What do you think of him ? " Madame Roland
inquired of her husband eagerly after his first presenta-
tion.

" He has more information than he is thought to
have," was the reply ; " under the semblance of bonhomie ',
I take him to be acute, and capable of playing us a
trick if we are not on our guard."

If this was Roland's first impression — it is quoted
by Madame Grandchamp — it was afterwards modified to
a degree his wife found irritating. Both he and Claviere,
12

178 Life of Madame Roland

the Minister of Finance, appear for the space of three
weeks to have fallen under the spell of benevolent
royalty, were delighted with Louis's good intentions and
sanguine as to the result.

Madame Roland was less hopeful. " Bon Tlieu" she
once said, "when I see you set out in this confiding
frame of mind, I always imagine you to be in danger
of perpetrating an act of folly. "

Claviere protested. " I assure you," he said, " that
the King is perfectly aware that his interest is bound
up in observing the established laws. He reasons too
pertinently on the subject not to be persuaded of this
truth."

" Ma foi" added Roland, " if he is not an honest
man, he is the greatest scoundrel in the kingdom. It
is not possible to dissimulate so well"

Madame Roland was unconvinced. It seemed to her
incredible that a sovereign, born and bred in an atmos-
phere of despotism, should honestly adhere to the con-
stitution, and she proved right. In the meantime Louis
displayed a certain astuteness in dealing with the men
with whom he was thus brought into personal relations.
On the main questions at issue, he could not be in
accord with a body of whom the majority considered a
republic the ideal form of government ; but he was adroit
in avoiding discussion, and in turning the conversation
from dangerous topics. When war was talked of, he;
would speak of travels ; when it was a question ofl
diplomacy, would discuss the habits and customs ofl
different localities or countries ; if the condition of homej
affairs was raised, he would make inquiries about agri-j
cultural or industrial details, showing a gratifying interest ;
in Roland's writings. Dumouriez was encouraged to
tell anecdotes, and the council-board assumed the character 1
of a cafe and place of amusement. With more candour
than courtesy Madame Roland would criticise the pro-

Ministers and King 179

ceedings described by her husband, perceiving that on
the majority of occasions little business had been done.

"You are all in a good humour because you
experience no vexations, and are even treated with
civility. You seem each to do much as you please in
your several departments. I fear that you are being
tricked."

" Yet business goes on," Roland argued.

" Yes," she replied, " and time is being lost, for,
involved as you are in a flood of affairs, I would rather
you employed three hours in meditating in solitude upon
great combinations than spent them in useless talk."

The rebuke might have been more gently worded.
Yet there was much to excuse, if not justify, impatience
during those first weeks of the patriot administration.
Were the men at present at the head of the Government
destined to prove the salvation of France ? The question
must have presented itself again and again to Madame
Roland as she watched the ministers who were accustomed
to dine every Friday at the Hotel of the Interior, and
appraised with her critical intelligence the weight and
character of each — of de Grave, Minister of War, inept,
gentle, and timid, bent upon the conciliation of all, to
the point of becoming himself a thing of nought ; of
Lacoste, at the Marine, cold and dogmatic, the typical
official ; of Duranthon, Minister of Justice, honest but
lazy ; of Claviere, upright, active, and industrious, yet
obstinate and irascible ; of Dumouriez, cleverer and less
moral than any other of his colleagues. Were these men,
with Roland, of whose merits — and deficiencies — she was
so well aware, fitted to lead Israel into the promised land ?

Perhaps the very uncertainty enveloping the future,
the knowledge that others had tried, and tried in
vain, to grapple with the situation, may have lent an
added element of excitement to it, not altogether
unwelcome to such a woman as Marie Roland,

180 Life of Madame Roland

arduous, restless, longing above all things to live, to
taste of everything that existence here on earth has to
offer, and never unwilling to spend and be spent in
the cause she had at heart. The long, weary years of
uselessness were at an end ; she had her hands full of
work worth doing.

She has left a clear and candid account of the share
she took in Roland's duties and labours. In all those
labours she shared. Her life at this time had concen-
trated itself to a singular extent. Side-paths or interests
would seem scarcely to have existed for her. She made a
rule of paying and receiving no merely social visits — a \
custom involving the less sacrifice on her part as her j
acquaintances in Paris were few. By this means she was ;
left the more time to devote to the fulfilment of the
demands made upon her by her husband. Twice a
week she gave dinners for men, attended by the minis- 1
ters, by deputies, or by others who had business relations j
with Roland. Her tact and discretion, her careful absti-
nence from the semblance of any species of interposition
in their debates or discussions, had borne fruit, and theyi
spoke freely before her, often preferring, when con-j
fidential affairs were in question, to seek Roland in herj
private sitting-room than to transact their business int
his official apartments. She had become a centre on
the Girondist party, her keen wit, her sagacity, and heij
personal magnetism making her more and more ar|
influence to be reckoned with ; a woman who inspirecj
brave men to acts of heroism and gave courage and
faith to the timid. Even upon those who did no mon
than cross her path she left an impression not rapidhj
effaced. Once only after the Revolution had swept hej
into its current did Lemontey see her, but the picturj
he has left is clear and vivid.

She seemed to him to have grown no older since thj
days when, in the middle of her country surrounding!

Madame Roland's Labours 181

she had retained so singular an air of youth ; nor was
her freshness and simplicity any less ; so that, even
with her long-haired child at her side, she might have
been taken for Roland's daughter rather than his wife.
Yet her eyes, with their melancholy clear-sightedness,
saw the beginnings of the anarchy she would, if need
were, fight to the death. " I remember," he added, " the
calm, resolute tone in which she told me she would carry,
when necessary, her head to the scaffold." And so the
two^parted, never to meet again.

[Trie most important part of the labours she performed
washer participation in the preparation of letters and
dispatches. As in earlier days she had assisted Roland
in every species of literary work, so she now participated
in his ministerial toil. At one upon all points of political
and social principle, agreed in aims, objects, and hopes,
more ready than he with her pen, there was no danger
that she would commit him to sentiments or opinions
he did not share. Looking at the matter dispassionately,
she could assert that though without her aid he would
have been no less capable as an administrator, his activity
and knowledge, like his integrity, being his own, she was
the means of his producing a greater effect, by intro-
ducing into his writings the mixture of strength and
gentleness, reason and sentiment, belonging perhaps only
to a woman endowed with sensibility and a healthy mind.
To work thus behind the scenes was her delight. Find-
ing happiness in doing good, she had no desire for
notoriety : " I see, in this world, no role which suits
me save that of Providence." The avowal — she admits
that it is liable to misconception — is a sincere and frank
• confession of her inordinate aspirations.

There could be no doubt that those spring weeks

covered a time when France and its newly established

\ Government demanded all the help that could be afforded

; it. The aspect, as regarded its foreign foes, was in-

1 82 Life of Madame Roland

creasingly dark. Troops were continuing to gather at
Coblentz ; the emigrants, formally discouraged by Austria,
were permitted to maintain a staff of officers in the royal
uniform and white cockades at Brussels ; Austria herself
had crossed the frontier of Basle and was a menace in
that quarter. The conditions imposed by Leopold were
exacted by his successor, Francis II., if peace were to
be preserved ; and those conditions were contrary to the
whole spirit of the Revolution. War was practically
certain. The country desired it, the ministers saw the
necessity of it ; the dominant party in the Assembly
concurred in the view. Months earlier Brissot, the leader
of the Girondists, had declared that, in his opinion, it was
inevitable. " By force of reasoning and of facts," he had
said at the Jacobins in December, " I have come to the
conviction that a people which has conquered liberty after
ten centuries of slavery has need of war. War is necessary
to consolidate freedom, to purge the constitution from
the remains of despotism ; war is necessary to banish
from our midst the men who could corrupt." Emigrant
rebels, foreign sovereigns, were united against France.
" Can we hesitate to attack them ? Do you desire to
destroy the aristocracy at a single blow ? Then destroy
Coblentz."

Brissot's words had re-echoed through the kingdom,
and the months that had passed since they were uttered ^
had served to give his arguments increased force,;
and to add to the danger of delay in dealing with thel
gathering strength of the powers arrayed against thej
constitution. The main question was practically decided.!
It remained to determine which of the belligerents was;
to take the initial step of declaring war. On April 2C
that question was settled.

Accompanied by his ministers, Louis listened at the
Assembly to the report read by Dumouriez as ministei
in charge of foreign affairs, explaining the failure of peac<

War Declared

183

negotiations, recapitulating the demands of Austria, and
stating his opinion that war was inevitable. After which
the King, the unhappy mouthpiece of men he must have
regarded as engaged in the destruction of the monarchy,
tears in his eyes, his voice shaken by emotion, announced
and endorsed the conclusion of the council. [War musy
be declared. ^J

— ^Fhe^ctecision was welcomed by the majority of the
Assembly, and that evening a resolution approving it
was carried almost unanimously.

CHAPTER XVII

Robespierre and the Gironde — Madame Roland's position — Disagree-
ment between King and cabinet — Roland's letter to the King — His
dismissal.

WAR was declared. It was for the Government
to take measures to carry it on with success,
and their task was rendered the more difficult by the
dissensions in the Assembly. To this juncture belongs
a letter of Madame Roland's, interesting alike as affording
the first indication on her part of a dangerous diverg-
ence in the opinions of Robespierre and his friends from
the men with whom she was associated, and as showing
the tone of something like authority she was by this time
assuming.

Her letters to Robespierre, both from Le Clos and
at the time of her husband's appointment, had been
couched in terms of warm admiration and respect ;
whilst a certain intimacy is implied in a general invita-
tion she had given him to dinner. In a note to Bosc —
now fully restored to his former footing — she wrote of
having been asked by Robespierre for a rendezvous.
On the other hand, a letter to Robespierre himself
points to the desire for a meeting having been on her
side, rather than his. It is certain that some days
before it was written he had alluded at the Jacobins
in violent terms to "la cour et les intrigants dont la
cour se sert"; and on April 25, in a stormy debate in
the Assembly, had come into conflict with Brissot and

184

Letter to Robespierre 185

Guadet. On the night he had thus declared himself an
enemy Madame Roland took up her pen and addressed
to him a letter of grave remonstrance, beginning it in
language implying that it was not the first time she
had attempted to play the part of peacemaker. "The
more you appeared to differ upon an interesting question
from men whose insight and integrity I respect, the
more important it seemed to me to bring together those
who, having but one aim, should conciliate each other
as to the manner of attaining it. . . . With grief I saw
that you were persuaded that whosoever held a different
opinion to yours as to the war was not a good citizen.
I have never done you a like injustice. I know excellent
citizens who hold opinions contrary to yours, and I have
not esteemed you the less because you took a different
view. I sighed over your prejudices ; I desired, in
order to avoid contracting any myself, to be made
acquainted with your reasons. You promised to com-
municate them to me ; you were to come to see me. . . .
You have shunned me, you have made known to me
nothing, and meantime you are exciting public opinion
against those who do not agree with you. I am too
candid not to admit that this course seems to me lacking
in candour. . . . Time will make all things known ; its
justice is slow but sure; it is the hope and the consolation
of good men. I await from it the confirmation or the
justification of my esteem for those for whom I feel it.
It is for you, monsieur, to consider that this justice of
time will immortalise your fame or destroy it for ever."

It was the tone of a monitress, befitting rather the
minister than the minister's wife, nor was Robespierre
likely to be moved by the appeal. The very fact that
it was made, doubtless with her husband's cognisance,
indicates the position she had been accorded in her
party and her confidence in her influence and power
even outside the inner circle of her intimates.

1 86 Life of Madame Roland

If Louis had yielded — with what reluctance can be
guessed — in declaring war against his natural allies, the
dividing line between himself and his council was daily
becoming more clearly accentuated. Throughout May
the gulf was widening. De Grave had been replaced at
the War Office by a more competent substitute ; and
Servan, who had been known to the Rolands at Lyons
and owed his appointment to Madame Roland, was War
Minister — upright, austere, and brave, lacking only, in
her opinion, coolness and force. In a letter to him
on his promotion she did not disclaim her responsibility.
" Yes, monsieur," she wrote, " I have wished it, willed
it. I adhere to that opinion, and you will justify it."

He justified it — if Dumouriez is to be believed —
by remaining entirely at her orders. It cannot be
denied that her manner of addressing him is somewhat
that of the commanding officer of the Minister of War.
Hitherto, she told him, the ministry had been handi-
capped by the presence of a ci-devant. Now that all
its members were true revolutionists, if they had not
shown their character and taken imposing measures in
a fortnight it would have been proved that they were of
no greater worth than others. " Remember your severe
plans for restraining the officers and restoring confidence
to the soldiers ; remember the letter the King is to be
made to write to Luckner — it is urgent, and must take
effect. . . . Remember your decisions upon the necessity
of collecting a great force, instead of small armies, upon
the Brabant frontier. Remember •, my worthy friend, that
justice is kindness in men who are in office, and that
firmness is the hardest quality to preserve in that
position."

Again, and this time to a more docile pupil than
Robespierre, the letter, with its italics, is the letter of a
moni tress.

During that month of May events were hurrying on,

The Royal Veto 187

The disagreement between Louis and what was nick-
named at Court the Sansculotte Ministry could not be
permanently disguised by casual conversation and personal
kindliness ; and the two decrees of the Assembly with
regard to the banishment of non-juring priests and the
formation of a camp of 20,000 volunteers, to be collected
in Paris as a defence against enemies foreign and domestic,
brought matters to a crisis. After vain attempts to gain
time, Louis vetoed both measures. To those who had
cherished the hope that the King had yielded to the
inevitable and would consent to co-operate in the work
of the Assembly, his decision caused bitter disappoint-
ment. The measures at stake were considered by Roland
and his party essential to the safety of the country.
The priests — most unfortunately for themselves and for
religion associated with reaction — were viewed as a peril
at home ; the presence of a strong force in the capital,
whose loyalty to the Revolution could be reckoned on,
was essential, now that war was imminent ; and to the
Minister of the Interior, at first obstinately tenacious
of his belief in Louis's good faith, his refusal to ratify the
decrees of the Assembly involved the reversal of his
opinion. Prepared for the step by the delays Louis
had interposed, his confidence in him had been shaken.
The formal veto pressed home the conviction that it
would be impossible for men of his own political creed
to administer the Government — a conviction shared
to the full by his wife. Throughout those weeks
of anxiety and excitement she had watched day by day
the indications of defeat. Honestly persuaded that the
constitution, with all its faults, offered for the present
the best chance of tranquillity and order, to her, no less
than to Roland, the proof afforded by the King's deter-
mination that it could not be successfully worked
occasioned sincere regret. Her mind had become centred,
fixed, on the political situation ; she was possessed by

1 88 Life of Madame Roland

what she herself termed a moral fever, and expedients
to avert disaster, hopeless as they might be, were the
pre-occupations of the hour.

Amongst the ministers, Dumouriez was most
genuinely attached to Louis ; but his efforts to convince
him of the necessity of submitting to the popular will
were fruitless. Had he been King, he told a colleague,
he would have defeated all parties by becoming a
Jacobin. For those who lacked the art of savoir vivre,
he had the contempt of a man of the world ; and of
Roland he once said that he was the most scheming and
the clumsiest of the Girondists. Had it been true, it
would have been an unfortunate combination. True or
false, it was not by such men as Roland that the political
situation could be successfully dealt with, if, indeed,
it could have been so dealt with by any man. Beyond a
certain point no arguments could move Louis ; and dis-
union— attributed by Dumouriez to Servan's appointment
— had replaced the harmony reigning for a brief space in
the cabinet. According to the Minister for Foreign
Affairs, Madame Roland's rooms had become the bureau
of the Gironde, and the Friday ministerial dinners were
transformed into the meetings of a faction desirous of
directing the Government. Taking this view of the
matter, Dumouriez and Lacoste not unnaturally resolved
to abstain from any discussion on these occasions of the
business connected with their departments ; representing
to Roland the danger involved in disclosing to members
of the Assembly the proceedings of the council.
There were times, they declared, when secrecy was a
necessity. Roland disagreed. He would do nothing,
he replied, without taking the advice of his friends — or
he might have added, said Dumouriez, of his wife.

Not only on the more important questions of policy
was the ministry at variance. Sentiment counted for
something. Dumouriez, Lacoste, and in a lesser degree

Discressions in the Cabinet 189

Duranthon, were loyal to the monarchical principle ;
the republican views of their three colleagues were
increasingly pronounced. To Dumouriez what he con-
ceived to be abuse of Louis's gentleness was offensive ;
the " pin-pricks " to which the King was subjected
at the council-board revolted him. He was also
indignant when at one of the Friday dinners Guadet,
a prominent Girondist member, produced a letter
addressed in what the General considered insolent terms
to the King, requiring him to replace his non-juring
confessor by a constitutional priest, and demanded that it
should receive the signature of the ministers. Refusing
his concurrence, Dumouriez said scornfully that the King
might have his affairs of conscience directed by an iman,
rabbi, a papist, or a Calvinist, and no one would have
right to object. The proposal was dropped, but the
rironde was no more inclined than before to include
le sovereign in their scheme of liberty.

In the middle of May the idea of a joint letter to
,ouis, dealing with the important question of the veto, had
xurred to the Rolands. Again difficulties arose. One
tan objected to the wording of the document ; others
lemurred at the attempt to force the King's hand ;
lumouriez was more than lukewarm in the matter, and
:he project was again abandoned. Some three weeks
later it took another shape ; and Roland wrote — or rather
signed — the famous letter to Louis, urging him to show
himself the King of the Revolution.

It was written by his wife at a single sitting — she
was always ready with her pen — and it put the question
plainly : did Louis mean to adhere to the constitution or
to join with those who pretended to reform it ? For the
Declaration of Rights and the French constitution the
people were ready to die. The country was not a word,
a term — it was a fact, loved for what was suffered for it,
for what it had cost, and for what it promised. Enthusiasm

190 Life of Madame Roland

for it grew as it was attacked. The enemies' forces were
arrayed against it without, and united with enemies
within to assail it. Excitement was growing and,
unless confidence in the King were restored, would
break forth in fury. The restoration of confidence
demanded facts, not professions. A warning followed as
to the result of rejecting the two decrees which were
the question of the hour, and Louis was told that no
method of temporising would avail. " The Revolution
has been accomplished in the minds of the nation ; it will
be completed at the price of blood if wisdom does not
forestall the evils that can still be averted. Force might
indeed be used to coerce the Assembly, terror be spread
through Paris, but France would make its indignation
felt and develop the sombre energy fatal to those who
provoke it." The safety of the State and Louis's welfare
were bound up together ; the throne was doomed to
misfortune did the King not adhere to the constitution,
and by uniting with the Assembly carry out the desire of
the nation. A little further delay and the people would
see in their sovereign the accomplice of the enemy. As
citizen and as minister, the letter concluded, it was
Roland's duty to use the plain language rarely heard
by kings, and he had fulfilled that duty. " Life," he
ended, u is nothing to the man who regards his duties
as above all else ; after the happiness of having per-
formed them, the greatest good that he can know is
to feel that he has discharged them faithfully ; and to
do so is an obligation for the public officer."

This, very briefly summarised, was the document
drawn up by Madame Roland for her husband's signature
— this was the appeal made to Louis. Had he listened
to it, had conscience permitted him to take its admonitions
to heart, it is possible that even at that stage he might
have regained some of the ground he had lost.

Pache, the man trusted by both, was present when the

Letter to the King 191

Rolands read the letter. " It is a bold proceeding," he
observed.

" Bold ! no doubt it is bold," was the reply. " It is
right and necessary. What matters the rest ? "

On the following day Roland took the letter with
him to the meeting of the council, intending to read
it aloud in the presence of his colleagues, before placing
it in the King's hands. The discussion on the two
decrees had been renewed when Louis cut it short by
desiring each minister to bring his written opinion to the
next meeting of the council-board. That same day
Roland sent the King the letter he had prepared. Its
effect was soon seen.

" The next day," wrote Madame Roland, " I saw
Servan enter my apartment, radiant. c Congratulate me,'
he said. c I am dismissed.' c My husband,' 1 replied,
1 will soon share that honour. I am jealous that it has
been accorded to you first.' "

The reason of Servan's pre-eminence was explained.
He had waited on Louis that morning, to press upon
him, as Minister of War, the prompt establishment of the
military camp. The King, manifestly displeased, had
turned his back upon him, and the interview resulted in
the appearance of Dumouriez at the War Office, with
orders to take over the direction of affairs.

Hearing what had passed, Roland summoned his
colleagues to meet in conference ; it was his wife's opinion
— possibly his own — that the more dignified course
would be for the patriot ministry to send in their resigna-
tions, rather than to await dismissal, expressing their
inability to serve with Dumouriez. But the Cabinet
was divided against itself, and demurred at Roland's
proposal of a joint written remonstrance, preferring to
protest by word of mouth. " A step destitute of common
sense," observes Madame Roland, " since when it is a
question of the forcible expression of disagreeable truths

192 Life of Madame Roland

to a person enjoying, by his position, a right to great
consideration, it is more advantageous to do it in writing."
Madame Roland, it may be remarked, thought most
things were best done by means of pen and ink, and for
this there may have been more than one reason. In the
end Duranthon was sent for by the King, and when he
returned it was to present their discharge to both Roland
and Claviere.

" You have kept us waiting for our liberty," said
Roland with a laugh as he took the document from his
hands. " It is in truth that." " I am dismissed also," he
told his wife on his return to the Hotel Britannique,
where she had been waiting for news, her busy brain
revolving the most effective fashion of meeting the
blow.

The uncertainty and timidity of her husband's
colleagues, Claviere and Servan excepted, had been a
disappointment to her. Dumouriez she had distrusted
from the first, nor did his treachery take her unawares ;
that men like Duranthon and Lacoste, though of no
great weight, should decline to make common cause
with their comrades occasioned her a shock. As to
the course to be pursued by Roland she had no doubt.
Through the indecision of his colleagues he had already
forfeited the advantage of sending in a voluntary resigna-
tion. It was still in his power to be the first to make
the announcement of what had occurred to the Assembly.

"As [the King] has not profited by the lessons
contained in your letter," she told him, " those lessons
must be rendered of use to the public by being made
known. I see nothing more in harmony with the
courage of having written it than the boldness of sending
a copy to the Assembly. Learning your dismissal, it will
see what was the cause of it."

The thing was done, and. was attended with entire
success. The Assembly declared that the discarded

I

Roland's Letter 193

inisters, Roland, Claviere, and Servan, carried with
them the regrets of the nation, ordering that the letter
to the King should be printed and sent to the depart-
ments. Madame Roland congratulated herself upon her
husband's fall. " I had not been proud of his entry
upon office ; I was proud of his leaving it." Of the
strong feeling aroused by his letter a passage in the
memoirs of Barbaroux, not yet acquainted with the
writer, is proof. Rebecqui, a friend of Barbaroux's,
had conceived himself to have cause of complaint
against the Minister of the Interior, but as he read the
missive he exclaimed, pressing it to his heart — it was
a time of emotion — cc I am that man's friend for ever."

Thus ended Roland's — and Madame Roland's — first
period of official life.1

1 Dumouriez asserts that the communication by Roland of his letter to
the Assembly was a dishonourable breach of confidence, since he had
expressly assured the King that it was to remain a secret for ever between
Louis and himself. The passage referred to is not to be found in the
version published in the Moniteur\ but it is of course possible that it was
removed before it was printed.

CHAPTER XVIII

At the rue de la Harpe — Lafayette's influence declining — Barbaroux and
the Rolands — The invasion of the Tuileries — The country declared in
danger — Duke of Brunswick's manifesto.

WHEN the Rolands quitted their official residence,
it was not to return to the Hotel Britannique,
but to the apartment they had furnished in the rue
de la Harpe. Thither Madame Grandchamp hastened
— her old affection revived and causes of offence, real
or imaginary, forgotten — to offer her sympathy. The
visit was not satisfactory. Roland spoke freely of the
causes of his dismissal, expressed his opinion of the
court, and of the probable consequences of its action.
His views and those of his guest were not in accord,
and she withdrew, " too much wounded to make for
his sake the sacrifice of what I should have to suffer."
She never met him again.

From the rue de la Harpe the Rolands looked on,
through the hot summer weeks, at what was going
forward, wondering whether all had been in vain and
whether the old order of things was destined to regain
its ascendancy and overcome the forces set loose against
it. Could this indeed be so ?

The men chosen, from amongst the Feuillants, to I
replace the late Ministry were of no weight, their very j
names being now forgotten. Dumouriez was not of their j
number. His advice to the King had been to dismiss his t
ministers, and to withdraw his veto from the popular
decrees. The priests, he argued, would be safer in

194

At the rue de la Harpe 195

banishment. As to danger from the proposed camp, he
could avert it by sending detachments of the troops, as
they collected in Paris, to join the army. Louis took
his advice so far as the ministers were concerned, but
no further, and Dumouriez himself went to join the
army.

Meantime, with a flicker of reviving hope, Feuillants
and monarchists had united in opposition to the growing
menace of the Jacobin Club. Lafayette, from the camp
at Mauberge — forgetting that popularity is a passing
thing, and with no suspicion that his own was on the
wane — wrote in autocratic fashion to the Assembly to
denounce the Jacobins ; to demand the suppression of
all clubs and the independence and safety of the Crown ;
and, finally, to urge the Assembly itself to abide by law
and constitutional methods. The time for Lafayette to
make demands was, he was quickly to be shown, gone by.
His letter was well meant ; as an appeal it might have
had some effect. Coming from a man who spoke in the
name of the army, it sounded perilously like a threat.

To Roland and his wife, withdrawn from active
participation in the struggle, something like chaos must
have seemed to prevail. And who was there capable
of restoring order, where order was none ? Madame
Roland, notwithstanding her friendly relations with many
of the men brought to the front by the chances of the
Revolution, took a pessimistic view of their capacities
and abilities ; and the mediocrity marking those who had
been placed in responsible positions had especially sur-
prised and startled her so soon as she had had an
opportunity of forming a judgment of them. With
the frankness of a writer whose words will be read
only when she is in the grave, she gave expression to
her disappointment, adding the naive confession of a con-
sciousness of her personal superiority. " It was only
at that time " — of Roland's ministry — " that I acquired

196 Life of Madame Roland

assurance," she wrote ; " till then I had been as modest
as a schoolgirl. I imagined that persons with more
decided views than I were also cleverer. I really do not
wonder that they liked me. They felt that I had some
value. Yet I honestly respected the self-respect of
others."

Whether her estimate of the men at the helm was
right or wrong, the fact that she had no faith in their
efficiency must have gone far to destroy her hopes.
Others, too, looked on with sadness and discouragement.
Young Barbaroux, come from Marseilles in February,
weary of the noise and dissension of the Jacobin Club,
weary too of Robespierre's ascendancy there and of his
jealousy of any rival, shut himself up with his friend
Rebecqui, " measuring the ills of their country and
musing upon the means of saving her." Was it possible
to save her ?

It was natural that kindred spirits should draw
together. At a chance meeting with Roland and Lanthenas
in the street, it was arranged that the young southerner
should pay a visit to the former on the following day.
At the rue de la Harpe he found " the retreat of a
philosopher," and there he became acquainted with
the philosopher's wife — the " marvellous woman " of
whom in his memoirs he promises — an unfulfilled
promise — to speak elsewhere. What Madame Roland
thought of the young man — he was no more than twenty-
five — she has left upon record. With a head of Antinous,
he was brave and frank, had the vivacity of the south, was
a lover of liberty, proud of the Revolution, a man who
liked work and was capable of sustained effort. People
insinuated, as was perhaps natural, that in the appreciation
of a woman of thirty-eight of a man thirteen years
younger there was the element of sentiment. She liked
and respected Servan, and the same charge was made. In
neither case is there a shadow of evidence to bear out the

Barbaroux 197

assertion ; and if proof of its falsity, in Barbaroux's case,
were necessary, it is contained in the fact that the attach-
ment he afterwards developed for Buzot caused Madame
Roland to bestow upon the two in jest the names of
Nisus and Euryale.

The meeting in the rue de la Harpe was probably the
first between Barbaroux and Madame Roland, though a
correspondence had been kept up between Roland himself
and the young Marseillais during his term of office ; when
Barbaroux had remonstrated with the minister upon the
^verity of his language in dealing with disorders in the
>uth, representing to him that gentler methods would be
tore successful in recalling the delinquents to obedience.
Poland acted upon his advice, "adopted the tone of a
irother rather than of an administrator, recaptured the
[arseillais, and esteemed Barbaroux."

When she met the wise counsellor of her husband,
adame Roland, remembering his protest, was taken
by surprise at the youth of the writer. Young as
he was, and with all the fervour and enthusiasm of
his years, he had a clear head and an eye to
practical methods. At this first interview it would seem
to have been chiefly Roland who talked. If the intrigues
of the Court were not defeated, he said, liberty was lost.
Lafayette was apparently meditating treason in the north ;
the army of the centre was disorganised and incapable of
facing the enemy ; in six weeks the Austrians might be in
Paris. " Shall we then," asked Roland, " have worked
for three years at this fairest of Revolutions only to see it
overthrown in a day ? If liberty perishes in France, it is
lost for ever to the rest of the world. All the hopes of
philosophers are destroyed, the cruellest tyranny will
oppress the world. Let us prevent this misfortune ; let
us arm Paris and the northern departments ; or should
they fall, let us carry the statue of liberty to the south
and — somewhere — found a colony of the free."

198 Life of Madame Roland

Roland's eyes were wet with tears. Barbaroux and
Madame Roland caught the infection of emotion, and they
too wept.

Barbaroux had his contribution to make to future
possibilities. He was well acquainted with the resources
of the south. A map of France was produced ; the three
studied it — the man, disappointed and disillusioned, old
beyond his years; the woman, strenuous and energetic,
refusing to believe in ultimate failure ; and their guest,
scarcely emerged from boyhood and with the ardour, the
dreams, of boyhood still about him. His country, the
south, was zealous in the cause of liberty — " fanaticism,
and our faults," he afterwards wrote sadly, " had not yet
armed La Vendee" — and its spirit could be utilised in
defence of the Revolution.

The interview was the first of many. Servan would
sometimes join in discussing ways and means, bringing his
military knowledge and experience to bear upon schemes
which the confederates themselves must have felt belonged
to the counsels of despair. Places, localities, men, favour-
able to them were noted. Surely, should the worst come
to the worst, something could be saved out of the wreck.

" It will be our pis-aller" Barbaroux would say with a
smile, " but the Marseillais who are here will prevent our
being forced to have recourse to it."

For Barbaroux, hot and impetuous, had taken measures
to coerce the Court ; he had written to ask Marseilles to
send six hundred men to Paris " who knew how to die,"
and Marseilles sent them.

This, however, was later. The Marseillais did not
reach the capital till towards the end of July. More than
a month earlier the great demonstration of June 20 j
had taken place, when the united sections of Paris
marched in their thousands to present their petition and
protest to the Assembly and to solicit the recall of the I
patriot Ministry, denouncing the inactivity of the armies,

Invasion of the Tuileries 199

and demanding that if the cause of that inactivity was
found to lie with the executive power — in other words,
with the King — the executive power should be destroyed.
The invasion of the Tuileries, with its tumultuous
scenes, came next ; Louis, face to face with the insurgent
populace, had the opportunity of measuring the strength
of the forces arrayed against him and the spirit by which
they were inspired. It is not necessary to dwell upon
occurrences familiar to every reader. It was demonstrated
once for all — that fact so difficult for those hedged in
with the tradition of centuries to grasp or understand —
that royalty stood stripped of its sanctity in the eyes of the
crowd, that the intangible shield and defence of inherited
prestige was not shaken, but shattered. Louis, the red
cap on his head, the courage of his race suddenly apparent
in countenance, speech, and bearing, was no more to the
excited and turbulent mass who had penetrated to his
>resence than a public servant — their representative —
:harged with unfaithfulness.

The day, like others, drew to an end. Deputies,

ergniaud amongst them, Petion the mayor, had hurried
:o the palace to protect and defend it against the mob.

'he multitude, having made its demands, having had
:hem refused with dignity and calm, swept out the

ray that they had come. But a memorable and signifi-
cant development of the situation had taken place, a
prelude and omen of what was to follow.

What followed first was, however, a species of reaction
called forth by chivalrous indignation at the insults offered
to decadent royalty, an indignation not only felt by its
loyal adherents, but by the constitutionalists, who con-
tinued to regard Louis as the head of the State. To all,
likewise, who desired a peaceful solution of the present
difficulties, the weapons of the mob were repugnant.
Had Louis even now been disposed to co-operate heartily
with the parties who would have combined in opposition

200 Life of Madame Roland

to the extremists, something might have been done ; but
he was fixing his hopes more and more upon foreign
intervention, and feared to commit himself to the con-
stitutionalists and their methods. Lafayette, who, quitting
his post with the army, hurried, full of indignation, to
Paris to demand the chastisement of the rioters and the
suppression of the Jacobins, met with a cool reception,
nor were his endeavours to rally the National Guard
for the King's defence seconded by the Court. He had
attempted a bold game, at no little risk to himself. He
had failed, and returned to the camp defeated.

The question remained, what was to be done ? The
answer could not be postponed, if a successful opposition
was to be made to the foreign foe whose preparations
were going actively forward. Invasion was imminent —
so much was plain to men of whatever faction. To the
royalists its success meant deliverance ; to all sections of
the revolutionist party ruin. Was the King in league
with the enemy ? It could hardly be doubted. Yet when
Vergniaud made his speech in the debate on the question
whether the country should be formally declared in
danger and measures taken accordingly, his denunciation
of Louis's attitude was still couched in the language
of hypothesis. Should the King have offered opposition
to the steps necessary for the national safety, should this
be the case, he painted the consequences in words
applicable to a man who violated the constitution and
betrayed his people. Most of those who heard him must
have been convinced that they were applicable to Louis.
Brissot shortly after spoke in the same sense, and
without veiling his meaning by conventional respect.
The Tuileries, he said, was the centre of the plots
and conspiracies devised against the nation. Strike a
blow at the palace, and all would be reached.

The immediate purpose of the patriots was served ;
the country was declared, in the prescribed formula,

Duke of Brunswick's Manifesto 201

to be in danger, citizens were called upon to take up
arms in its defence, and an outburst of enthusiasm was
the result. Battalions of volunteers were enrolled, a
camp was formed at Soissons. Men like Barbaroux
quitted their quasi-retirement and threw themselves
into the work of organising resistance to the Court.
His visits to the Rolands almost ceased. By words he
had let drop they divined that he was preparing an
insurrection, but asked no question. When he begged
them, should he absent himself altogether, not to mis-
judge his motives — he would be deterred from coming
solely by the fear of compromising them — they were sure
that their surmise had been correct.

So the July days went by. The 14th had been
fixed for a fresh federation meeting on the Champs
de Mars ; it was thinly attended. Perhaps anniversaries
were growing common. Some bodies of federates, never-
theless, tramped up from the provinces, bringing with
them their protests or petitions, mostly urging decheance
or suspension for the King. Decheance, Brissot too
would have liked, including perhaps a reversion of the
Crown to the little heir, with a patriot regency to
carry on the government. How the government was
carried on, even nominally, in these days it is difficult
to say. On July 10 the helpless Ministry had resigned
in a body, the Girondists looking grimly on at the
collapse of their successors, self-convicted of failure.

Had the fire of popular excitement needed fuel to
keep it ablaze, it was supplied by the manifesto issued
by the Duke of Brunswick. Let the French people
rally round him and round the emigrants, let them
return to their duty and to the King who had sworn
they should be happy. Let the Assembly maintain cities
and fortresses intact, till the Duke should take them
over. Those who resisted were to be treated as traitors,
and any insult or injury to the King or his removal

202 Life of Madame Roland

from Paris was to be avenged on the capital by military
execution. So ran the document. It was not to be
wondered at that popular excitement was raised to fever
pitch, or that the cry for dhhiance grew louder and
louder.

On July 29 Barbaroux's body of Marseillais —
the men who knew how to die — had arrived, and as
Barbaroux met them at Charenton he dreamt, with the
optimism of twenty-five, of a Paris which should rise with
one accord to join them and of the bloodless establishment
of a republic.

Turning to the Rolands themselves, it appears that
they decided at this time upon leaving Paris, since on
July 26 Roland demanded the necessary permission from
the Assembly and about a week later received it. If
Madame Roland is to be believed, neither she nor
her husband were aware of what was in preparation.
" All the world is acquainted with the revolution of
August 10," she writes. "On this subject I know no
more than the public. Conversant with the great
current of affairs so long as Roland was a public man,
and following it with interest even when he was no
longer in office, I was never the confidant of what may
be called small manoeuvres, nor was he an agent in affairs
of the kind."

It may be true that she knew nothing definite ; with
others of her friends, as with Barbaroux, she may have
displayed the wise discretion of silence, whatever sus-
picions she entertained. It is difficult to believe that
the events of that day took her altogether by surprise.

CHAPTER XIX

August 10 — Roland recalled to office — The new Cabinet — Danton's
position in it — Madame Roland and Danton— Her wish to see Marat —
Rapid enactments — The invading forces — Terror in Paris — The
September massacres.

ON August 10 Roland was recalled to office.
Accepting his wife's assertion that with the in-
surrection of that memorable day neither had been
directly concerned, it was nevertheless in full accordance
with the principle they held and had held for long as to
the right and the duty of the people to use force, should
other means fail, to safeguard the country from foes
within and without. In a letter to Brissot — analysed at
length by Sainte-Beuve, but now lost — Madame Roland
had demanded with violence the King's provisional sus-
pension, had protested against the inaction of the
Assembly, and had criticised Brissot's policy. Passing
in review " the illustrious and brotherly group surrounded,
from a distance, with a single aureole," she had pointed
out the deficiencies of each member of it. Finding it
vain to seek a man truly fitted in her eyes to be the leader
in the approaching crisis, she fell back, in spite of his lack
of not a few important qualifications, upon Brissot, and
called upon him to play that part.

The letter was written on July 31, not a fortnight
before the decisive blow was struck, and, maddened with
anger and fear combined— fear of the foreign enemy,
anger at the inaction of the Government — the populace

took the law into its own hands. An incompetent if not

203

204 Life of Madame Roland

traitorous administration must be replaced by one more
trustworthy ; the King must be removed from his position
at the head of the executive. The sections of Paris
were unanimous and prepared to enforce their opinion.
By Thursday, August 9, the crisis was imminent, and
the royalists were making ready for defence. That night
delegates from each section arrived at the H6tel de Ville,
and, with the exception of three of its members — Petion,
Manuel, and Danton — ousted the municipality ; replacing
it by a body of men who, under the name of the Com-
mune, would not hesitate or delay to proceed to extremities.
The insurrection was to take place, and at once.

By the morning the first blood had been shed — that
of Mandat, commanding the Guards. Committed to
prison by the new power on suspicion of an intention to
oppose armed resistance to the popular will, he was
torn from his escort and murdered by the mob on the
steps of the Hotel de Ville. How the day ended all
know. The Swiss, like Barbaroux's Marseillais, showed
that they knew how to die ; the Assembly — the Con-
stitutionalist members having withdrawn — passed the
decree moved by Vergniaud declaring the King sus-
pended and calling for a National Convention. Before
twenty-four hours had gone by the patriot Cabinet was
reinstated, and Roland was once more Minister of the
Interior.

He entered upon office with fresh hope. The two of
his former colleagues, Claviere and Servan, who, with
him, had been uncompromising in their dealings with
Louis, filled their old posts ; three new ministers replaced
those who had proved untrustworthy. These were Monge,
Lebrun, and Danton. Of the two first there is little to
say, save that, well-intentioned and not otherwise than
upright, they were totally unfitted by experience, character,
or talents to be entrusted with a share in the Government.
Le Brun, at the Foreign Office, was of no weight or

Again in Office 205

influence ; Monge, at the Marine, who had begun life
as a stone-cutter and was a mathematician of some merit,
was incapable of lending any assistance in governing the
State. Danton was Minister of Justice ; and Danton
was hated and distrusted by Madame Roland. Had that
hatred and distrust its share in moulding and shaping
events ? Danton at this time would seem to have been
genuinely anxious for union between the sections of
the revolutionist party ; but if Madame Roland's
sentiments were shared by the Girondist leaders, co-
opefation was hardly possible.

/Her increasing power over the men of her party is
proved as much by the envenomed animosity of her
enemies as by the affection and admiration of her friends.
The detestation exhibited in the ribald abuse of such men
as Marat and, later on, Hebert is no less a witness to it
than the tribute paid by Louvet de Couvray when, in the
passion of grief roused by her execution, he declared that
her least merit was to have united in her person all the
graces, the charm, and the virtues of a woman, whilst her
rare talents and virile qualities would have done honour
to the greatest men. Nominally no more than the wife
of a public official, it is impossible to dissociate her from
Roland's ministerial work, or to exempt her from re-
sponsibility for his actions. More and more — perhaps
inwardly conscious of his insufficiency for his post or for
dealing with the wildness of the storm that was gathering —
he appears to have leant upon the genius, the shrewd brain,
and clear judgment of his wife for support and co-opera-
tion. In times of peace he might have made an admirable
head of a department of state, orderly, industrious, just,
indefatigable in industry, unassailable in his disinterested
integrity. But, a pedant with a touch of sentimentality,
he was totally devoid of the flashes of insight, the rapidity
of decision, and the readiness of resource indispensable to
the man who is to act with firmness on an emergency.

206 Life of Madame Roland

For these qualities, combined with her facile pen and
her gift of language, he depended upon his wife. "Je
choque moins et je p£n£tre mieux," she once said, com-
paring the methods in which she and her husband — agreed
in principle — differed. It is hard to believe that he would
have been capable of withstanding her influence to the
point of carrying into effect a line of action she disapproved.
It is also hard to believe that he would have remained
uninfected by a prejudice so strong as that she entertained
with regard to his powerful colleague.

Whether she was right or wrong in her estimate
of a man upon whom, during the last hundred years,
the verdicts pronounced have been so many and various
is another question. The horror and disgust with which
Danton inspired her, her readiness to believe him to be
evil incarnate, the very exaggeration of her condemnation,
are a warning against accepting her statements in their
unmodified crudity. If those statements were made at
a date when she was justified in regarding Danton as an
enemy, when the September massacres and other events
for which she held him responsible had fortified her case
against him, when more than any other man he had
compassed the downfall of the Girondist party and of all
she held dear, it would appear that her loathing had been
scarcely less pronounced at a time that she knew him
by sight and by reputation alone. The personal
prejudice proclaiming her, in spite of masculine powers
and gifts, a woman, proved her unfit to assist in steering
the vessel of state at a moment of supreme danger and
difficulty. Her imprudence in making her sentiments
known is further evidence of her complete lack of the
necessary qualifications.

" What a pity," she observed to some members of the
Assembly with whom she was discussing her husband's
colleague, " that the Ministry should be spoilt by such
a man ! Whence did they bring him ? "

Danton and Madame Roland 207

was at the head of a party of snarlers, and were he not
employed in the machinery of government he would be
opposed to it. Also he had served the Revolution, and
might still be of use.

11 1 doubt it," she persisted, " and your policy seems
to me detestable. It is better to have an enemy outside
than within." Nor was she to be convinced by the plea
that men like Danton must be given place and ease, in
order that, their self-love flattered and their ambition
satisfied, it should be to their interest to maintain the
present condition of things. Danton, it was added, was
not devoid of intelligence, and would do well.

"I hope so," returned Madame Roland ; "and since
he is unknown to me, I will not allow myself to judge
him. But you are sufficiently my friends for me to tell
you that you reason politically like little boys."

Every one laughed. Yet, had they known it, it was
no laughing matter. Had Madame Roland been ready
to make common cause with Danton, the course of the
Revolution might have been different. " I know of but
one character in that set," says Mr. Belloc, " which could
have prevented Danton's ascendancy and have met his
ugly strength by a force as determined and more refined.
Roland's wife might have done it ; but though she was
the soul of the Ministry, she was hardly a minister, and
being a woman, she was confined to secondary and
indirect methods. Her hatred of Danton increased to
bitterness as she saw him succeed, but she could not
intervene, and France was saved from the beauty and the
ideals which might have been the syrens of her ship-
wreck." As it was, the strong man and the brilliant
woman were probably each conscious of the latent an-
tagonism of the other ; and, Madame Roland proving
irreconcilable, a trial of strength was inevitable. In that
struggle Danton was the victor, and the Girondists fell.

208 Life of Madame Roland

During the weeks succeeding August 10 and before
the massacres of September had marked the wide di-
vergence between men ostensibly in accord, Madame
Roland was afforded full opportunities of improving
her acquaintance with the Minister of Justice. The
Council met at the Hotel of the Interior, and on one
pretext or another Danton constantly sought the wife
of the minister in her private apartments.

Speculating afterwards upon the motive of his
frequent visits, Madame Roland hazarded the hypo-
thesis that he might have wished to study and sound
the woman known to exercise so strong an influence
not only over Roland but over the Girondist party as
a whole, and to weigh the chances of obtaining her
co-operation. If this was so, he must quickly have
decided that no assistance was to be expected from her,
and that she was not disposed to become a link between
himself and the Gironde in general or her husband in
particular. Intercourse with him did not tend to modify
her judgment, and she was increasingly convinced that
it was impossible that Roland and he could work
together. To dominate or to ruin the Minister of the
Interior — these were the alternatives she imagined that
he set before him ; with regard to herself, recognising
her as honnete femme^ he would perceive that his policy
lay in rendering her the object of envy or of calumny,
dread or ridicule.

With another of the foes soon to be ranged against
her Madame Roland had never come into actual contact.
This was Marat, leader and representative of a force
of which it was difficult to gauge the limits. If the
King was a prisoner in the Temple, and no longer
able to hamper the action of the ministers and render
their measures inoperative, a more formidable power had
suddenly sprung up, which, destitute and heedless of
legal sanction, was a menace and a rival to any other.

JEAN PAUL MARAT.
From an engraving.

p. 208]

Marat 209

The improvised Commune, with Marat, Robespierre,
and other recruits from the Jacobin Club added to its
original members, had an ally in Danton, nor was Roland
the man to curb and control its arbitrary authority.

Marat was already in conflict with the Minister of
the Interior. In his capacity of guardian of law and
order, rigid and uncompromising in his honesty, Roland
had objected to the forcible seizure by the demagogue
of the Crown printing presses as indemnification for those
confiscated from himself at an earlier date ; and had
likewise refused the unconditional grant of 15,000 livres
demanded by Marat for publishing purposes, insisting
that the proposed works should be submitted to the
Council before they were printed at the public expense.
In the end Roland was only successful in making a
dangerous enemy ; and Marat obtained the funds he
required, his application being referred by the Council
to Danton. By these means the more timid members
of the Council eluded the responsibility involved in
any misuse of public money, whilst Danton, in Madame
Roland's words, was provided with a fresh means of
attaching " that mad dog " to himself.

It was characteristic of her that she had a desire to
see the mad dog. " Bring that personage to visit me,"
she said to Danton one day when Marat had been the
subject of conversation.

« Danton demurred. " You would not get two words
ut of him," he told her.
11 What does that matter ? I should see him," was
er reply. It was well, she explains, to be acquainted
with monsters, and she was curious to find out whether
he had a disordered brain or was merely " un mannequin
bien souffle."

Her curiosity was not destined to be satisfied.
Danton excused himself from effecting the desired in-
troduction. She would only see an original, he told her,

210 Life of Madame Roland

and to no purpose ; and, shrewdly suspecting that however
much she pressed the matter he would adhere to his
refusal, she passed it over as if her suggestion had been
made in jest.

In the meantime Roland, working day and night,
was doing what man — official, laborious, conscientious
man — could do to reduce chaos to order. In what had
occurred on August 10 there was nothing, save the
manner in which the Revolution had been effected, that
he could not approve ; and in the report he subsequently
presented to the Assembly upon the condition of Paris,
he paid a tribute to the zeal displayed by the Commune
and the purpose it had served. At the same time he
was painfully and acutely alive to the danger involved
in lawless methods. Anarchy was in his eyes as in-
compatible with justice and order as tyranny itself.
His wife, for her part, would have liked the Commune
to have been dissolved, a municipality to be legally
elected, and the public forces put on a proper footing
under a duly appointed commander. Unless it should
prove possible to curb the power of the new body, it
was clear that the law would be a dead letter and the
Convention now to assemble would be subordinated to
it. Affairs being in their present condition, she would
have preferred to see Roland a deputy rather than that
he should occupy the position of a minister deprived of
the means of enforcing measures he considered necessary.

Decrees were being hastily passed ; the traces of
the former state of things were daily obliterated. On
August 1 6 all non-juring priests who should not have
left the kingdom within a fortnight were sentenced to
deportation to French Guiana, those over sixty or infirm
remaining in France shut up and under supervision.
On the 17th a new Criminal Tribunal was appointed for
the trial of crimes committed on August 10 or connected
With the events of that day, those accused being granted

Fall of Longwy 211

lo more than twelve hours for the examination of the
lists of the witnesses against them, with three to raise
objections to jurors. They were also deprived of the
•ight of " recours au cassation.'' Capital punishment
ras to be lavishly applied, the death penalty being
extended to the wearing of cockades other than the
tricolour. On August 18 all religious congregations,
clerical or secular, were suppressed. Seigneurial rights,
though guaranteed by the Constitutional Assembly, were
abrogated ; the property of disturbers of the peace was
declared forfeited. Such were a few of the multitude
of enactments made during those weeks of agitation, when
tidings from the frontier were maintaining the excitement
in the capital at fever heat. Nothing, said Brissot in
reference to the Criminal Tribunal, remained to be desired
in point of rapidity or justice. The words are evidence
of the condition of mind of men as far removed as he
from the violence of the demagogue. There was no
time to weigh the rights of individuals. The very
existence of the country was at stake. Traitors — or men
stigmatised as traitors — were conspiring at home ; the
foreign enemy was advancing towards Paris. Longwy
had fallen ; Verdun was menaced. Every day fresh
subjects of alarm were calling forth additional summary
decrees.

In the garden of the Minister of Public Affairs the
six ministers, met informally to consider the news of the
capture of Longwy, were watched by Fabre d'Eglantine,
lisciple and friend of Danton. Roland, pale and broken,
leant his head against a tree, as he expressed his opinion
that the Government must leave Paris, and, carrying
the King with them, seek refuge at Blois.

Servan and Claviere agreed with him. Kersaint,
fresh from Sedan, was of the same mind. The Duke
of Brunswick would reach the capital in a fortnight.
Nothing else could be done. Then Danton spoke.

212 Life of Madame Roland

" My mother is seventy," he said ; " I have brought
her to Paris. 1 brought my children yesterday. If the
Prussians are to enter, I hope it may be into a Paris
burnt down by torches." Then, turning to Roland,
" Take care not to talk too much about flight. The
people might hear you," he said.

It was one of the scoffs which leave a sting behind
and are not forgotten. But the ministry stayed in
Paris. To Bancal Madame Roland wrote a few lines —
even she could find time for no more — the arrival of the
enemy was expected. She did not fear them, " because I
have made my calculations upon life and I despise death ;
but I am in hell when the march is not made swiftly,
firmly, and the blow is not struck straight and strong."

Simultaneously with the Prussian successes the
smouldering discontent of La Vendee had burst into
flame, suggesting the possibility of rebellion elsewhere ;
and Danton, as Minister of Justice, demanded and
obtained the power of instituting domiciliary visits,
for the purpose of seizing any weapons that could be
found and of arresting suspected persons. Were there
thirty thousand to be arrested it must be done, and at
once, he declared ; and he received the necessary authorisa-
tion. A Committee of Surveillance had been appointed
and sat at the Commune, a menace to all who had
enemies to denounce them.

On Sunday, September 2, came the fall of Verdun ;
rumour, in advance of the fact, having spread the tidings
of the disaster in Paris some hours before its actual
occurrence. The blow gave rise to a species of frenzy —
the frenzy due to fear and rage combined — in the
capital. Crowds thronged the Champs de Mars, seeking
to be enrolled for the national defence ; Marat was
planning his sinister methods of meeting the crisis
and making use of the passions it had called into play.
Danton's voice made itself heard above the tumult, not

The September Massacres 213

en now acknowledging that the situation was desperate.
* De l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace,
t la France est sauv£e," he told the terror-stricken
ssembly in words that have been well remembered.

Into the terrible scenes disgracing the following days —

om that Sunday evening till the Thursday — scenes

hich have turned the sympathy of many, at the time

nd since, into horror, when, a prey to panic and terror,

aris looked on in apathy or stupor at the massacres in

e prisons, it is unnecessary to enter. The tale, in its

orrible details, has been recounted again and again, and

familiar to all. For Madame Roland's biographer,

garding her as in some sort one with her husband and

sharer in his responsibility, the question resolves itself

nto the part played by the Minister of the Interior in

spect to what was done. Could he afterwards, with

clear conscience, declare himself guiltless ? This

uestion demands an answer here, for it may be taken

r granted that he did not act without the approval

nd concurrence of his wife.

That both looked on with loathing at the atrocities
ommitted during those four days of bloodshed has never
en doubted, save by writers in whose eyes sympathy
ith the Revolution is sufficient to convict a man of
every attribute of evil. It remains to ask whether Roland
did all that was possible, all that it was the bounden
duty of a man holding his post to do, to put an end
to the outbreak of savage fury, and to what extent he
afterwards expressed his abhorrence of what had taken
place. It is also necessary to examine into his position
at the time and the amount of the power he possessed of

I enforcing the observance of his orders.
As August had drawn towards a close the ascendancy
of the Commune in Paris, of Danton in the Council of
State, had been established to a greater and greater extent.
Danton's visits to Madame Roland had ceased. Sincerely

214 Life of Madame Roland

anxious as he proved himself of establishing a basis of
co-operation with the Girondists, he may have become
sufficiently aware of her sentiments where he was con-
cerned to relinquish the idea of making her his agent
of conciliation. He may also have felt that, should
their paths diverge, he was now the stronger, and could
afford to dispense with Girondist support. Over the
Council, as well as outside it, his strenuous activity
and energy rendered him dominant. He knew how to
utilise each opportunity of gaining fresh influence ; and,
profiting by the absorption of his colleagues in the duties
of their departments, was enlarging the scope and com-
pass of his authority by obtaining the appointment of
men devoted to himself to provincial posts.

The condition of alarm and excitement produced in
Paris by military reverses had been, in Madame Roland's
opinion, deliberately fostered by men who perceived in
it the means to their end and desired to move the
populace to wreak vengeance on those they regarded
as a danger at home. Noting the temper of the mob,
she states that Roland had taken what measures he
could to keep it in check. They were the measures of
a man who can indeed issue orders, but has no certainty
that they will be obeyed and no power of enforcing
obedience. On the morning of September 2, Grandpre,
the Inspector of Prisons — nominated to the office by
Roland on the recommendation of Madame Grandchamp
— had found a general panic prevailing. He had done
what was possible to effect the release of some of the
captives, to calm the fears of others, and had then come
to the Hotel of the Interior to await the breaking-up
of the Council. As Danton, first to leave the council-
chamber, appeared, he made his report to him, explained
what Roland had done, as Minister of the Interior — his
recommendations of vigilance to the Commune, his orders
to Santerre, commanding the National Guard, to fortify

The September Massacres 215

e posts and watch over the prisons * — and called upon
anton, as Minister of Justice, to take steps to ensure
e safety of the prisoners. According to Madame
oland, Danton, making an answer equivalent to saying
at the prisoners might take care of themselves, passed
on his way. Upon Santerre, as chief military authority,
Roland, for his part, devolved the responsibility of keep-
ing order, placarding — though probably not until Sep-
tember 4 — the communication containing his orders upon
the street walls, thus hoping to move the citizens, should
the General fail to do his duty, to perform it themselves.
Having done what he could, he repaired to the office of
the Marine, where the Council of State was to hold a
second meeting.2

His wife had stayed at home, and gives an account
of what followed at the Hotel of the Interior. It was
five o'clock on the evening of that Sunday, and, though
she did not know it, the massacres were beginning,
when she became aware of a tumult outside, and looking
down into the courtyard, perceived that a crowd made
up of some two hundred men had collected there and
were demanding to be admitted to the presence of the
minister. Refusing to accept the assurances of the
servants that he was not at home, they were noisily
insisting upon an interview, when Madame Roland gave
orders that ten of their number should be admitted
to her presence ; proceeding to question them calmly
upon the reason of their visit.

Their answer was ready. As good citizens, they
desired to go to meet the enemy at Verdun, and had
come to seek the minister and to obtain the weapons
they lacked. They had been to the War Office, at

1 These documents have not been discovered, Roland's first letter extant
to Santerre being dated September 4.

2 It is after this second meeting of the Council that Mr. Beesly
makes Grandpre's interview with Danton take place,

I

216 Life of Madame Roland

which Madame Roland recommended them to apply,
and had been told that no arms were to be had there.
All the ministers were traitors, and they wanted
Roland.

" I am sorry that he is out," Madame Roland
answered courteously, " as he would convince you by
good reasons of the truth. Come and visit the office with
me. You will see that he is not there, that it contains
no arms, and you will reflect that there are not likely
to be any there. Return to the War Office, or make
your just complaints to the Commune. If you wish to
speak to Roland, go to the office of the Marine. All
the Council is there assembled. "

When she had dismissed the deputation, it must
have been with some uneasiness that she watched the
scene in the courtyard below. A stump orator in his
shirt, with the sleeves turned up and brandishing a
sabre, was denouncing to his comrades the treason of
the minister. At length, however, it was decided that
nothing more could be done, and the two hundred
poured out, leaving the courtyard deserted and Madame
Roland at liberty to seek her husband and inform him
of what had occurred.

Meantime, a curious scene had taken place at the
Marine, where the recently appointed Committee of
Surveillance, chiefly occupied with ordering arrests, was
sitting, and where Danton was at the moment, having just
been reconciled to Marat after a quarrel, real or pre-
tended, of twenty-four hours. Taking Petion (still mayor)
apart, he spoke to him privately. " Do you know what
they have done ? " he asked. " They have sent out a
warrant for Roland's arrest."

11 Who has done that ? " inquired Petion.

u Eh, this rabid Committee. I have taken possession
of the warrant. Here it is ; we cannot allow it. Diabk!
— a member of the Council ! "

The September Massacres 217

t Petion read the document and gave it back. " Let it
e," he said with a smile ; " it will have a good effect."
Danton looked at him inquiringly. " A good effect ! "
e repeated. " Oh ! I will not permit it. I will put
sense into them " ; and the warrant was not served.
The question has been raised whether the whole incident
was not the outcome of Madame Roland's imaginative
faculty, Danton and Petion having been alone when
the conversation she records took place. But Petion
was Roland's friend and comrade, and there is no reason
to doubt that he may have given her an account of what
had occurred.

Strange though it may seem, it was not until the
morning of the following day, Monday, September 3,
that it became known at the Hotel of the Interior
what had passed in the prisons during the hours of the
past night. Helpless to stop the massacres, as he had
been powerless to prevent them, it only remained for
Roland, ostensibly responsible for the preservation of
order, to denounce the crimes committed ; and though
aware of the danger involved, in the present condition
of public sentiment, Madame Roland was at one with
him in feeling that this must be done. He was already
hated, so she told him, because he had tried to place
obstacles in the way of the excesses ; he must now make
himself feared. For Roland to make himself feared was
not at that moment easy. His wife had, as always, a
firm belief in the power of the pen ; and Roland wrote
his letter of protest to the Assembly — a document which,
though it may seem almost criminal in its moderation,
was sufficient to draw down upon him the enmity of
the comparatively few perpetrators of the atrocities, as
well as of the many who condoned them.

" Yesterday," he wrote in the course of his protest,
"was a day over the events of which it is perhaps
necessary to draw a veil. I know that the people.

2i 8 Life of Madame Roland

terrible in vengeance, have shown a kind a justice. They
do not make victims of all who fall into their hands ;
they take those they believe have been too long spared
by the law, and whom they are convinced, in the present
danger, should be sacrificed without delay." But an
outbreak liable to abuse must be stopped. France must
receive the assurance that the Executive was unable to
foresee and prevent the excesses committed, and the
authorities must put an end to what was still proceeding.
Turning to the personal question, he said he was aware
of the peril to which he was exposed by this declaration.
Let his life be forfeited. He desired to preserve it only
for the service of liberty and equality.

The tone of moderation, the tribute to the justice of
the people, is not the language that should have been
applied to the band of assassins who were, even when
the letter was written, at their evil work. Yet, apart
from motives of prudence, Roland may have conceived
that his appeal to the Assembly was likely to have the
more effect by reason of its unanswerable character. As
a matter of fact it was read by that body — scarcely less
helpless than the minister — with applause, was printed
and placarded ; and no effective measures were taken
to stop the massacres.

The astonishing thing, to those who look back, is
that life seems to have been carried on during those days
of horror almost as usual. The theatres were open ;
and on September 3rd — the day when Roland's protest
was made, there was a dinner party at the Hotel of the
Interior. Uninvited, Cloots, little known to the hostess,
had been brought thither by another of the guests ; and
some one present whispered a warning in her ear. An
intolerable parasite, she was told, had been introduced
into her house whom the speaker was sorry to see there.
Before long she must have shared the regret ; for the
newcomer, discussing the events of the day, characterised

The September Massacres 219

them as necessary and salutary. The vengeance of the
people, he said, was just, and conducive to the happiness
of humanity.

As the massacres continued, bitterness of spirit, edged
by profound disappointment, took possession of Madame
Roland. It was not so much the brutality, the savagery
of the few actually concerned in the butchery, as the
apathetic inaction of the mass of citizens that roused her
to fierce and impotent indignation. " All Paris," she
wrote, " was a witness of these horrible scenes, performed
by a small number of executioners ... all Paris let
them go on ; all Paris became accursed in my eyes, and
I no longer hope that liberty will be established in the
midst of cowards insensible to the last outrages that can
be offered to nature, to humanity — cold spectators of
deeds that the courage of fifty armed men could have
easily prevented."

The beauty and the splendour of the dawn of liberty
had been overcast. For Madame Roland the Revolution
was never wholly to recover from the injury done it
by the September days. "You know my enthusiasm
for the Revolution," she wrote to Bancal. " Well, I
am ashamed of it ; it is stained by these wretches. It
has become hideous."

CHAPTER XX

Madame Roland's horror of the massacres — Marat's attacks — the National ;
Convention elected — Dumouriez's successes — Roland in office — The
opinions of foreigners — Buzot in Paris — Breach with Lanthenas.

THE real tragedy of Madame Roland's life began
with the September massacres. The Revolution,
as she had imagined it, had been her idol, the materialisa-
tion of a dream. She had toiled in its service, rendered ;
it her own in the sense that sacrifices made and service
given, gladly and willingly, confer ownership. And now
it was defaced in her eyes, stained and marred. She
had not anticipated, asked for, peace ; nor had she shrunk
from the thought of bloodshed, should bloodshed be
necessary for the furtherance of aims and objects which !
were worth it. " I weep for the blood that has been |
spilt," she wrote to Bosc in January 1 791, when there |
had been an encounter between the people and the j
military forces ; cc one cannot be too jealous of human j
blood. But I am glad that there is danger. I see no
other means to spur you on." And in a letter to Bancal
in the following May the same note is sounded. " It
would be folly to expect peace,'' she then wrote ; " we j
are vowed to disturbances for all this generation, and )
they will be less dangerous than security. Adversity I
forms nations, like individuals ; and civil war itself, j
horrible as it may be, would advance the regeneration !
of our character and morals. We must be prepared 1
for everything, even to meet death without regret, for I
from the blood of the good would spring a strong

After the Massacres 221

hatred of the passions that shed it and enthusiasm for
the virtues of which an example had been set."

To see innocent bloe'd shed by men nominally enlisted
on the side of liberty, to watch justice turned into an
excuse for butchery, was a different matter, and was to
reverse the picture she had painted and to darken its
colours for ever. No true reconstruction of a shattered
ideal is possible. Repair it as you may, it has lost its
spontaneity and grace, and has become the work of
men's hands, bearing upon it the fingermarks of the
manufacturer. More fitted, it may be, in some ways
to take its place in a work-a-day world, it is permanently
stripped of its glamour and enchantment.

• The Revolution, nevertheless, was a fact ; and, not-
thstanding its blemishes, a fact to be made the best
of, to be worked for and served. The foreign enemy
had to be resisted, some sort of order maintained in the
capital, the revolted provinces to be dealt with and reduced
to submission — a task the difficulty of which was enhanced
by the cleavage, now definite and undisguised, in the
republican ranks.

Roland's protest, mildly as it had been worded, had
set him in express opposition to men who, if not directly
responsible for the outbreak of brutality, had fostered
the spirit which had led to it, had given their sanction
to lawless methods, and were not disposed by open con-
demnation to dissociate themselves from the party of
violence fast becoming dominant in the city. It had
been no mere declamatory figure of speech when the
Minister of the Interior had alluded to the risk his
modified denunciation might invoke. " We are under
the knife of Robespierre and Marat," wrote Madame
Roland on September 5, and she believed what she said.
Should the departments not furnish a guard for the
Assembly and the Council, she added, both would be
lost, and she begged Bancal, on the pretext of danger

222 Life of Madame Roland

from external foes, to do his best to have it supplied
without delay. " We are only waiting/* she repeated,
" to become the victims of this fierce tribunal," composed
of Danton, Marat, and Robespierre. The infamous
circular — afterwards disavowed by some of the men whose
signatures it bore — boasting of the action taken by Paris,
and commending its example to other cities, had been
dispatched to the provinces ; and with this endorsement
of the butchery by the Committee of Surveillance, nothing
can have seemed beyond the limits of what was possible.
In Madame Roland's eyes Danton was supreme in power,
Robespierre his puppet, whilst Marat held his torch and
his poignard. The semblance of peace between the con-
flitting parties was at an end, and the streets of Paris
were placarded with Marat's attacks upon Roland and i
his wife, attributed by the latter to Danton's hostility.

" It is Danton tout pur" she told her husband, her I
inveterate hatred finding vent. u He wishes to attack
you, and begins by prowling around you. With all
his cleverness, he is fool enough to imagine that I shall
be wounded by these follies and shall take up my pen
to reply to them — that he will have the satisfaction of
introducing a woman upon the scene, and thus throwing
ridicule upon the public man with whom I am connected.
These people may have some idea of my capacities — they ;
are not able to judge of my spirit. Let them slander]
me as much as they please — they will neither induce me
to stir, to make any complaint, nor to pay heed to them."

Silence was indeed the only dignified reply to Marat's
insolent and scurrilous attacks. Roland was an endorA
meury " nothing but a frere coupe-choux, whom his wife]
led by the ear." She it was who was Minister of the,
Interior, under the direction of the illuming Lanthenas.
Again, in "a word to the woman Roland," she was re-
quested not to squander the goods of the nation in hiring
mouchards to tear down the placards of V Ami du Peuple.

Roland and Marat 223

as a reply to Marat's assaults. He may have been right
in believing that, definite charges having been made
against a public officer, it was neither prudent nor politic,
in the disorganised state of affairs, to leave them unrefuted.
The present document not only gave a summary of his
life, character, and principles, but dealt with Marat's
objects and aims as he conceived them ; his reference to
the massacres was a practical repetition of what he had
said before : " I admired August 10 ; I shuddered at the
events following upon September 2. I gave full weight to
what was produced by the patience — long and deceived
— of the people, and by their justice. I was not hasty in
blaming a terrible initial movement. I thought it neces-
sary to prevent it from continuing, and that those who had
worked to prepare it had been deluded by their imagina-
tion or by cruel and ill-intentioned men." To blacken
the Assembly, to create a revolt, to excite the fears of the
populace with regard to the Ministry, to represent that
body as treacherous, to spread abroad distrust, and to
point to a dictator — these, he declared, were the objects
of L Ami du Peuple. He had taken up the glove thrown
down by the demagogue ; nor was Marat a man to forgive
or forget the attack made upon him.

As the days went by, hope was reviving in Madame
Roland. The elections for the National Convention were
taking place ; and if Paris had chosen its representatives
ill, the Girondists were in a large majority elsewhere. In
hurried notes reflecting the agitation and excitement of the
hour and contrasting with the long letters of former days,
she kept Bancal informed of what went on. " I have not
time to live," she wrote, " but I have always time to
love."

Bancal himself had been elected by the Puy de Dome.
Couthon — so far an ally of the Gironde — was his col-
league. It was a time when a man's future was difficult

224 Life of Madame Roland

to forecast. The formal opening of the Convention on
September 21 brought hope to the sanguine. The in-
augural debate was fruitful in decrees. The sovereignty
of the people was proclaimed ; the sacredness of property-
was affirmed and royalty abolished. The Convention had
lost no time in getting to work.

Almost simultaneously came good news from the
army, under the command of Dumouriez. The
Prussians, encouraged by the emigrants, had embarked
on their adventure with a light heart. Surprised at the
obstinacy of the resistance he met, provided with in-
sufficient supplies, and with disease amongst his troops,
Brunswick counselled retreat. By September 30 the
invaders were retracing their steps ; by the end of
October they had crossed the Rhine. The siege of Lille
was soon to be raised, Custine to become master of Treves,
Spire, and Mentz ; the attempt of foreign Powers to over-
throw the Republic was a failure.

For some days it had been uncertain whether Roland
would continue at his post or resign his office in favour of
the seat in the Convention to which he had been elected by
the department of Somme, he himself being inclined for a
time towards the last alternative. Debate waxed hot in
the Convention on the question whether or not pressure
should be brought to induce him to remain in office,
Danton taking part openly against him and making use
of the opportunity to hold the minister up to ridicule.

" No one does more justice to Roland than I," he said, I
" but I tell you that, inviting him to remain, you extend the
invitation to Madame Roland, for all the world is aware
that Roland did not fill his department single-handed. 1
was alone in mine."

In the end it was discovered that the election had
been legally invalid, and Roland retained his office, a'
sharpened edge added to the animosity between him
and Danton. He had at once obtained the services

D ANTON.

From an engraving by Greatbatch.

P- 224]

:

Lord Edward Fitzgerald 225

of trustworthy subordinates. A decree of August 1 1
enabled each minister to effect what changes in the
personnel of the office he should consider necessary, and
Roland had taken advantage of it to replace the men
attached to the old regime, whom he had before been un-
able to dislodge, by ones he could trust to co-operate with
him. Amongst these were Champagneux and Lanthenas
— the latter of whom, no less than Pache, was to repay his
confidence ill. And thus the minister set to work. Poor
Roland ! He could disembarrass himself of faithless or
incompetent officials, he could put officials upon whom he
believed himself able to depend in their place, he could
labour early and late; but one thing was beyond his power.
He could not transform himself into the man needed to

»m or control the onrushing tide.
Whilst this was the state of affairs, whilst the most
ardent advocates of republicanism were still oppressed
by the shame and horror of the deeds done in. its
name, and serious politicians were saddened by the de-
facement of their handiwork, it is curious to see the
rose-coloured view taken of the condition of the city
by a foreigner. Lord Edward FitzGerald, writing to
his mother, described the spirit prevailing in all classes
with enthusiasm. The joy of the French in their
successes was, in his opinion, untainted by arrogance ;
their achievements were attributed alone to the greatness
of their cause and the principles they were fighting
for ; the brotherhood or man was becoming a reality.
" Nous sommes tous freres," they would tell a stranger,
" tous hommes ; nos victoires sont pour vous, pour
tout le monde." All the good French sentiments had
come out ; all the bad, it seemed, had disappeared.
And Lord Edward, thinking of his own unhappy
country, looked on at a reconstituted France with envy
and admiration. Older men, less blinded by the glamour
clinging to the vindication of principles of right and

*5

226 Life of Madame Roland

justice, took a different and less hopeful view. David
Williams, a prominent London Unitarian, who was one
of the eminent foreigners upon whom French citizen-
ship had been conferred and who frequented Madame
Roland's house, expressed the doubt, born of attend-
ance at the debates of the Convention, as to whether
the men of whom it was composed would devise a
reasonable constitution. " I believe," his hostess added,
speaking of this u wise thinker and true friend of man-
kind"— "I believe the knowledge he acquired of what
we had already become increased his attachment to his
own country. . . . c How can men who do not know
how to listen carry on a discussion ?' he would say.
* You French do not take the trouble to preserve the
outward decency which exercises so much power over
assemblies. Folly, insouciance, and coarseness do not
render a legislature acceptable. Nothing that strikes the
public and goes on daily is unimportant.' "

Madame Roland had resumed her old habits. As -
before, she received no women, but twice a week she:
entertained ministers, deputies, or chance guests at dinner, )
the number never exceeding twenty and being morej
frequently fifteen. Dinner began at Hvc, by nine o'clock]
all the guests had departed ; and in the face of the capital j
her enemies afterwards strove to make out of these I
gatherings, "when, a new Circe, I corrupted all who]
had the misfortune to sit at my table," she is careful j
to lay stress upon the absence of profusion or luxury.

Of many of the men who went to her house, somej
of them well known, others almost forgotten, she gives|
sketches. Of one she has at this time nothing to say;
but it was he round whom, for the short time she had,
to live, her thoughts were to centre. Buzot had been*
sent by Evreux to the Convention, and was in Paris.

It was a moment in her life favourable to the invadingj
force of a fresh passion. She stood in a sense in the

M

Buzot 227

midst of a world of overthrown idols. The Revolution
had disappointed her ; Eudora had disappointed her ;
above all, a life shared with Roland had disappointed
her. In these days of storm and stress, of the pressure
brought by sordid animosities and oppressive labour,
even the modified content due to the consciousness of
the happiness she bestowed must have been impaired.
Ill and harassed, Roland, in spite of his love, will have
been a dispiriting companion, and leisure for the inter-
communication of ordinary domestic life must have been
scanty.

And Manon, from of old, demanded an absorbing
and dominating interest. Sophie Cannet had supplied it
in her girlhood ; she was still the same woman who had
idealised La Blancherie, had fallen in love with Roland,
austere and staid, had indulged in sentimental friend-
ships with Bancal and others. Had the Revolution
proved all she had dreamed, it might possibly have
satisfied her craving for a supreme object of worship ;
that idol of her maturity thrown down its shrine was
empty — till Buzot came to fill it. What he seemed to
her has been already seen.1 What he believed himself
to be his memoirs tell. No romantic adventures were to
be there recorded — thus runs his warning to the reader ;
his tale was to be one of pure morals, severe integrity,
some good actions mingled with involuntary errors, and —
more often — the weaknesses a man cherished, though not
without self-reproach. A deep respect for the dignity of
man, his rights and his duties ; a genuine, constant, and
immutable love of order, justice, and of the liberty which,
equal for all, is as far removed from licence as virtue
from crime, — this was the picture he meant to paint. " If
certain passions mingle in it, they are those that do
honour to humanity, as great and as simple as Nature,
which often makes use of them to develop and perfect

1 Page 136.

228 Life of Madame Roland

her finest works. Happy the sage who never experienced
them. Happier he who has been made the better by
them."

Such, in his own estimation, was the man whom-
Madame Roland loved. The description itself, the
conscious superiority characteristic of the time, the careful
self-portraiture and the complacency of its half-confessions,
complete the picture of the young Girondist to whom her
last thoughts were given, and who returned in full
measure her love. In reading it, it is fair to remember
that self-advertisement was so much the custom of the
day that a man who omitted to proclaim his integrity
might almost be said to have failed in his duty to himself.
For a statesman to have been silent on the subject oft
his virtues might have seemed a slur upon his party.

Buzot himself declared that he regretted his election.
" I was happy, tranquil, honoured at home ; and I was)
to abandon all this for the Convention, in which Marat j
and Danton would sit with me. ... A presentiment
I could not combat . . . warned me of fresh dangers;
I should incur, and misfortunes which would be drawnj?
down upon me by my inflexible uprightness. But couldl
I refuse this new sacrifice to my country ? "

In Paris he had taken at once the position he held!
as one of the leaders of the Girondist party, and there cant]
be no doubt that intercourse between him and the womarj
who was the soul of that party was quickly renewed!;
How rapidly their friendship developed into the passioi i
it became is uncertain. It is significant that, in spite oil
the terms of affection upon which his wife and Madanvfl
Roland had parted, they appear scarcely to have met aftel
the return of the Buzots to Paris.

They were best apart. In spite of his love foj
Madame Roland, Buzot retained a sincere regard for]
the plain, deformed wife who was also his kinswomarj
so that, a fugitive, with death staring him in the fac<j

Rupture with Lanthenas 229

his thoughts were anxiously occupied with her and with
her future. Yet during these autumn weeks a passion
calculated to prove fatal to her domestic happiness as
well as to that of Roland's remaining months was steadily
gaining strength. To the outer world the friendship
between the two members of the Girondist party seemed
no greater than that uniting Madame Roland to others
of similar opinions and interests. It was a time when
accusations dealing with private morals were freely made,
and her name had been in turn coupled with most of
the men with whom she was on cordial or intimate terms.
But to one of her daily associates the difference was clear.
Lanthenas knew that to Buzot she had given what no
other man had obtained, and he bitterly resented the fact.
In her memoirs Madame Roland, with no mention of
Buzot's name, has left a notice of her rupture with the
comrade of many years, of his repudiation of Girondist
principles, and of the causes to which she attributed his
alienation. " I liked him ; I treated him as a brother ; I
gave him the name of a brother. ... He would have
liked to live with us, and Roland would have consented.
I opposed it, considering that so complete a sacrifice in a
man of his age and with the affection he displayed pre-
supposed the secret anticipation of a response that my
principles forbade, and which he would besides have failed
to elicit from me. . . . Apparently content, after the
common fashion, with what he had, so long as others
obtained no more, he became jealous and unhappy on
perceiving that I did not remain indifferent. Nothing
makes a man so sullen and unjust ; I felt it, and was too
proud to spare him. He went away enraged, imagining
the worst. Even his opinions took on a different colour
... he could no longer share my views, much less those
of him he saw I loved."

Such is Madame Roland's account of the breach ; and
though M. Perroud, the latest editor of her memoirs,

230 Life of Madame Roland

surmises that other reasons contributed to separate
Lanthenas from the Girondists, it was probably true that
personal embitterment had much to do with his change
of front. A series of communications from Madame
Roland, undated, but belonging to this period, reflect
the attitude he had taken up and supply a commentary
upon her summary of the episode.

The first intimation of trouble is contained in a note
written in October. It was followed by another and
a more explicit one. " I am pursued by the thought
of your situation," Madame Roland told Lanthenas ; j
" and I see little good faith in your supposition that I j
can enjoy the pain I cause : it is the single misfortune '
to which I am vulnerable, and which has caused me grief.
. . . Come and see me. You well know that I should
not be at peace were my brother unhappy."

In a later letter the case is made plainer. " You
distress me," she wrote, " for I hate to give pain ; j
you have my esteem, my attachment, and 1 dread and
grieve more specially to cause suffering to you. But were
you a thousand times right, the domination I have acknow- j
ledged is established, and I cannot withdraw from it.
It is not true that you wish me to feel hatred or despair. !
The first is impossible; the other would make you die!
of regret ; and, besides, the ruling object alone has a
right to produce it. You who invoke reason and protestj
against the caprices of the heart, be generous enough to}
be my friend. If you make this effort, many ills will be<
averted ; but no ill can change my destiny save by cutting
it short.,,

Lanthenas was not moved by the appeal from thej
position he had assumed, and a subsequent letter shows
that Madame Roland, losing patience, had realised thej
fact that too high a price may be paid for a friend.
Writing on the same day that an interview had taken
place, and admitting that in the course of it she had changed

Rupture with Lanthenas 231

her tone, she declined to allow that he had cause for
complaint. "I gave you esteem, affection, trust. If you
withdrew because I bestowed these sentiments in a direction
displeasing to you, you were certainly within your rights.
You have, however, no right to blame me. When your
blindness leads you to manifest your dissatisfaction to
others, you fail in respect to the trust I felt in you, you
fail in delicacy, you fail in courtesy. I no longer see in
you anything but the vulgarity of a soul which is the
prey of sentiments I do not characterise but despise."

It might be supposed that this frank denunciation
would have put an end to the connection ; but other
letters followed, showing Madame Roland still anxious to
be at peace with her old comrade, still touched by his
suffering from the estrangement, and ready to receive him
again on condition of amendment. Forgiveness, gentle-
ness, and pity were wasted, and a business note of
January 20, couched in purely formal terms, is proof
that the friendship was at an end.

In order to trace to its conclusion a connection lasting
over many years, the chronological order of events has
been overstepped. Much had taken place before the
final parting of Lanthenas and the Rolands.

CHAPTER XXI

Pache at the War Office — Law against the emigrants— Lavater's protest —
Dumouriez in favour of conciliation — His views of the Rolands-
Fierce enmity of parties — Danton predominant — Madame Roland
and Buzot — Apprehensions.

IF Lanthenas was the friend whose defection was the
most painful to the Rolands, he was not the only
man to whom they had given their confidence to find
it betrayed. Amongst these Pache, now promoted to
be Minister of War, was one of the foremost.

He was endowed with a special faculty for inspiring
confidence. Owing his introduction into public life to
Roland, his services had been relinquished by his first
patron in favour of Servan, when the latter, placed at
the head of the War Office, begged to be permitted tc
avail himself of the co-operation of so honest a man.
" You no longer need him," he pleaded to Roland,
"whilst I, with a superabundance of business, have no
one I can trust."

Roland's high estimate of this honest man was shown

when he pointed him out as a fit person to succeed to

his own office should he resign it in order to sit in,

the Convention ; and his opinion was shared to the full]

by his wife. To Madame Roland it fell to write the

letter to the Convention conveying her husband's views!

on the subject, and as she read her panegyric aloud)

Roland kissed her with tears of emotion. At the very!

time of Pache's appointment to the War Office no!

suspicion of any lack of good faith on his part had!

232

I

Lavater's Protest 233

occurred to the minds of either husband or wife, the
three taking counsel together with regard to the policy
to be pursued. Unity of action and opinion in the
Cabinet was believed to be secured. The Rolands were
quickly undeceived.

" Pache," adds Madame Roland in her account of the
interview, " received the overflowings of our confidence
in the silence of a man who assumes a mask. He
opposed all Roland's views at the Council Board, and
came to see us no more."

The reason was soon apparent. It became known
that Roland's protege and subordinate was transformed
into the boon companion of Fabre d'Eglantine, Chabot,
and their friends. His business capacities proved to
have been, no less than his character, over-estimated ;
and the War Office was quickly in deplorable disorder.

The fact that the infant republic was fighting for its
life, with Europe as its antagonist, that the emigrant
nobles were waiting their opportunity, and that their
readmission to the privileges of citizenship would have
meant the establishment ot a domestic propaganda of
revolt, is the sole palliation of the law introduced by
Buzot pronouncing sentence of death upon those of
their number who should return to their native land.
Although he afterwards attempted to dissociate himself
from the use to which the decree was put, it is surprising
that a man of calm temperament and high principles
should have brought himself to this point of intolerance ;
and notwithstanding all that can be urged in his defence,
it is natural that the enactment should have roused wide-
spread indignation. In a letter addressed to Roland,
as the member of the Government to whom he was
personally known, Lavater entered an impassioned protest
against it.

"I kneel to you in the name of humanity," he
wrote from Zurich, "for the first time in my life. I

234 Life of Madame Roland

conjure you to do the possible, and the impossible, tafj
abolish the unheard-of, barbarous, and sanguinary law
of banishment against so many emigrants and of murder
against all who return. How many innocent ! how many
faithful to their duty ! I only add my name, Jean |
Gaspard Lavater. My good wife begs me, in God's name, ,
not to send these lines to M. de Roland. I reply, c You
have forgotten that man's wise, upright countenance, and
the good, true countenance of his wife, if you fear that any
harm will ensue from these simple and humane words.' '

It was Madame Roland who replied to the remon-J
strance. Acquainted with the writer during a visit tol
Switzerland in 1787, she has left a tribute to his brilliant!;
imagination, his affectionate heart, and the purity of his:
life. She now told him that, in the midst of political! :
agitations, the remembrance of friendship came as a rest
to the mind and a consolation to the heart. But on the; !
subject of his letter she gave him little satisfaction. In
the first place, he was mistaken in believing that Roland,!
bound to see that the laws were executed, had any hand;
in making them ; and secondly, if the decree againsti^
emigrants was severe, only persons acquainted with theirh
schemes, their plans, and the excesses of those who had!
taken up arms against France could understand th<|8
necessity and justice of it. An attempt to moderate itffl
provisions had failed ; and such modifications, certain tctj
be effected in time, must perhaps be left to a perioci|
of greater tranquillity. Turning from public affairs) i
she reverted to the change in her position and heal
husband's since the days when she had met Lavater— M
a change, she said, leaving them indifferent to life ancjij
to death, using the one according to their conscience
and awaiting the repose offered by the other.

Lavater was unconvinced, and in a second letter h<| I
urged that, should Roland fail to obtain the necessarp
alterations in the obnoxious decree, he should resign hill

I

Dumouriez on the Situation 235

office. The answer he received, again from the minister's
wife, was sent at a moment affording little leisure for
argument. Excusing herself for delay, she proceeded to
sketch, in a few graphic touches, the situation : " Ever
in the storm, ever under the popular axe, we pursue our
way by the illumination of lightning flashes, and were it
not for the peace of conscience, stronger than all, life
would become a weariness. With a little strength of
soul, however, one grows accustomed to ideas hard to
bear, and courage grows into a habit."

Courage had indeed been necessary during the past
weeks, and it must have been becoming plain that the
forces arrayed against the Gironde were gaining in
strength. Dumouriez, paying a brief visit to Paris in
October, has left upon record his estimate of the position
of the conflicting parties. In co-operation with Danton
alone he saw hope of saving the King and the country.
In spite of ugliness, violence, ignorance, and coarseness,
he recognised the intelligence and energy of the popular
leader. Danton, too, was the one man — a special merit
in the eyes of the soldier — who had not lost courage in
the face of the invader. Had the Gironde effected a
coalition with him, Marat and his faction might have
been subjugated. Pushed, on the contrary, to the end
of his patience, he sacrificed all to vengeance.

There was little hope that the course of conciliation

i recommended by Dumouriez would be pursued. The
Gironde, stiff-necked and obstinate, entrenched behind
the bulwarks of its conscious integrity, was in no way
inclined for the compromise suggested by the man of the

' world ; and with irritation he saw that the opportunity
would be lost. Applying the words of Plutarch to the
men who rejected his advice, he observed that, introducing

ii itself in this guise, temper not seldom ruled in the
extravagance of virtue ; and he may have been in a
measure right. In Madame Roland it can scarcely be

236 Life of Madame Roland

doubted that not uprightness alone would have made it
hard for her to co-operate with Danton, and that, though
she may have been unconscious of it, private prejudice
closed the door. Dumouriez, recognising in her the
centre of the Gironde, considered it her husband's mis-
fortune that he was guided by his wife. If none had
played a nobler, more interesting part than she, her
ability was combined with imprudence, and the fact
that she was known to govern Roland damaged him
more than her counsels aided him.

He may have been right. If the General was guilty
of exaggeration in asserting that deputies and ministers
went daily to receive their orders from her, it was un-
deniable that at the Friday dinners of the Cabinet she
was the only woman present at the discussion of the
events of the week and the arrangement of fresh plans.
Could she have concealed her supremacy, it would have
been well. But, much to expect from any one, Madame
Roland was not capable of the self-abnegation such
concealment implies.

Through the autumn months the struggle between the
Gironde and the Mountain was increasing in bitterness
daily. No invective was too violent to be applied tc
an antagonist ; never was abuse more coarse anc
violent. " The soul of this clique," wrote Marat of the
Gironde, " is the pedant Buzot, the formalist Lacroix
the irascible Guadet, the perfidious Brissot, the double
dealing Gensonne, the Tartuffe Rabaut. Corrupt anc
corrupting, this hypocritical and barbarous clique . . .
What Buzot thought, if he did not say, of Robespiern
may be read in his memoirs. A coward, deliberately
cruel, full of hatred, a hypocritical scoundrel, forgiving
neither the outrages he had committed, the benefits h<
had received, nor the talents he did not possess — suet
is a portion of the description of the leader of th<
Mountain to be found there.

Gouverneur Morris's Views 237

The view taken of what was going on by an indepen-
lent witness, dissociated from any of the men engaged in
he struggle and regarding it with the interest of a
breigner, is worth quoting. Gouverneur Morris, Ameri-
:an Ambassador, awaiting at Paris orders from home,
ooked on, calm and clear-sighted, at the strife of parties ;
it the people, "or rather the populace, a thing which,
:hank God, is unknown in America " ; and at the King's
Drecarious condition. Would it be taken for granted
:hat he was guilty of all possible crimes, and particularly
of the enormous one of not suffering his throat to be cut ?
Morris described the two factions contending for pre-
dominance— one consisting of some half-dozen men, the
other of fifteen or twenty — each claiming the merit of
having begotten the young Republic, the people being as
fond of the child as if it were their own. As to the chief
actors, details were unnecessary since they must soon give
place to others. Thus the American summed up the
situation at this stage.

On October 29 Roland's report, as Minister of the
Interior, of the condition of Paris was presented to the
Convention ; containing a melancholy confession of failure
'on the part of the Government. "Administrative bodies
destitute of power ; a despotic Commune ; a people
good, but deceived ; excellent, but ill-commanded public
forces : such is Paris. Weakness on the part of the
legislative body which preceded you ; delay on the part
of the Convention in making firm and necessary arrange-
ments— such are the causes of the evils."

A fierce debate upon the report and the steps to be
taken with regard to it ensued. Resulting in the first
place in Buzot's victory, it was followed a week later by
the first triumph of Robespierre over the Gironde in the
Convention — a presage of what was to come.

The history of those autumn weeks is the history of
increasing animosities, of a struggle which was to be

238 Life of Madame Roland

one of life and death. Calumnies and slanders were
printed and circulated. No charge was too wild to find
believers. The dinners where the Girondists met, at the
Hotel of the Interior and elsewhere, were represented by
the organs of the Mountain as banquets and orgies where1
the capital was denounced and federalism — fast grow-
ing into a bugbear — was preached. Paris, feverish and!
disturbed, swayed hither and thither by the impulses'
or emotions of the moment, dominated by the men|
whose influence chanced to be paramount, was not to bei
counted upon. The Gironde knew it, conscious too that,
in spite of their majority in the Convention, they werei
in a sense at its mercy. Danton's " ugly strength "
was more and more obtaining for him the mastery over
weaker men. Servan, making way for Pache at the War
Office, confessed that he had himself " poisoned the army "
with Danton's agents, urging in excuse that, as they were]
simple supernumeraries, a bolder successor might purge
it of them. " What can you refuse a man who has a
hundred rascals behind him to murder you ? " he asked]
piteously, in reply to Madame Roland's upbraiding.
Monge, at the office of the Marine, allowed himself]
to be coerced into sending a nominee of Danton's toj
inspect a portion of the force provided with its own!
inspectors. " Danton wants it done," he answeredl
Roland, who raised objections. " Were I to refuse, hej
would denounce me to the Commune and the Cordeliers,!
and would have me hung." It was manifest that it wasl
not by these men that a successful resistance could bel
opposed to the force of the popular demagogue. Rolandf
stood stiffly upright. But how long would he be able tol
maintain the attitude ?

And Madame Roland ? Keenly, deeply, as she was!
interested in public affairs, inextricably as they were]
woven into the tissue of her private life, there werej'
other things at the moment possibly of more importance.!

Madame Roland and Buzot 239

Her romance was unfolding itself day by day. To these
weeks and months belonged the strengthening of the
3ond uniting her to Buzot. " This Buzot," says M.
Aulard, " was a refined and passionate dreamer, whose
will — a little uncertain and oscillating — was domi-
lated by Madame Roland and the ascendancy of her
strenuous nature. She set this contemplative on fire,
:arried him to extremes, rendered this subtle spirit violent,
nspired him with a policy and an eloquence made up of
ndignation, resentment, scorn, and heroism. . . . He
was, in the Convention, the mouthpiece of Madame
Roland." Under the same roof with her — for he retained
:he lodging he had occupied when called by Roland to
ill an official post — was Lanthenas, jealous, unhappy,
istranged. And finally there was Roland, leaning upon
:he stronger nature of his wife for help and support in the
ilmost intolerable position in which he was placed,
larassed at all points, worn out, oppressed by the sense of
:ailure, powerless to cope with the forces arrayed against
lim. Such were the dramatis persona of the private and
lomestic drama developing side by side with the public
>ne patent to all eyes. Which of the two was of most
mportance to Madame Roland remains a question each
#ill answer in his own way.

The chief business occupying the Convention at this
. :ime was the trial of the King. Through November and
December the proceedings connected with it dragged on,
•ousing, strange to say, a lesser degree of interest and
excitement than other questions. On December 4 Buzot
00k up a prominent position, and if, as M. Aulard asserts,
le is to be regarded as Madame Roland's spokesman in
he Convention, she cannot be held guiltless of a share
n his action of that day, when he moved a decree,
hameful in itself, and leading in no indirect fashion to
he Terror.

" It is asserted," he said, rising, <c that there are partisans

240 Life of Madame Roland

of royalty here. ... I demand a decree that whosoever
shall propose the re-establishment of royalty in France, or
shall attempt it, shall be punished by death."

The motion was carried amidst acclamation, with the
added proviso, also emanating from Buzot, that the capital
penalty was likewise to apply to the endeavour to replace
the sovereignty of the people by any other power
whatever.

" That day," says Buzot's biographer,1 " must have left
an unending remorse in the mind of the deputy of
Eure " ; and a passage in Buzot's memoirs corroborates the
statement, whilst it strives to extenuate his responsi-;
bility. " It was I," he wrote, " who proposed that law of
which the cruellest use has been made. . . . What was
termed the principle was first decreed. When it became a
question of modifying it, it was no longer possible toj
obtain a hearing." Buzot was not the first, nor the last,;
man to set in motion forces of which he lost the direction!
and control. If he sinned, he expiated his guilt.

Whether or not Madame Roland shared his remorse
there is no evidence to show. Already the distrust she!
inspired in the members of the Mountain was taking
shape in definite accusations; and three days after Buzot'?'
decree had been passed a scene took place in the Conveni
tion, indicating the excited and suspicious condition o
public feeling. On December 7 Chabot, on the authoi
rity of an adventurer called Viard, who purported to havij
turned informer, charged the Girondists, and more espe:
cially the wife of the Minister of the Interior, with beinjji
in communication with Narbonne and other imigris ii(
London, with the object of saving the King's life, an< I
intimidating the Convention by bringing a force of te;j|
thousand men of moderate opinions to Paris. In this las
charge the chronic jealousy of the departments found vent
Roland was called to the Bar of the Convention to be coi:

1 M. H^rissay.

Christmas Day 241

fronted with Viard. At his suggestion the invitation was
sxtended to his wife ; when the absurdity of the accusa-
tions brought against her was fully demonstrated, and she
succeeded in covering Viard, to use her own phrase, with
confusion. Her refutation of his charges was received
with acclamation, and she was accorded " the honours
of the sitting."

Yet, amidst her triumph, the silence of the galleries,
refusing to echo the applause of the deputies, must have
struck cold.

" See how silent the people are," said Marat. " They
are wiser than we." U Ami du Peuple took care, in the
public papers, to inflame his readers against " le clique
Roland," the hypocrisy, astuteness, and roguery of their
plots against liberty. And still the trial of the King
went on.

On December 26 the case for the defence was to
be opened, and it was thought not unlikely that it would
prove the signal for a popular rising. In view of the
turbulent condition of the city and the danger of nocturnal
disturbance, the usual midnight Masses had been pro-
hibited on Christmas Day, and that evening Madame
Roland wrote letters of farewell, as one who felt herself
not improbably in the vestibule of death.

" I know not what may happen to-morrow," she told
Servan ; "it is possible that many people may not see
the end of the day. Projects are on foot against Louis,
that the opportunity may be seized of including deputies
and the Minister of the Interior in the massacre. I have
sent my daughter to the country, have arranged my
little affairs as if for the long journey, and await the event
firmly. Our social institutions render life so laborious
for good people that it would be no great loss ; and I
have become so familiar with the thought of death that
I shall go forth to meet the murderers, should they
come ; persuaded also that, if there is one thing in

K16

242 Life of Madame Roland

the world that can turn them from their purpose, it
is the calm of courage and contempt for their blows."
Describing the hatred of which she was the object, and
again ascribing it to Danton as its fountain-head, she sent
Servan her portrait, feeling that it might be her last
gift. Save her husband, Eudora, " and one other
person," no one else had seen it. With some sentences
of deep discouragement, she closes the long letter. " In
truth I weary of this world. It is not made for the
good — there is some sense in turning them out of it.
Adieu."

A second letter of the same date, addressed to her
brother-in-law the Canon, commends more particularly
her child to his care, should evil befall her parents, and )
takes thought besides for Eudora's governess, Mademoi-
selle Mignot, who completely enjoyed her misplaced
confidence, and for whose old age she begged the Canon
to care. " I leave my daughter," she added, " a good,
example, a cherished memory ; her father adds some
fame. In yourself and Mademoiselle Mignot she will
possess wise guides. She will have enough money for
her happiness."

It had been the intention of husband and wife, as a
document dated this same Christmas Day shows, to send
the child, with her governess, away from Paris and the
dangers to be incurred there. In the family domain
Eudora was to await happier days and to follow the
example set by parents who had lived reproachless lives
and would know how to face death fearlessly. The plan
was relinquished ; Eudora remained for the present in II
Paris. December 26 passed without the apprehended
riots ; and so the year 1792 drew to an end.

CHAPTER XXII

xecution of Louis XVI. — Hubert's abuse of Madame Roland — Her life
considered in danger — Roland's resignation and its causes — Madame
Roland and Buzot — The Rue de la Harpe — Failure, public and
private — Dumouriez a traitor — Seizure of Roland's papers — Bancal's
love-affair — Madame Roland decides to leave Paris.

[T is unnecessary to enter into the progress of the
tragedy culminating in the execution of the King
n January 21. In her memoirs Madame Roland is
ngularly silent on that subject. It may be that at the
id her heart was softened towards the victims of cir-
amstances and fate ; it may be that the gross abuse of
hich she herself had become the object had roused in
er a fellow-feeling for those against whom like charges
ad been made. Madame Grandchamp distinctly states
lat "le mihistre et sa femme ne voulaient que la
echeance." Buzot, on the other hand, voted for death,
lough with delay, and subject to an appeal to the
eople.

Meantime, every effort was being made by her enemies
) stir up public feeling against Madame Roland. a We
ave destroyed royalty,'' wrote Hebert in his ribald
aper, " and we permit a still more odious tyranny to
ike its place. The tender half of the virtuous Roland
as France to-day in leading-strings, like the Pompadours
tid Du Barrys. Brissot is Grand Equerry to the new
Jueen, Louvet her Chamberlain, Buzot Chancellor,
auchet her Chaplain, Barbaroux her Captain of the
mards, Vergniaud Master of the Ceremonies, Guadet

243

244 Life of Madame Roland

her Cupbearer, Lanthenas Usher." In the same place,
he went on to say, that Antoinette had plotted a new
St. Bartholomew, Madame Roland, at the hour of the
bats, received all these beaux esprits.

If the fears entertained by her friends were not
exaggerated, her unpopularity had become such, by
means of the constant attacks holding her up to public
reprobation, that her life, as well as Roland's, was in ;
danger. "It seemed," wrote Champagneux, "as if each:
night would be her last." The murder of husband and
wife being considered possible, it was urged that theyij
should seek safety by sleeping elsewhere than at the]
Ministry. Three times during Roland's term of office
they yielded to these representations ; but it was contrary
to his wife's wishes and to her sense of what was wise oij
right. " I considered that it would be difficult to go s((j
far as to violate the dwelling of a public functionary, ancj
that if wretches should attempt that crime, its cons u ml
mation would not be useless ; that, in any case, thJ
minister ought to be at his post ; since, if perpetrate*
there, his death would cry for vengeance and be inl
structive to the Republic, whilst it would be possible tl
reach him in his comings and goings with equal profii
to those who planned the enterprise, less gain to thi
public, and less glory to the victim. I know," she addil
tc that this argument will seem absurd to him who sell
his own life above all, but whoever counts life fcl
anything in times of revolution will reckon as nothinl
virtue, honour, and his country."

In January she was firm in refusing to leave til
Hotel, sharing Roland's room in order that the sanl
risk might be run by both, and sleeping with a pistil
under her pillow, to protect herself by suicide shoa I
it prove necessary. On one occasion she had reluctant
consented to fly, but losing patience when she
assuming the disguise provided for her, she threw

Roland's Resignation 245

>n one side and reverted to her determination to meet
•he assassins, should they come, at home.

" I am ashamed,'' she said, " of the part they wish
ne to play. I will neither disguise myself nor leave
he house. If they want to kill me, it shall be at home.
. ought to set this example of firmness, and I will do so."

The time when she could be described as holding her
:ourt at the Tuileries was nearing its end. On January 22
Roland resigned his office. His resignation was un-
expected, and the reasons for it remain in some degree
obscure. Scarcely more than a week earlier, in the
etter to Lavater quoted above, Madame Roland stated
chat her husband was pursuing his career and gave
no indication of his intention of retiring. Yet the
letter read by Vergniaud, as President, to the Con-
vention on the 22nd had been drawn up in her hand-
writing, was doubtless her composition, and it appears
clear that she concurred in his decision.

" He quitted the ministry," she afterwards wrote,
" in spite of his resolutions to lay the storm there and
to brave every danger, because the condition of the
Council and its weakness, ever on the increase and
singularly marked towards the middle of January, gave
promise for the future of faults and follies alone, of
which he would share the shame. He was even unable
to have his opinions and the reasons for them recorded
upon the register, when they were opposed to the
decisions of the majority."

A note to Lanthenas from Madame Roland, con-
trasting strangely and sadly, in its cold formality, with
the loving friendship of earlier days, shows that by
January 20 the resignation had been definitely decided on.

"Would it be possible, monsieur," she wrote as to
a common acquaintance, " for you to come and see me for
a moment ? M. R[oland] is about to publish his financial
accounts ; there are certain points upon which I must

246 Life of Madame Roland

speak to you. I wrote to you on the subject several
days ago; may I hope to receive an answer to-day?"
For Roland was anxious, eagerly anxious, that the details
of his stewardship should be examined, and his integrity
established beyond doubt.

The letter tendering his resignation was dignified
and temperate. Asserting his innocence of the accusa-
tions brought against him, he stated in calm language
the facts of the case. He had been misjudged ; his
denunciation of evil-doers had been mistaken for passion;
the multiplicity of his duties had been mistaken fot|
power, the esteem he had enjoyed for credit. By the
performance of his duty he had become inconvenient
many, and calumny had been unloosed against hii
" I braved all ; it was my duty. There are no morl
fications, persecutions, or even dangers which should n<
be borne by him who devotes himself to doing good
His self-sacrifice can be limited only by his unpro-l
fitableness, should he cease to inspire confidence. Oi
that moment he must be the judge, since he ther.j
becomes injurious. For me that moment has beet
reached. I am represented as being a party leader
and, deceived in this respect, good men have sharec
this view in the Convention itself, where I appear tc
have become a cause of dissension. . . . Heaven is mj
witness ; posterity will judge ; and my own age wiB
soon be convinced that the most perfect devotion and
the noblest sentiments caused me twice to accept;
office in the same way that they now dictate m)l
retirement.,,

The discussion of the letter in the Conventiorj'i
showed the Gironde still in a majority ; and, though
not without protest, it was decreed that the documeni!
should be printed and sent to the departments. Yet'
in spite of the power retained by his party, the sterJ
taken by Roland was due to his conviction that he!

Roland's Resignation 247

stood, in a sense, alone and without adequate support.
In a paper drawn up a month after his resignation,
and subsequently discovered by Champagneux, he stated
that his action had been misunderstood by the world.
He had been believed to have been intimidated by the
blood-thirsty men arrayed against him and by the dangers
to which he was exposed by reason of his unpopularity.
This interpretation of his action he emphatically repu-
diated. Had he found a single man amongst the
Girondist majority in the Convention bold enough to
mount the tribune and to demand for him justice,
inquiry, punishment, or acquittal, he would have faced the
tempest. The tacit reproach is endorsed by Dumouriez's
assertion that the policy pursued by the Gironde in
abandoning him had been a cowardly one. His con-
duct, added the General, had been so stupid as to
compromise both himself and his party, and the
Council rejoiced at his resignation like a class released
from a pedagogue. It was probably true that, con-
scientious, high-minded, and scrupulously honest, his
presence in the Cabinet had been an embarrassment to
men of more elastic principles.

His determination to withdraw from a post difficult
to fill with satisfaction either to himself or to those
who had placed him in it does not stand in need
of further explanation. It has nevertheless been sug-
gested that yet another motive may have contributed
to render him desirous of retiring from public life, and
that domestic sorrow and disappointment had robbed
him of the spirit and courage necessary to keep up the
struggle with the forces arrayed against him. For dis-
appointment and sorrow, whether or not it influenced
his conduct in this respect, there was abundant cause.
Though the precise date at which Roland became aware
of the sentiments entertained by his wife for Buzot is
uncertain, the fact that she had made them known to

i

248 Life of Madame Roland

him and the effect of his knowledge upon their relations
is made clear by a passage in her memoirs which must be
inserted at length.

"I honour, I cherish my husband," she wrote in her
prison, " as an affectionate daughter adores a virtuous
father, to whom she would sacrifice her lover himself.
But I have found the man who might be that lover ;
and, remaining faithful to my duties, my candour was
incapable of concealing the sentiments I subordinated to
them. My husband, excessively sensitive, both in the-;
matter of affection and self-love, could not endure thei
idea of the least diminution of his supremacy ; his
imagination was darkened by it. I was irritated by his
jealousy ; happiness fled from us. He worshipped me ;
I sacrificed myself to him, and we were unhappy.
Were I free, I would follow him everywhere, to soften
his grief and comfort his old age — a soul like mine
does not leave its sacrifices incomplete. But Roland
is embittered at the idea of a sacrifice, and the con-
sciousness, once made his, that I am offering him one
destroys his felicity. It gives him pain to accept it anc
he cannot do without it."

This was Madame Roland's account of the shipwreck
which during the last year of their life overtook the
domestic happiness of husband and wife. Many anc
various have been the sentences passed upon her line
of conduct. To Sainte-Beuve it seemed questionable
whether unfaithfulness, with silence, would not have
been the better course. Daudet ascribed to her ar
ungenerous motive, and explained the revelation tc
Roland as the unconscious vengeance of a woman who
remaining true to her marriage vows, desires that the
man who stands in the way of her happiness shoulc
suffer with her. To those who have followed Madam*
Roland throughout her life and have become acquaintec
with the genuine kindness which was so marked a feature

Madame Roland and Buzot 249

of her character, this explanation will not commend
itself. It could never have been her deliberate inten-
tion to cause pain to the man she honoured, pitied,
and respected. It was more likely on the impulse
of a moment — a moment, perhaps, of nervous ex-
haustion and strain — that she gave utterance to a truth
which, once spoken, could never be retracted. Or
it may be — the suggestion has been hazarded — that
she had cherished the hope that, knowing the facts,
(Roland would voluntarily have released her from her
obligations and left her at liberty to follow the dictates
of her heart. Such a course, it can scarcely be doubted,
she would in his place have pursued. By the marriage
bond, apart from affection, she felt no more fettered
than others of her day and generation who had
effected their emancipation from the traditions and
morals of the past. Had Roland's concurrence been
forthcoming, she would not have refused her freedom.
i Acknowledging the justice of his claims, she sacrificed
: i to them herself, the man she loved, and what she
believed would have been the happiness of both. In
spite of her boast, the sacrifice was incomplete. She
; allowed Roland to know that it was made. To have
I concealed the facts from the companion of her daily
: life would perhaps have required a courage and
1 self-control of which few women would have been
I capable. To let the truth appear did much to render
h her loyalty, so far as Roland was concerned, worthless ;
■ and the thought of him, already broken in health and
1 spirits, weighted with failure, harassed by public cares,
and losing his principal support and comfort in life —
it ; the certainty of his wife's affection — is a painful one.

The complete confidence he had felt in her had been

shown by his readiness to further her intimacies with the

I men who had been their common friends. To learn that

I she had submitted to the domination of an absorbing

250 Life of Madame Roland

passion, and that, whilst recognising his rights and re-
fusing to infringe them, her faithfulness cost her an
effort, must have come with the shock of an unexpected
revelation. Yet Madame Roland tells the story — or sc
much of it as finds a place in her memoirs — with a touch
of complacency. " The development both of all this/'
she observes, " and of the use made of the preceding
years would throw much light upon the knowledge of
the human heart, and teach discerning persons important
lesson s."

It is evident that a sincere conviction of their upright-
ness sustained her and Buzot throughout the disastrous
sequel ; and that neither — both genuinely attached tc
those to whom they were bound by the marriage tie —
perceived anything blameworthy in their relations towards
each other. Passage after passage shows it. " We cannot
cease," wrote Madame Roland to her lover from hei
prison, " to be reciprocally worthy of the sentiments wc
have inspired. This being the case, we cannot be un-i
happy." In remaining with her husband she conceivec
that she had paid, to the uttermost farthing, all that waj
his right. Nor does conscience appear to have demandec
anything further of her. Morality, in her eyes, was con-
fined to external facts, and no slightest evidence is to bt
found that the burden of remorse was added to th(
suffering she had to bear.

This being the condition of their home, there can
have been little, during their ultimate spring, to softer
for husband and wife the sense of public disaster. Tc
the modest apartment in the rue de la Harpe — likenec
by Madame Roland at an earlier date to the coffir
prepared for the philosopher — they retired pending th<
winding-up of Roland's business affairs and the examina-
tion of his official accounts. The period during whicr
his wife was to participate in public life was over. I
had lasted no more than a few months, and the mark

At the rue de la Harpe 251

she has left upon the history of the time is the more
singular owing to the briefness of its duration.

The transition from the H6tel of the Interior, with
its varied and complicated interests, its daily and hourly
excitements, the anxieties and struggles, friendships and
! animosities, finding their centre there, to the quiet of the
rue de la Harpe must have been sharp and sudden. It
, may be that even Madame Roland's restless and strenu-
, ous spirit had wearied of the prolonged agitation of the
last months, and that comparative repose was not un-
welcome— it does not, at all events, appear that she made
any attempt to neutralise on her own behalf the effect
of the step her husband had taken, or to retain her
influence upon the course of public affairs. Of a certain
influence, it was true, she could not divest herself —
that assured to her by her ascendancy over men
with whom ties of friendship and confidence had been
formed. But her house was no longer a rallying-place
for the party, and she says herself that she saw scarcely
any one. Her history at this period was chiefly confined
to what took place within, and on this point, contrary to
her wont, she has left little record. Thus some four
months were passed, reports daily reaching the rue de la
Harpe of the attacks made upon Roland by Marat or at
the Jacobins, and the ex-minister tasting to the full the
bitterness of defeat.

At a distance rrom the scene of action comparative
peace might have been enjoyed ; but Roland was bent,
before leaving Paris, on obtaining the recognition of his
services as a faithful steward. He had published, on his
resignation, accounts of expenditure such as none of his
colleagues had supplied. " The examination of them,"
wrote his wife, cc and their sanction by a report was
an act of justice he was to demand in vain ; since it
would have been to acknowledge that the calumnies
spread abroad against him were false, to admit the infamy

252 Life of Madame Roland

of his slanderers, and the weakness of the Convention
which had not ventured to defend him."

It was a dreary time. Public sentiment was so
strongly excited against husband and wife that arrest
was feared, and occasionally it was thought well to leave
the rue de la Harpe and seek some other refuge. A
week or more was thus spent in a neighbouring village
— perhaps Meudon, where Manon had been used to pass
the happy holidays of her early youth. From thence
Roland wrote a mournful note to Bosc, announcing his
return to Paris. Fear of death, he said, would become
worse than death itself ; and he added the melancholy and
significant statement that death was the least of his sorrows.

The words spell the story of that gloomy spring.
Father, mother, child, were together as in the old days
at Villefranche and Le Clos — days not long past in point;
of years, but divided from the present by a gulf so wide
and deep as to make it difficult to realise that there had!
been a time when the peaceful domesticities of a life un-j
touched by passion had sufficed for happiness. Undei
the changed circumstances the tranquillity, the stillness!
suddenly encompassing them must have had something
deathly about it. Friends remained to them. Bosc
Champagneux, and others were true to the old ties ; buj
beyond that innermost circle the treatment suffered m
Roland could not fail to make a difference in his rela'
tions with the members of his own party, and, to us«j
M. Perroud's words, " il semble bien qu'un vide se soil
fait peu a peu autour d'eux."

In the absence of external distractions the facts o|
their two lives — lives which might be expected to lasj
for years — stared husband and wife in the face ; no
would it have been easy for either to forget that th
woman who should have been the stay and comtori
of the fallen man was the cause of his deepest, mos,
poignant disappointment. At Le Clos it might hav

Defeat 253

en easier to ignore what could not be forgotten. For
Roland his rival would not have been, as it were,
constantly in sight ; the clamour of his enemies would
have reached his ears deadened by distance. But still
he lingered, unable to make up his mind to leave the
capital with his reputation uncleared. He had ever been
proud of his unblemished character, and to be charged
with peculation of the public money entrusted to him
was intolerable. Eight times he wrote to demand from
the Convention a decree declaring the accusations brought
against him groundless. His request was met by con-
tinual delays ; the report he solicited was not made ;
nor was the explicit permission he asked at length to
leave Paris accorded. He was defeated at all points.

There is nothing more diverse or more illustrative
of character than the fashion in which men accept defeat.
Some can never bring themselves to acknowledge it to
be final, and keep up the fight with destiny till death
comes to end it. Others, more submissive, find a certain
consolation in immunity from the necessity of carrying
on the struggle, so that it almost assumes the guise of
a deliverance. Others, again, knowing that they are
beaten, never forget that they have a quarrel with life.
This last was Roland's case. He appealed alike from
the men who condemned him and from the friends who
shrank from taking up his defence to those who should
come after, and courted, with plaintive persistency, the
verdict of posterity. " History," he wrote, " will avenge
us. It will avenge us, and myself in particular. Cowards
and ruffians may kill my body — they will not kill my
memory." It might be true. Yet a belief in a vindica-
tion to take effect only when the ears that should have
heard it are filled with dust is a shadowy and insufficient
substitute for contemporary approval.

Of other comfort little was forthcoming. The cause
to which Roland's life had been dedicated was in his

254 Life of Madame Roland

eyes ruined ; and it was part of the tragedy of the
idealists of the Revolution that they were incapable of
looking beyond failure and of acknowledging, with a
faith in ultimate success, that their sacrifice had not been
made in vain. The picture upon which the eyes of
Roland and men like him were fixed was not only the
temporary obscuration of principles destined to emerge
later on from the haze of blood and brutality darkening
them and to constitute the charter of rights for genera-
tions unborn. It was more than this. In the general
overthrow of belief in God, in divine justice, and in a
ruling Providence, they could look on with no sure or
certain hope to the final triumph of all that was good in
the ideas to which their lives had been devoted, nor could
they recognise the truth that " God bids us fight for bless-
ings that come through our defeat and not through our
victory." 1 To Roland, and to his wife, personal failure
owed part of its bitterness to the fact that it represented
in a measure the eclipse of principles, the destruction of
standards of right itself, and of hope for the future.

During the spring the Girondists possessed a majority
in the Convention, and were strongly represented in the
Committee of Public Safety, created in March. Nor
were attempts at conciliation between the warring factions
wanting. Danton would have made peace. If he neither
liked nor trusted the Gironde, less blinded by passion
than others he had a statesman's perception of the necessity
of union. The assertion that Madame Roland, from her
place of retreat, worked against an accommodation is un-
supported by any trace of evidence ; but the rent had
gone too far to admit of its being mended. " They do
not trust me," Danton told Meillan, when Meillan would
have acted as peacemaker, and he was undoubtedly right.
Confidence was rare in these days, and men held their
judgment suspended with regard to their closest friends.
1 George Tyrrell, Oil and Wine.

Desmoulins' Attack 255

At the end of March Dumouriez's treachery stirred
.tent suspicion into a blaze. Each man saw in his
rivate enemy an accomplice, and hastened to denounce
im. In the Convention the Girondin Lasource went
) far as to suggest the possibility of guilt on Danton's
art. It was a bold stroke. " Les scelerats ! " cried
>anton as he started to his feet ; then, turning to his
wn party, " You were right, and I was wrong," he told
lem. " No peace is possible with these men. Let it
e war."

It was at this juncture that a fresh insult was offered
) Roland, and his papers were seized on the charge
f complicity in the General's treason. Though no proof
f such complicity was even alleged to have been found,
lamille Desmoulins did not fail to make capital out of
srtain of the documents placed in his hands. In his
[bald pamphlet, LHistoire des (Brissoiins^ he represented
] 'etion as observing to Danton that what had troubled

• Poland in this affair was the anticipation that papers
light be brought to light revealing his domestic troubles,
nd that it would be seen how bitter had been the con-
:iousness of his wife's infidelity. " These monuments
f his grief have not been found," Desmoulins was forced
3 admit, proceeding nevertheless to advert to other dis-
coveries and to insinuate that the Rolands had been
earned in time to enable them to destroy incriminating
ocuments.

It is a curious fact, which may be mentioned in this
onnection, that the attacks upon Madame Roland's
eputation were from first to last either couched in vague

* nd abstract terms, or connected her name with those of

0 many different men as to defeat their purpose. Buzot
/as rarely associated with her in the public mind. On
, he wider question of Roland's guilt, however much Des-
loulins and other irresponsible agitators might pretend
0 believe that he had been a traitor, that he was selling

256 Life of Madame Roland

his country to the enemy, that he was false to the
principles of a lifetime, no one who knew him believed
it. " How can you fail to recognise Roland's good
faith, integrity, and patriotism ? " Buzot asked Robes-
pierre in a private conversation about this time. " Would
you venture to assert that [he] has sold himself to the
foreign Powers ? You must be acquainted with the
inflexible austerity of his morals, his unshaken public
spirit, his ardent love of liberty ? You have not for-
gotten the services he rendered you, or that he was your
most intimate friend under the Constituent Assembly ? "

" No/' was Robespierre's answer, " I do not accuse
Roland of having sold himself to the foreigner. But I
ceased to see him from the moment he adopted Brissot's
views on the subject of war."

The question of innocence or guilt was not now the
all-important one it would have been under other circum-
stances. His enemies might in their hearts be convinced
of Roland's integrity, but the strife of factions hac
reached a point where the predominance of one was
danger to the other. The death-struggle between the
Gironde and the Mountain was about to begin ; the
Terror was at hand.

If Roland's mind was divided at this time betweei
the pressing desire to obtain his justification as an uprighl
servant of the public and melancholy brooding over
his private sorrows, there is little to show in what manner
his wife spent that last spring of her life. Few papers
belonging to it are extant, and in her memoirs the perioc
is passed over briefly. Three letters to Bancal prov
that her cares and preoccupations did not prevent h<
from participating as keenly as ever in what affected
her friends. Bancal was engaged in a love-affair with an
English girl, Helena Williams, with whom he had becomej
acquainted in London and who was now in Paris.,
Though an enthusiastic republican, Miss Williams:

Bancal's Love Affair 257

claimed that it had been owing to her influence that
Bancal had voted against the death-sentence upon Louis ;
and he was doing his best to induce her to marry him.
Madame Roland, to whom he had confided his wishes,
encouraged him to hope for success.

" I know nothing of the human heart," she wrote,
" or you are destined to become the husband of Made-
moiselle -, provided you behave well and that she

remains here three months. Constancy and generosity
are all-powerful with an upright and affectionate heart,
free from other pledges. " Advice as to the best manner
of pressing his suit follows. " Excess of sentiment, its
delirium, its transports, may strike, seduce, and carry
away the imagination and the senses ; but a genuine
passion draws from itself the power of self-control and
of entire self-sacrifice. Its delicacy, its perseverance, are
the sole and sure means of attaching to you for ever the
woman you desire to obtain as the companion of a life-
time. I did not see you yesterday," she adds. " If you
are happy, I forgive you for forgetting me ; but I shall
1 be mortally angry if you have borne a sorrow alone that
could have been shared by friendship."

The letter is an example of her never-failing sympathy.
Bancal was not destined to succeed in his suit. At the
end of March he was one of the deputies sent to arrest
Dumouriez, was by him delivered over into the hands
of the enemy, and was kept in captivity for a year and
eight months. By the time he was in a position to
renew his proposals, Miss Williams was either engaged or
secretly married to a countryman, and Bancal was dismissed.

As the months wore away it became clear that the
Girondists were gradually losing ground. The Terror
was approaching nearer and nearer, and life and liberty
were increasingly insecure. Madame Grandchamp, look-
ing anxiously on, feared for the future of her friends.
I " Though I had ceased to see them," she wrote, " I could

17

258 Life of Madame Roland

not be indifferent to the fate of a man for whom I felt
so much esteem and a woman I had tenderly loved.*'!
Foreseeing danger should they remain in Paris, she)
sounded certain members of the Convention on thej
subject, and received answers far from reassuring.
" If Roland would go away," she was told, " nothing
will be done to him. Should he persist in the attempt,
to compel us to sign [his accounts], it will be necessary!
to impose silence on him as well as upon his wife." It
was against the latter, Madame Grandchamp observed,;
that feeling was strongest. " I passed on the admonitionj
to them," she added, " but for special and private!
reasons, unknown to me at the time, it was disregarded."

It is easy to understand that Madame Roland would
have found it difficult to quit Paris, and by so doing not
only to cut herself off from Buzot, but to leave him in
what was becoming manifest peril. She nevertheless decided i
finally upon this course, and — as it was to prove, too
late — took the step of demanding passports, at the end I
of May, for herself and Eudora.

"My domestic affairs," she wrote afterwards, "myj
health, and many other good reasons, called me to the
country ; amongst others I calculated that Roland would i
find it easier, if alone, to escape the pursuit of his enemies j
should they proceed to extremities, than if the small i
family were together. It was wisdom to diminish the
points at which he was vulnerable." To this ex-|
planation, supplied in the text of her memoirs, a
a footnote was added, as by an afterthought of sincerity.
" This was not my strongest reason ; for, weary of the
course of events, I had no fears for myself. Guiltless
and courageous, injustice might strike me — it could not
dishonour me ; to endure it was an ordeal I had a certain
pleasure in defying. But another reason that I may
perhaps some day divulge, and which is quite personal,
decided me upon going."

I Madame Roland and Buzot 259

When, seven years after her death, Champagneux
blished a second edition of her memoirs — the first,
edited by Bosc, appeared in 1795 — n*s commentary
made the meaning of Madame Roland's words still
more clear. He was, he said, acquainted with the motive
in question ; she had made it known to him. The
moment was not, however, yet come to publish it.
"The age is too corrupt to believe in the straining
after virtue of which she gave proof."

The struggle of the past months had ended in
the sacrifice of all that, for the moment, made life best
worth living to her. She had resolved to return to the
country, and there to take up again the round of the
duties which had become so irksome. It is true that
Death was to step in and to prevent her from carrying
her purpose into effect. But it should never be for-
gotten that the determination had been arrived at. She
was, whatever may have been her faults, a brave woman.
It may well be that to face the life she saw before her
required more courage than to face death. That courage
she had shown.

CHAPTER XXIII

May 31 — The Insurrection — Attempt to arrest Roland — Madame Roh
at the Tuileries — Fails to gain a hearing — A troubled night — SI
is arrested.

THE history of the insurrection of May 31 ne<
not be written here, save in so far as it seal<
the doom of the Rolands. Disorder and lawlessness
arrayed against constituted authority represented larger
by the Gironde, then achieved its triumph ; the Con-
vention, surrounded by an armed force, was helpless tc
resist insurgent Paris ; anarchy prevailed.

That May had been singularly dry. Gouverneui
Morris, the American, unrecalled, like his brother-
diplomats, on the death of the King, had retired frorr
the noise and tumult of the city to a "neat little
house " on the banks of the Seine "with a pretty garder
and some green trees/' and thence wrote to describe
surroundings, " so scorched by a long drought that,
spite of all philosophic notions, we are beginning ou
processions to obtain the favour of the bon Din
Morris would have liked to tell those seeking in
manner to propitiate God that mercy was before sacrifice
but reflected that, as a public man and a Protestant, i
would not become him to interfere.

In the city from which the envoy had withdrawn

stormy scenes were enacted every day. At times i

almost seemed as if the Gironde might triumph ; if

the Convention the party was still powerful, and i

was difficult to realise that the Convention might no

260

be ;

The Insurrection of May 31 261

c able to stand against the domination of the mob.
Yet the mob had penetrated into the Convention itself,
and made a noisy accompaniment to the deliberations
of the representatives of the people. It was useless
to protest. When Buzot, indignant at the disorder
invading the precincts, denounced the occupants of the
galleries as frantic women, eager for murder and blood,
and demanded that admission should be by ticket, Marat
answered with a sneer. " C'est le plan de la femme
Roland," he said.

Whether or not she had dictated the suggestion,
her intention of leaving Paris implies a recognition
of the condition of affairs. Had time been granted
her, she would have been at a distance from the
centre of danger. Passports had been obtained, not
without difficulty, for herself and her child ; it only
remained to have them endorsed by the municipal
authorities. A further delay, however, occurred. She
had been ill and confined to her bed ; and it was not
until Friday the 31st that she could arrange to take the
passports for the necessary signature. On that day the
tocsin warned her that it was not well to go abroad. It
would, moreover, have been impossible to escape from
the city. The barriers were closed ; all intercourse with
the outer world, even by post, was interrupted. Paris
had risen in revolt. " The sun was shining brilliantly
on the crowded streets ; the shops were shut as for a
festival, and the women, seated on their doorsteps, were
watching the insurrection go by." *

At the bar of the Convention deputations from the
sections presented themselves in turn. One from the
Commune declared open war upon the Girondists,
denouncing them as foes of the country, Royalists
proscribed by public opinion. At half-past five that
afternoon an indication was given of what the insur-

262 Life of Madame Roland

rection might mean for individuals belonging to the)
unpopular party and for Roland and his wife in par-!
ticular. At that hour six men, armed with an order!
emanating from the Revolutionary Committee, arrived
at the rue de la Harpe to put the ex-minister under
arrest.

Roland refused to yield obedience to an authority)
sanctioned by no law. "Should you use violence/' he!
added, " I can oppose to it only the resistance of a!
man of my years. But I shall protest against it with;
my last breath/ '

It appeared that the party were not prepared to
employ force, and their leader withdrew to make hisj
report to those who had sent him, his comrades remaining1
behind to await his return. In a hurried consultation!
it was decided that Madame Roland should go at oncei
to make known what had taken place to the Convention,'
and either avert the arrest, or, if too late for this, ensure!
Roland's speedy liberation. It does not seem to havei
occurred to her that the Convention might be power-'
less to act in the matter.

In her account of what followed, clear in her memoryi
as she wrote it in prison, the thrill of excitement makes
itself felt. If any lassitude had checked her energy!
during the past months, it had vanished now that thej
crisis had come. Driving in a fiacre rapidly to the!
Tuileries, she found the courtyard full of armed men,!
through the midst of whom, her morning dress covered^
by a black shawl, and closely veiled, she succeeded inj
making her way, only to find the doors beyond shut
and her progress barred by sentinels on guard who were
deaf to her entreaties to be allowed to enter. Every'
moment was of importance, and with ready wit shd
adopted the language of some devotee of Robespierre.1
" What, citizens ! M she cried, " in this day of salva-
tion for the country and in the midst of the traitors

«

May 31 263

have to fear, you are ignorant of the importance
of the memorandums I have to hand on to the
President. Send for an usher that I may entrust them
to him."

The device succeeded. The doors were opened, and
she was admitted to the outer, or petitioner's, hall, and
bidden there to await an usher. A quarter of an hour
passed, then Roze entered — the same official who had been
sent to summon her to the Bar of the Convention when,
accused by Viard, she had put her enemies to shame.
Then she had been invited to appear ; now she came, a
suppliant, to entreat a hearing. The contrast struck her
with bitterness. Roze, friendly and courteous, was ready
to serve her in any way he could, taking the letter she
had hastily prepared, with a promise to use his en-
deavours to ensure its being read.

An hour passed whilst the anxious woman paced
restlessly up and down. From time to time, as the
door into the hall where the debate was proceeding
opened for a moment, a hope that she was to be
summoned rose, only to die away as the door was again
shut. Now and then a burst of angry voices penetrated
to the listeners without. And still she waited, with
what sentiments it is not difficult to imagine. At
home was Roland — unless indeed his arrest had already
been effected — his fate uncertain. Within the hall,
separated from her only by a few feet, was Buzot, one
of the chief objects of popular fury. Reports may have
reached her of what was going forward on the other
side of the door ; and she may have known that at
that very moment the deputation from the Commune
was urging the arrest of the Girondist leaders.

When at length Roze reappeared, it was to bring
no tidings of success. Tumult indescribable reigned in
the Convention ; the deputation from the Commune
were at the Bar. Some of the men it had denounced

264 Life of Madame Roland

were making their escape as best they could. No one
could foresee the result of the day's proceedings.

One thing was clear — there was not a chance that
Madame Roland's letter would be read. As a last
resource she begged that some deputy — that Vergniaud-
should be asked to come and speak to her. He obeyed
the summons, listened to what she had to tell, and
went back to the hall to see what it was possible to
do. Returning, he could only announce that he had
failed. Success, in the present condition of the Con-
vention, was not to be hoped for. Were Madame
Roland admitted, she might possibly, being a woman,
prosper better ; but the Assembly could do nothing —
so he told her. Her impassioned reply shows how
far she was from a comprehension of the true state
of affairs.

" It could do all," she cried vehemently ; " the
majority of Paris only asks to know how it ought to
act. If I am admitted, I shall venture to say that to
which you could not give expression without being
impeached. I fear nothing in the world, and if I do
not save Roland I shall have uttered forcible truths not
useless to the Republic. Tell this to your colleagues.
A courageous outburst may have a great effect, and
will serve at least as a great example."

" I was in truth," she wrote afterwards, describing
the scene, " in that condition which gives birth to
eloquence, full of indignation, raised above fear, aflame
for the country I saw ruined, all that I love in the
world exposed to the greatest danger. Feeling strongly,
expressing myself with facility, of too high a spirit not
to do so with loftiness, I had the greatest interests of
which to treat, certain powers to use in their defence,
and I was in a position unique for enabling me to do
it well."

If the self-confidence of the passage is characteristic

I

of

May 31 265

Jf the writer, she was not impossibly right. Had the
Convention retained its old authority, her appeal to it
might have taken effect. Vergniaud pointed out that

(in any case there was no chance of her letter being
read for an hour and a half, other business blocking
the way, and she reluctantly consented, at least for the
moment, to abandon her attempt to gain admittance,
to go home and find out what was the state of affairs
there ; returning later to the Tuileries to endeavour
to obtain a hearing.

At the rue de la Harpe she found Roland gone.
The men sent to arrest him had been content to
withdraw, carrying with them his written protest against
the illegality of the whole proceeding, and he had then
escaped by a back door from the house. Following
him to the apartment of the friend — probably Bosc —
with whom he had taken shelter, she doubtless gave
him an account of the measures she had taken ; after
which she again set out through the streets, now emptied
of the crowds filling them during the day, for the
Convention, only to find that the sitting was over.
Had the Assembly then made its submission ? she asked
herself with scorn. Was the revolutionary force so
strong that, at a crisis such as this, the Convention
could be dispensed with ?

"Citizens," she inquired of some men who were
standing beside a cannon, " has all gone off well ? "

11 Oh, wonderfully well," was the reply ; "they em-
braced and sang the Marseillaise there, at the tree of
liberty."

" Is the Right pacified ? " she inquired.

" The Right had no choice but to yield to reason,"
some one answered. The Municipality would cause the
Twenty-two to be arrested. Was not the Municipality
the sovereign power, ready to punish traitors and uphold
the right ? The departments ? The departments would

266 Life of Madame Roland

act in conjunction with Paris, and would approve what
the capital did, as in the case of August 10. It was
Paris which had saved them.

" It may well chance that Paris will be its own
ruin," observed Madame Roland, concluding the vain
altercation she had imprudently carried on, and turning
to regain her fiacre. A dog had followed her closely,
and the detailed account she gives of the attempts made
by the driver to secure and carry it home to his little
boy is a curious example of the manner in which, in
moments of strain and tension, trivialities are stamped
upon the brain. As, assisting the man's endeavours, she
kept the little creature on her knee, the thoughts of
the woman for whom life, home, all she loved, was at
stake, wandered to the story of a man who, weary of
his kind, had sought instead a forest solitude and the
company of — more humane — beasts.

Time for reflection was short. On leaving the
Tuileries, Madame Roland had first visited the lodging
of a friend, from whom she hoped for aid in arranging
Roland's escape. Having roused him — night was ad-
vancing— it was settled that he should come early next
morning to the rue de la Harpe, and there learn where
the fugitive had taken refuge. Proceeding on her way
home, she was stopped by a soldier on guard, and
interrogated as to her object — a woman and unescorted —
in being abroad at that hour. It was imprudent, the man
told her, not uncivilly. She agreed. Strong motives,
however, had made it necessary.

u But, madame, alone ? " he remonstrated.

" How alone, monsieur ? " she replied. " Do you not
see that innocence and truth are with me ? What more is
wanted ? M and, convinced or not, he allowed her to pass.

When the rue de la Harpe was reached, a man
awaited her in the doorway, begging to be admitted
to Roland's presence.

I May 31 267

« To his dwelling, yes," she replied, " if you have
thing of use to communicate. It is impossible that
you should see him himself/'

"They are absolutely determined to arrest him to-
night," was the rejoinder.

"They will be very clever if they do," she answered,
receiving in return the congratulations of the visitor,
who had come to deliver a warning.

It might be asked, she observed in telling the story
of that troubled night, why she herself, hated by those
in power, had not sought safety in flight. Some reasons
she would give, others she reserved until another
season. She ran less danger than Roland — of whose
flight, now that he was out of office, she approved ;
to kill her would be to incur odium from which her
enemies would shrink ; her arrest would serve no pur-
pose, and would be no great misfortune. Should she
undergo examination, she would find no difficulty in
defending herself, and might enlighten the public and
clear Roland. If, on the other hand, the September
massacres were to be repeated, all would be lost, the
evildoers would have gained the mastery, and she would
prefer death to witnessing the ruin of the country.
It would be an honour to be included amongst the
victims ; her murder might be a sop to the enemy,
and Roland, if he were saved, might be of service in
some part of France.

"Either, then," she concluded, summing up the
alternatives, " I risked no more than prison, with pro-
ceedings against me which I should turn to the use of
my country and my husband ; or, if I was to die, it
would only be in an extremity rendering life odious
to me."

There were, moreover, difficulties in the way of finding
shelter elsewhere. She had associated with few people
during the past months ; of the friends with whom she

268 Life of Madame Roland

might have taken refuge some were out of Paris, others)
had sickness in their house ; and it would have been
unwise to join Roland in his place of concealment. She;
also disliked the thought of leaving her servants to shift:
for themselves. All these reasons combined to determine;
her upon awaiting the event at home.

The fact that she was physically worn out mayi
have inclined her to inaction. For several days she i
had been ill, and for hours had not had a moment's
repose. Nor was she yet to be permitted to rest;
She had scarcely kissed Eudora and taken up her pen I
to write to Roland when, at midnight, she was in-!
terrupted by the arrival of a deputation from the.
Commune come to demand him.

" Where can he be ?" said the leader of the band, in
answer to her assurance that he was not in the house. I
" When will he return ? You must be acquainted with i
his habits and be able to judge."

" I am ignorant whether your orders authorise these j
questions," she answered. " I do know that nothing can ;
compel me to reply to them. Roland left his house
whilst I was at the Convention ; he was unable to make
me his confidant ; and 1 have no more to say."

Having got rid of her guests — who retired leaving
the house guarded — she ate some supper, and, overcome
with weariness, went to bed. An hour had not passed
when she was awakened from the profound slumber of!
exhaustion. Representatives of the section had come
and were asking to see her.

" I understand the meaning of this," she answered ;
" I will not keep them waiting " ; adding quietly to the
maid, who showed surprise that she took the trouble to
do more than put on a wrapper, " One must dress decently
to go out."

Her interpretation of the untimely visit was quickly
justified. She was to be arrested, by order of the

Madame Roland's Arrest 269

Revolutionary Committee, and seals were to be placed
upon the property. A supplementary order of arrest
from the Commune was produced, and taking counsel
with herself she rapidly decided against a vain resistance.
A crowd had collected, and were coming and going in
the small apartment ; the atmosphere was stifling, and
the officers in charge powerless to exclude the irresponsible
and curious witnesses of the transaction, as, seated at
her writing-table, Madame Roland communicated what
had taken place to a friend and commended Eudora to
his care.

The letter was not destined to be sent. It was
necessary first, the representative of the Commune declared,
that he should read what had been written and should
know to whom it was addressed. To the first demand
Madame Roland replied by reading what she had
written aloud. To name the person for whom it was
intended was a different matter. It was not a moment
to give the names of those she called her friends, she
answered, as she tore the letter up, smiling as she
perceived that the fragments were carefully preserved.
It had borne no address.

Only at seven in the morning were the arrangements
complete. Weeping, little Eudora and the servants took
leave of her.

" You have people who love you," observed one of
her captors.

"None others have ever lived with me," she replied,
descending the stairs.

mOnly once more was she to revisit her home. That
owded, hurrying, agitated night was the last she was
to know of freedom.

CHAPTER XXIV

Madame Roland in prison — Her sense of relief — Letters to Buzot — Visits!
from Madame Grandchamp and others — Literary activity — Her in-\
terrogaioire — Roland and Buzot in safety.

THE blow had fallen. Madame Roland, though j
charged with no specific offence, was lodged in
the prison of the Abbaye. If it may have seemed as yet j
almost impossible that any public body, though illegally]
constituted, should proceed to extremities against her,
the condition of the city, the frantic mobs, and the
massacres of September might well cause the future to]
wear an uncertain aspect. As she passed through the:
crowd collected round the carriage that was waiting to
convey her to her destination, the cry " A la guillotine,"
raised by some women, had a sinister sound ; yet her
spirit never failed, and she negatived the offer of her
escort to let down the blinds. Innocence, she observed,
did not assume the guise of guilt ; she feared the eyes
of no man ; and when, on leaving her at the Abbaye,
the men who had effected her capture remarked that
Roland, by his flight, had given a proof of guilt, she
entered with vehemence on his defence. Just as
Aristides, severe as Cato — these were the virtues that
had won him enemies. Upon her let them wreak their
rage ; she was prepared to brave it. It was for Roland
to preserve himself for his country.

The objectless vindication of her husband's character — \
like the argument with the sansculotte the preceding even-
ing— her eagerness to explain her position and Roland's

27

In Prison 271

to all who would listen, partly explained by overstrain
and excitement, is nevertheless very characteristic of a
woman to whom expression, whether by word of mouth
or on paper, was always a necessity.

The gaoler to whose custody she was consigned did
all, in spite of injunctions of severity, that was possible
to a kindly man to alleviate her position, and was
seconded by his wife. Solitude was secured to her ; and
she was presently left alone to face the situation and to
take her soundings. Her first sensations, it is singular to
find, were the reverse of painful.

" I would not," she wrote, " exchange the moments
that followed for what others would consider the sweetest
of my life. I shall never forget them. They caused me
to feel, in a critical condition, with the future before me
stormy and uncertain, all the value of strength and up-
rightness in the sincerity of a good conscience and a
great courage. ... I recalled the past ; I made my
calculations as to the future ; and if on examining my heart
I found some over-powerful affection, I discovered none
of a nature to cause me to blush, not one that did not
serve to feed my courage or that it was unable to
:ontrol. I dedicated myself voluntarily to my destiny,
whatever it might be."

It was no empty boast. By her bearing during these
ast months of her life Madame Roland disarms criticism,
md, so to speak, justifies an estimate of herself that
night have seemed too high. Humility she had never
ifected. Self-confident, conscious to the full of her
alents and gifts, proud of her public spirit, proud of the
acrifices she was ready to make — such she had ever
»een, such she remained. But her heroism in facing peril,
be calm with which she was prepared to meet death,
bowed that she had not miscalculated her strength,
nd that hers was not the courage of the braggart that
ills when brought to the test. Champagneux, who had

272 Life of Madame Roland

been well acquainted with her in her days of prosperity,:
felt that never till he saw her in her prison had he done
her full justice. " I entered her cell," he afterwards,
wrote, " as one enters a temple."

To value aright the greatness of her courage, the;
completeness of the ruin that had overtaken her must be;
realised. To lookers-on it would have appeared that
upon no single point could her thoughts rest with comfort!
or relief. Her home was desolate ; the husband for;
whom, in spite of the cloud that had overcast their
relations, she retained an affection made up of habit,
respect, and compassion, was a fugitive, pursued by his|
enemies ; her child was parted from her and left solitary;
and helpless ; the man she loved most, as well as almost;
every friend she possessed, was in danger ; lastly, the cause
to which all had been sacrificed, gladly and freely, seemedj
lost, stained with blood, and betrayed. Yet it never;
appears that, save for a brief space, she lost heart ; thej
weakness of despair was never hers.

Let her natural and inborn gallantry be what it might,:
the spirit in which she accepted her fate, almost with;
exultation, demands explanation. It may have been true
that, to the political enthusiast, the shipwreck of the!
revolutionary vessel, the defacement of her ideals, the;
hopelessness of the situation, robbed life of much thati
gave it value. Something more was necessary to reconcile!
the woman to her doom. Nor is the clue to the mystery;
wanting. The true history of that time — the history of!
heart and soul — is to be sought, not so much in the
comments of spectators or friends, or even in her|
memoirs, as in the letters she wrote to Buzot when a
safe channel of communication was found. In passages;
from these letters the key to her attitude throughout her;
whole imprisonment — one of relief rather than resignation;
— is found, and they are therefore, though belonging to
a somewhat later date, in their place here.

Letters to Buzot 273

" You alone in the world," she wrote, " can under-
stand that I was not very sorry to be arrested. It will
render them less furious, less hot against Roland — so I
told myself. Should they proceed against me, I shall
know how to act in a manner useful to his reputation.
It seemed to me that I should thus acquit myself of an
indemnity due to his griefs. But do you not see that
also, in my solitude, I am with you ? In this way,
through captivity, I sacrifice myself to my husband, I
keep myself for my friend, and to my oppressors I owe
the reconciliation of duty and love. Do not pity me.
Others admire my courage, but they know not my causes
of rejoicing." Again, ten days later: "What matter
where I live, here or there ? Do I not carry my heart
everywhere, and to be shut up in a prison — is it not to be
given over to it entirely? ... If I must die — well, I
have known all that is best in life, and its duration might
involve fresh sacrifices. The moment when I was
proudest of my existence, when I felt most vividly that
exaltation of the soul which braves all dangers and
rejoices in running risks, was when I entered the Bastille
:hosen for me by my foes. I will not say that I went
out to meet them ; but it is very true that I did not
fly. . . . It was a delight to be of use to [Roland] in a
manner that left me more yours. I should like to
sacrifice my life for him in order to win the right to give
ny last sigh to you alone." Recurring to the same
:heme on July 7 — when her captivity was more than
ive weeks old — her tone is unaltered, as she dwells
ipon " the charm of a prison," where no distasteful
iuties claimed thought or care, where there was none to
suffer were she melancholy, none to attempt to elicit
sentiments she had it not in her power to bestow ; where
she was at liberty to recapture moral independence. " It
vas not permitted to me to seek that independence and
:hus to disburden myself of the happiness of another
18

274 Life of Madame Roland

to which I found it so difficult to contribute. Circum-
stances have won for me what I could not have obtained)
for myself without a species of crime." In fetters she had
found freedom, she was given back to herself and to truth.,
It is by her relief, her joy, that it is possible to!
measure the misery of the bygone months, the strain,
of the struggle she had kept up, and to estimate at itst
legitimate worth the sacrifice, however imperfect, she had
made to conscience and duty. In the cell at the Abbaye
she had regained peace.

She had been there no more than a few hours when,
she received a visit from M. Grandpre. Appointed by
Roland to inspect the prisons, he was eager to render:
any service in his power to his patron's wife, and at his
suggestion she wrote to lay her case before the Conven-j
tion, in a letter couched, as usual, in eloquent language,
and protesting against the wrongs suffered by Roland as!
well as by herself. "If my crime," she ended, " is toj
have shared the austerity of his principles, the energy of
his courage, and his ardent love of liberty, I confess my!
guilt and await my chastisement."

There was little likelihood that her remonstrances!
would be listened to by the Convention. That days
Louvet had declared to those of the Girondist party
gathered together for consultation at Meillan's house
that nothing could be done there, save to offer them-j
selves as a prey ; that it was useless to remain in Paris,-
dominated by terror, and where the conspirators were
masters of the armed force and the constituted authorities.;
Only the insurrection of the departments could save
France. On June 2 those of the party who could escape
had accordingly fled ; Buzot was amongst them.

One other letter, besides that she had addressed to
the Convention, was written by Madame Roland on the
first day of her imprisonment. It was to Bosc :

At the Abbayc 275

" To-day upon the throne, to-morrow in chains.
Thus, my poor friend, is uprightness treated in time of
revolution. You would not believe how much I have
thought of you this morning. I am persuaded that you
are one of those who will be most occupied with my
vicissitudes. Here I am, en bonne maison, for as long as
it may please God. Here, as elsewhere, I shall be on
good enough terms with myself to suffer little from the
change. No human power can deprive a sound and
strong soul of that kind of harmony which keeps it above
everything. I embrace you cordially. For life and
death, esteem and friendship."

Bosc deserved her confidence. On that day of
tumult he had hastened to the rue de la Harpe, had

iied away little Eudora, and had placed her with one
lis friends, a Madame Creuze Latouche, who was to
for her with her own children. Eudora was safe,
concerning her, at least, her mother was at rest.
That night, worn out by the agitation of the preceding
lty-four hours, the prisoner slept, awakened from time
time by the noise around her, but falling again into
leep slumber, from which even the tocsin scarcely roused
ler for more than a moment, though ignorant of what
hat ominous sound might portend.

" If they kill me," she told Grandpre when, at ten
>'clock, he came to ask how she had passed the night,
1 it will be in this bed. 1 am so tired that I shall await
verything here."

By midday, nevertheless, she had risen, and was
etting in order her new abode — arranging a wri tang-
ible, and sending for the books she wished to study.
Thomson's Seasons she had brought with her. Plutarch,
lume's History of England^ and an English Dictionary
e to constitute her library.

" They shall not prevent my living till the last
loment," she said to herself, as, not without a certain

276 Life ofjMadame Roland

amusement, she made her preparations. . . . "Should
they come, I go to meet them, leaving this life to enter j
into rest."

Service was at the disposal of prisoners who had the
wherewithal to pay for it ; but she determined from the
first to dispense with help in keeping her cell in order.
By taking that office upon herself she ensured promptness
and cleanliness, neither of them to be come by should
others be depended upon. Though the small prison'
allowance for food and fire could be supplemented by!
private means, always indifferent in such matters, she
determined to reduce her personal expenditure to the*
lowest point possible, partly in order to prove by ex-j
perience what that point was. Before long her daily diet:
consisted of a breakfast of bread and water, a plate of
meat and vegetables for dinner, and in the evening (
vegetables alone. On the other hand, she supplied the:
wants of some of her fellow-prisoners, and did not]
deprive the servants of the gratuities they might have
gained by waiting upon her. " When one is or seems
severely economical/ ' she observed, " in order to be.
pardoned one must be generous to others."

In the meantime, to return to the beginning of her!
captivity, a blow greater than any personal danger had
been dealt her in the news of the decree of arrest passed
against the Girondist members. By this step the last
touch had, in her eyes, been put to the ruin of
the country. Almost every friend she possessed was
numbered amongst the proscribed ; and she was, most
of all, tortured by anxiety concerning Buzot's fate. In
her bitterness of spirit she felt for the moment that
death itself would be welcome.

She had not yet been subjected to the examination,
she was daily expecting. Visits were paid her by divers
officials, with the ostensible purpose of inquiring whether
she was satisfied with her treatment, or had reason for

At the Abbayc 277

mplaint. Was her health suffering ? was she a little
ennuyee ? she was asked ; answering that she was well
and by no means ennuyie. Ennui, she added, was the
malady of vacant souls and resourceless minds ; pro-
ceeding, as always, to denounce the illegality and
injustice of her detention.

During her early days of captivity she received
a visit of another nature. This was from Madame
Grandchamp. Though the estrangement between them
had apparently been complete, old affection had stirred
within Sophie at the news of the arrest, and hesitating
to intrude uninvited upon the prisoner, she sent a note
placing herself at her disposal. " You cannot have
forgotten what I was to you," she added, with an
appeal to the past.

The answer was cordial. Accepting frankly her
former friend's offer of service, Madame Roland wrote
that, in proof of her confidence, she was choosing
Madame Grandchamp as the depositary of a charge
demanding boundless trust. What that charge was,
Madame Grandchamp learnt when she hastened to the
Abbaye. Owing to a connection between her and
Grandpre, she found no difficulty in obtaining admission
to Madame Roland's cell ; and her description of what
followed places the two women graphically before us.

Excitable and emotional, Madame Grandchamp was
so much moved by the thought of the circumstances
under which they were to meet that she came near
to swooning as the bolts were withdrawn; and without
venturing to look the prisoner in the face, threw herself
tearfully into her arms. Madame Roland was less agitated.
Taking courage from the unfaltering tones of her voice,
the guest raised her eyes, and was inter dite at perceiving
that those of Madame Roland were lit with some-
thing like gladness, her deepened colour alone testifying
to any unusual emotion. " At this sight my tears dried,

278 Life of Madame Roland

my lips were silent, and whilst I was absorbed by the
struggle taking place within me, she had time to recount all
that had passed before I found strength to interrupt her."

Madame Roland further made known to the visitor
the nature of the service she was about to claim from
her — namely, that she would take charge of certain
writings liable to confiscation. Manifestly wounded by
a sang-froid corresponding so ill with her own emotional
display, and conscious besides of the risk incurred by
the possession of compromising manuscripts, Madame
Grandchamp nevertheless not only agreed to accept the
responsibility, but arranged to pay a daily visit to the
prison. She also tendered advice that the captive would
have done wisely to follow — begging that she would
address letters only to those authorised to receive
communications from the prisoners.

Madame Grandchamp was not Madame Roland's
only guest. Though ordered to be kept au secret^
her friendly relations with M. Grandpre, as well as the
kindly disposition of her gaoler, enabled her to receive
visits from Bosc, Champagneux, her servants, and others.
But even more than by their visits she was distracted
from the contemplation of present and future ills by
the preparation of the Notices Historiques upon which
she counted for the vindication of herself and the men
with whom she had been associated from the charges
preferred against them.

The amount of literary work accomplished during
her five months' captivity is truly amazing. Memoirs
of her childhood and youth, historical papers dealing
with the public events which had passed before her eyes,
portraits of the leading men of the Revolution, were
all written at this period, and have taken their place
amongst the classics of French literature. When it is
further considered that what remains does not represent
the whole of her labours, but that a large portion of

The Interrogatoire 279

the Notices Historiques, written during her first weeks
of imprisonment, were destroyed, some conception may

K formed of her astonishing energy and literary facility,
le practice afforded by her early habits of composition
re fruit ; and, in contrast to her former horror of
publication, she was now bent upon securing, by means
of it, the favourable verdict of the world at large.

Whilst bearing her confinement with equanimity, and
losing no time in utilising the leisure it afforded,
Madame Roland had not ceased to protest, pointing
out that no charge against her had been specified and
that she had undergone no examination. It was, in
fact, not until her captivity had lasted close upon a
fortnight that Louvet, as police administrator, put her
through an interrogatoire. The results, published in the
Thermometre du Jour, showed that it had dealt mainly
with the chief and damning charge made against the
entire Girondist party — the scheme attributed to its
members for the formation of a republican federation,
for separating the departments from Paris and exciting
them against the capital. These accusations were in-
dignantly denied by Madame Roland, on her husband's
behalf and that of his friends, and there the matter
ended for the present.

Her stay at the Abbaye was not to be prolonged.
Before she left it one paramount cause of anxiety was
removed. She knew that Buzot had effected his escape,
and had joined the other Girondist refugees at their
rendezvous at Caen. With the certainty of his present
safety and of that of Roland, who had reached Rouen,
she could afford to be indifferent to matters affecting
her personal welfare, and on June 22 she was further
cheered by letters from Buzot himself, brought to the
Abbaye by a friend of Brissot's, Madame Goussart, who
was also ready to serve as a channel of communication
in reply.

280 Life of Madame Roland

That same day Madame Roland wrote the first o
the short series of letters long afterwards made public — 'J
letter full of all that the fugitive must have craved tc
learn. It told of her present condition, her surroundings'
the treatment she received ; it expressed her entire
devotion to himself, her rejoicing in the bonds that left
her more wholly his. Gently reproaching him for the
melancholy of his tone, what, she asked, did a woman's!
life matter ? It was a question of preserving his and
of rendering it of use to their common cause. The;
rest would come after. In every line her indomitable
courage is shown, her sole fear being that he might!
rashly attempt her deliverance. Let him take thought
alone for the country. Only in saving it would her
salvation be won, nor would she, if she could, purchase
safety at its expense. Did she know that he was
serving France effectually, she would die happy.

Two days after the letter was written a fresh
development of her affairs took place, and her residence
at the Abbaye came to an end.

CHAPTER XXV

Removal from the Abbaye — Release and rearrest — At Sainte-Pelagie—
Plans for her escape — Henriette Cannet — Prison life — Waning hopes
— Marat's murder — Destruction of the Notices Historiques—Wvz Me-
moirs— Last letter to Buzot.

ADAME ROLAND had, in some sort, made
herself at home at the Abbaye. Her cell might
narrow, its walls dirty, its bars thick ; but she was
one in it, free to shut the door upon herself and to
ve herself up to thought and memory. Her charm
had worked, as it invariably did upon those brought into
contact with her, and her gaoler was eager to minister
so far as he could to her comfort. Books were supplied
to her and Bosc brought flowers, till Lavacquerie, the

I kindly warder, named her cell " Flora's Pavilion. " It was
destined, in the course of the following months, to receive
many guests. Brissot occupied it next, and before a
month had gone by Charlotte Corday was its inmate.
Besides more personal sources of consolation, the
prisoner's inveterately sanguine disposition stood her in
good stead. She had succeeded in recapturing her hopes
for the country ; and, convinced that a widespread up-

B'sing of the departments would terminate the despotism
: Paris, consoled herself beforehand by the visionary
iumph of her friends. If her own fate remained
uncertain, she seems to have considered that, should
the mob not intervene, her life was safe. How little
innocence was to avail in the following months as a
protection was a lesson only mastered by degrees.

281

282 Life of Madame Roland

Meantime she was well aware that the calumnies spread
abroad concerning her constituted a present danger. On
June 20 the Pere Duchesne y most shamelessly scurrilous
of journals, published an account of a fictitious visit paid
to her by a " patriot " who, in the character of a royalist
from La Vendee, had obtained from her an admission
of the complicity of Roland and others of his party with
the rebels. The article ended with the recommendation
that she should weep for her crimes before expiating them
on the scaffold ; and the contents of the paper, shouted
under her window by the news-criers with the reiterated
and significant information that the culprit was in the
Abbaye, was a direct incitement to the listening mob
to take her punishment upon themselves. Lodging a
complaint with Garat, Minister of the Interior, Madame
Roland used no economy of truth. Describing what
had passed, she charged him with the responsibility
for anything that might ensue. " The ruffian who
persecutes, the fanatic who rails, the deceived populace
who murder, follow their instinct and their calling. But
the man in office who tolerates them, no matter on what
pretext, is dishonoured for ever."

Garat was not altogether insensible to the reproach ;
and, urged to do his duty by Champagneux, he wrote to
the Committee of Public Safety on the prisoner's behalf.
The reply of the Committee, some ten days later, is
an example of the language then in use. It states
besides, for the first time, the pretext for Madame
Roland's imprisonment.

" Citizen Minister, the arrest of the Citoyenne Roland
was based by the Committee of Public Safety on the flight
of her husband, who is at this moment kindling the flame
of civil war in the department of Rhone-et-Loire, and
upon the complicity of this pretended Lucretia with her
pretended virtuous husband in the scheme of perverting
public spirit by a bureau of the said public spirit. . . ."

Release and Rearrest 283

By the time the explanation was given, Madame
Roland was no longer at the Abbaye, and the cruel trick
had been played by which the Commune, releasing her
with one hand, instantly recaptured her with the other.
Her reiterated remonstrances, tardily supported by Garat,
may have shown the desirability of paying a formal
deference to the requirements of law, and thereby riveting
the victim's chains more securely.

Other reasons made her removal from the Abbaye
, necessary. As Madame Grandchamp was leaving the
prison on June 23, she was stopped by the keeper, who
informed her that, Brissot having been sent to the Abbaye
with orders that he was to be kept au secret, he had
sent in a request that Madame Roland should be
transferred to another prison, no accommodation for a
second solitary captive being available. The news excited
Madame Grandchamp to an extent she observes would
be incomprehensible to those unacquainted with certain
matters personal to herself— no doubt, her connection
with Grandpre.

W" In Heaven's name," she begged the warder, " keep
\x ignorant of this. Her entreaties to see Brissot, to
speak with him, would cause me the cruellest embarrass-
ment."

It was, in fact, a hard blow to Madame Roland when
she learnt, though not till later, that she had actually been
under the same roof as the Girondist leader and had yet
been unable to confer with him. For the present she
remained ignorant of the chance she had missed. The
next morning she was informed by two officials, visiting
the prison for that purpose, that she was free ; the
order for her release stating that her examination had
elicited nothing justifying her detention. That same
day an order was issued for her rearrest " in conformity

Hith the law," and describing her as, "in legal terms,"
suspect. Of this she of course knew nothing as,

284 Life of Madame Roland

half wondering not to find herself more moved by thel
announcement of her enfranchisement, she prepared tc|
leave the Abbaye and to return home.

u You know where M. Roland is at present ? I
asked one of the officers abruptly before she took leave
of them.

She smiled. The question, she observed, was not so
discreet as to demand a reply.

Leaving the Abbaye, she drove to the rue de la
Harpe, intending to deposit her luggage there before
seeking Eudora. Two men, unperceived, had followed
her closely, and she had scarcely reached the house when
their object was declared.

" On behalf of the law," they said, " we arrest you."

The shock of disappointment was cruel, nor could
she at first bring herself to submit. To be thus cheated,
tricked, was more than even her gallant spirit could
endure without resistance ; and, aware that the section
in which the house was situated had disapproved of her
former arrest, she sent a hurried message to place herself
under its protection. It was of no avail. Though the
section would have gladly responded to the appeal, it
was helpless ; the representations made to the Commune
were disregarded ; and that day she was relegated to her
new place of captivity, Sainte-Pelagie.

The prison was of evil repute. Serving in older days
as a house of detention for women of bad character, it
had won an unenviable notoriety in September as the
scene of the massacre of the priests confined there. As
she entered it, Madame Roland's heart must have sunk.
At first sleep forsook her, replaced by waking dreams,
and her health threatened to give way. But it was not
long before she rallied her courage. Old habit — the
habit of long years of self-control — reasserted itself,
together with a sort of shame that her enemies should
have had power temporarily to disturb her calm. u Had

At Sainte«Pelagie 285

I not here, as at the Abbaye, books, leisure ? Was
I no longer myself?" and the transient agitation of
her mind was mastered by the strength of her dauntless

Hyill, as she turned to her ordinary occupations, diversify-
ng the monotony of her life by the study of the English
language in the works of Shaftesbury and Thomson and
by the resumption of her old art of drawing. The
composition of her memoirs she had, for a time, laid aside,
lest they should fall into hostile hands.

Her surroundings were not such as to facilitate
thought or work. In the wing of the building where her
cell was situated, many disreputable women were con-
fined, as well as others suffering the penalty of their
crimes, and as they congregated by day in the corridors
and hall, loitered on the staircases or in the little court-
yard below, and shouted through the windows to the
men in the opposite wing, the sound of their voices,
the very language that was used, reached the ears of the
solitary prisoner. The atmosphere impregnated with evil
around her seemed to rob life more and more of its
value, so that she would not only have been ready to
welcome death as a friend, but might now, as later,
have been tempted to invite it, had it not been for the
thought or her child, for the tenacity with which she
clung to the hope of vindicating Roland's reputation
should she be called upon to appear in her defence,
and — perhaps — because the dream of a future meeting with
Buzot still linked her to life.

For hope was alive within her. She was keeping up
an imprudent correspondence with M. Lauze Duperret,
deputy of the Bouches-du-Loire, who, in spite of his
irondist principles, was as yet unattacked, and was in
some sort acting as a channel of communication between
her and the refugees. Looking forward to the successful
intervention of the departments and the overthrow of the

„ _.„...-,.. _ ,

286 Life of Madame Roland

what was going on at Caen the assurance that she was,
unforgotten. M I receive no letter in which you are|
not mentioned ; they seem more occupied, I assure you,|
by the harshness you are experiencing than by all they:
themselves suffer."

The news of his wife's second arrest had reached thei
unfortunate Roland at Rouen. In safety there, and cared
for by old friends, it had thrown him into a fever of I
anxiety and distress, and he appears to have set on foot j
a despairing attempt at her rescue by means of Henriette |
Cannet, now a childless widow, who reappears for aj
moment in an heroic light, willing to risk her life j
for the sake of the friend of her youth and the wife of j
the man she herself had once loved. To M. Breuil,
the first editor of the Cannet letters, Henriette described j
her visit to the prison and its object. " I was a widow
and without children. Madame Roland, on the contrary,
had a husband, already old, and a charming little daughter.
What was more natural than to risk my useless life to
save hers, so precious to her family ? I wished to change
dresses with her and to remain in the prison whilst she
attempted, in this disguise, to leave it. Eh bien ! all
my entreaties, all my tears, availed nothing. 'But they
would kill you, my good Henriette/ she repeated again
and again ; cyour blood would be upon me. I would
rather die a hundred deaths than have to reproach
myself with yours.'"

The two accordingly parted, never to meet again.
Though it was not likely that Madame Roland would
consent to purchase a chance of escape by imperilling
her friend, it must have warmed her heart to know that
another woman was willing to encounter danger for her,
and that the wide divergence of political views — Henri-
ette belonged to a royalist family — had left their old
affection unimpaired.

She consistently refused to allow any one to incur

At -Saintc-Pdagie 287

* risk for her sake. Madame Bouchard, the porter's wife,

; had, like others, become attached to her charge, and by

\ her help it was thought possible that an escape might be

effected. After consideration Madame Roland decided

against making the attempt, afraid in particular that, if

successful, it would be damaging to her husband.

"As long as they keep me in prison," she said,
hey will leave him in peace. It is more important
the public that he should escape their fury than I.
ould reason and justice ever regain their sway, would
pie not rejoice to find him living and to place him at
e helm ? Also I will expose no one to danger. I
uld not enjoy liberty had I compromised others. I will
y here — such is my determination."

She likewise deprecated any rash endeavours to pro-
re her liberation from without, whether meditated by
land or by Buzot, writing to the latter of the future
th a confidence she can hardly have felt. Her
ancipation, she said, must result from amendment in
blic affairs ; it was a mere question of waiting ; and
e comforted him with the assurance that, with the
ception of certain moments — probably those they had
passed together — she was happier than she had been for
six months past. A curious superstition had hitherto
caused her to refuse to allow his portrait to be brought
to a prison ; now, however, it was with her, making up
in some feeble way for the absence of the original.

Her fears that the desire to come to her rescue
should lead Buzot to run into danger or to take
some step prejudicial to the public interest were not
uncalled for. In the midst of the schemes he and his
comrades were elaborating for the salvation of the
country, he was — to quote his biographer — " strangely
preoccupied " by Madame Roland's fate ; and his restless
longing to engage in some enterprise which should in-
clude her deliverance was anxiously combated by the

288 Life of Madame Roland

captive, as she dwelt upon the brighter features of a
situation it must have been hard for the man to accept
in a philosophic spirit. Tracing for his benefit a picture
of her prison life, she shows determination to lay
stress rather upon its alleviations than its suffering.
" The air is better than at the Abbaye, and I seek, when
I care to do so, the warder's pleasant chamber. I am
indeed obliged to go there to receive the few who can
come to visit me. For this, however, it is necessary
to pass through a great part of the house, under the eyes
of the gaolers and of the wretched women who wander
about my part of it. I therefore remain habitually in
my cell. It is large enough to hold a chair by my
bedside. There, at a little table, I read, I write, and
I draw. There, your portrait on my breast or before
my eyes, I thank Heaven that I have known you, and
have tasted the inexpressible good of loving and being
loved with the generosity and tenderness unknown to
common souls, and greater than all the pleasures they
enjoy. Flowers sent to me from the Jardin des Plantes
by Bosc decorate this austere retreat, blossom in it, and
scent it with their sweet fragrance."

As July advanced certain indulgences were obtained,
mainly through the influence of Madame Grandchamp,
aided by the friendly relations the prisoner had again
established with those in charge of her. The weather
being intensely hot and her sun-baked cell stifling, she
was removed from it, to be lodged in a room on the
ground floor where a pianoforte had been placed. With
sufficient space for comfort, she was thus relieved from
the necessity of passing through the crowd of prisoners
whenever she left her cell, and the wife of the warder
did her utmost to render her position tolerable. " I look
upon myself as her boarder," wrote Madame Roland,
" and 1 forget my captivity."

If she could forget her captivity, it was not possible

CHARLOTTE CORDAY.

From an engraving by Greatbatch, after a painting by Marke.

188]

Failing Hopes 289

to forget the tragedy enacted outside her prison walls.
As the days went by, there was little in the aspect of
public affairs to cheer her. Hope might die hard ; but
the events of that July must have gone»far to kill it.
The anticipation that the departments would unite to
rise against the tyranny of Paris was falsified. When on
July 7 a review of the National Guards took place at
Caen, the headquarters of the Girondist fugitives, only
seventeen of their number volunteered to march upon
the capital. " From that moment the deputies understood
that their cause was lost," says M. Herissay, adding that
tradition relates that Charlotte Corday had been present
on the occasion, and that the cowardice of her compatriots
decided her upon Marat's assassination.

Tidings from other centres of disaffection were no
more encouraging. The Girondists conceived suspicions
of the good faith of Wimppfen, in command of the
insurrectionary forces, such as they were, and when he
suggested, as the sole alternative offering a chance of
success, that negotiations with England should be set on
foot, they felt their distrust justified. They were pledged
to the Republic, they told him, and would die for it.
By the end of the month they had been formally declared
traitors and outlaws ; Caen had given in its submission ;
the Council-General of Calvados had retracted its decrees ;
and troops from Paris had arrived to re-establish what
was called order. Evreux had already vowed fresh
fidelity to the Constitution ; the name of Buzot was
execrated in the town he had represented, his house
was set on fire, his property sold, and he himself fled
co Brittany.

Before these things had struck despair into the
learts of those who had hoped that France would
ihake off the yoke of her present oppressors, Charlotte
-orday had dealt her blow and Marat was dead. " An
istonishing woman," Madame Roland wrote, " consulting
19

I

290 Life of Madame Roland

only her courage, has come to put to death the apostll
of murder and plunder ; she deserves the admiration c|
the universe. But, not well acquainted with the conditio
of affairs, she chose time and victim ill. There is
greater criminal to whom she should have given th
preference. Marat's death has only been of service t<
his abominable disciples ; they have made him whon
they had taken for a prophet into a martyr."

What followed upon Charlotte Corday's act filled th<i
prisoner with indignation. As Champagneux was on hi:|
way to visit her, he met the funeral of the popular ido
and observed how few were the members of the Convene
tion who had dared to absent themselves from the great
demonstration in his honour. When he had describee]
the scene he had witnessed, the two fell at first into ai
gloomy silence. Madame Roland's own doom seemed|
certain ; worse, France appeared to be lost. Then she :
spoke of Brissot, and of the hopes he still indulged,!
expressing her opinion that he should be told that theyj
were vain. It might, she admitted, seem cruel ; butl
Brissot, the ardent apostle of liberty, ought not to be :
stabbed in the back. He had truths to tell, lessons toj
impart, before he died, and it must be done. Acting!
on this belief and believing also that the tidings oft
disaster might be softened if they were conveyed toj
him by herself, she wrote to him on the subject, withj
the result that he set to work upon his memoirs. His j
labours proved vain. The book was printed but wasj
seized and destroyed by Robespierre.

In the prisons, as elsewhere, the growing ferocity of'
the dominant party was felt. Grandpre, having un-
guardedly expressed regret at the detention of so many
suffering captives, was denounced as guilty of complicity
in Marat's death and was put under arrest. Had a letter
of Madame Roland's at the moment in his hands for
transmission to Brissot been found on him, it might have

THE DFATH OF MARAT.
From a photo by G. Herman, after the picture by David at Brussels

2go]

The "Notices Historiques " Destroyed 291

rone ill with her go-between ; but he was successful in

mcealing it, and in clearing himself from the charge
>referred against him. Caution was necessary for the

iture, and his visits to Madame Roland became rare.

[or was it long before she was deprived of the com-
bative comfort secured to her by his influence and
the goodwill of the prison officials. A domiciliary visit

'as paid ; the wife of the keeper was called to order for

:he indulgence shown to her charge, and Madame Roland

ras again relegated to the corridor from which she had

>een removed. Equality, it was observed, must be

laintained here as elsewhere. So the melancholy summer

'ore away.

During the first week in. August Madame Roland
mderwent a painful and personal loss. This was the
les truction of the Notices Historiques, written during the

irlier weeks of her captivity. M. Perroud, in his Etude
ritique, offers an explanation, in some degree hypo-

letical, of the calamity. Confided in the first instance
:o Bosc — what was in Madame Grandchamp's care was
10 more than a small portion of the whole — the

lanuscripts had been sent by him to Champagneux, to
>e copied and returned ; and the earlier part of the

rork had been thus dealt with when destruction, in a

toment of panic, overtook the rest. Champagneux,

lanifestly anxious to shift the responsibility on to other
.houlders, has given his version of the catastrophe —
version considered by M. Perroud, to say the least,
inaccurate. Madame Roland's account of the affair may
>e taken as representing the approximate truth.

" I had confided them all," she says, writing of the

Notices Historiques, " to a friend who had the greatest
ralue for them. The storm burst upon him suddenly,
[n view of his impending arrest, he thought of his danger

lone, and without reflecting upon other expedients, he
:hrew my manuscript into the fire. 1 confess I would

292 Life of Madame Roland

rather it had been myself. . . . These writings were a
pillow upon which I rested for the justification of my
own memory and that of many interesting persons."

The loss proved less complete than she had feared ;
but much was undoubtedly gone. It is significant that,
in his edition of her writings, Champagneux omitted the
passage referring to the incident.

Recognising the impossibility of re-writing the papers
that had been burnt, Madame Roland turned at once,
with her customary energy, to other literary work, and
the Portraits et Anecdotes, with the Memoires Particuliers
which give an account of her early life, were both begun
almost immediately after she had learnt the destruction
of the Notices Historiques. It was deliberately and of set
purpose that she thus turned aside from the present to
steep herself in the memories of the past. "My Notices
are lost," she wrote ; " I am going to write Memoires,
and, accommodating myself prudently to my weakness
at a time that I have been painfully affected, I shall
commune with myself in order to find distraction." In
less than three weeks she had completed the history of
her childhood up to her thirteenth year, painting the
picture of those tranquil and happy days to the ac-
companiment of the surrounding prison life and finding
in the thought of them a refuge from the horrors of her
present environment. It would have been well had she
been able likewise to shut her ears to what was taking
place outside the walls of her place of captivity. There
were times when the knowledge of it and the darkening
aspect of the future made it hard to carry on the work
she had set herself to do. " Involuntary sadness," she
wrote on August 27, " penetrates my senses, extinguishes
my imagination, and withers my heart." All, wherever
she turned her gaze, told of danger, dishonour, and
disgrace to the country she loved. Threatened by
enemies without and within, the invader was at its gates,

II

Last Letter to Buzot 293

he

u

cc

:

m

;;

h

".

1

e rebels of La Vendee were a menace to internal peace.
Worse than either was the thought that standing at the
helm were men who were a shame to the principles she,

o less than they, professed ; whilst the patriots she

usted and loved were outcasts, hunted for their lives.

he downfall of tyranny, which should have opened an
era of justice and peace, had, on the contrary, left passion
and vice triumphant. " The hour of indignation is gone
by," she wrote in deep dejection ; nothing good could
be anticipated, nothing evil a surprise.

In the present condition of Paris the September
massacres were in her eyes in a measure eclipsed. They
had been the work of few. The people had now acquired
a lust for blood and clamoured for greater rapidity in
sending victims to the scaffold. For her part, she felt
death might come to her at any moment, through the fury
of the rabble hounded on by the scurrilities of the Pere
Duchesne. And as for those she loved, what better wish
could she form for them than an escape from France

hich would involve separation from herself? "O
my friends," she wrote, in a passion of grief and longing,
" may Heaven be favourable to you and lead you to the

ores of the United States, the only refuge of liberty.
My prayers go with you, and I have some hopes that
you are, in truth, sailing toward those shores. But alas !
for me all is over. I shall see you no more ; and this
separation — so greatly to be desired for your safety — I
feel to be our ultimate parting."

Three days later, on August 31, she wrote the last

tter extant to Buzot. Written, for reasons of safety,
in the character of a third person, and couched in veiled

nguage, it was addressed by a woman whose hopes
of release were waning to a hunted man, pursued by
enemies eager to compass his ruin. In some sort a
final leave-taking, it may be well to give it at length :
You are acquainted, my friend, with your Sophie's

294 Life of Madame Roland

heart and with her affection. You can imagine her
emotion, her delight, at receiving tidings of you. Yet
how much uncertainty remains ! Why not explain more
fully your commercial enterprises — so dangerous under
present circumstances ? The safety of your small
property, the success you can look for, are the only
blessings she can enjoy in the condition of lassitude to
which she is reduced. She only lives to hear of this ;
your suffering would be death to her. I am charged
with her freply, and you cannot fail to understand her
need of using the hand of another. I can tell you more
of her condition than she would have dared to tell you
herself. Her malady, since you departed, has assumed
a disastrous character ; it is impossible to foresee its
duration or calculate its term. At one time violent crises
seem as if they would cause great changes, or give rise
to fears for ill consequences ; at another a painful delay
darkens the distant future with anxiety, mingled with
some hope. From the moment of her first attack, she
made her reckoning with all possibilities, and faced them
firmly. The condition of her family and the thought
of your prosperity then sustained her. I have seen her,
happy in the midst of her sufferings, preserve her
serenity, her mental freedom, and enjoy the good fortune
she believed to be in store for you, regarding herself as
a propitiatory victim of which fate would perhaps accept
the sacrifice as the price of benefits secured to those dear
to her. How great is the change ! Business keeps you
far from her, offering no longer a brilliant perspective, but
entailing hard labour on you ; her old uncle [Roland] is
fallen into a terrible state of prostration ; he is sinking
alarmingly. His life, menaced as it is, may, however, be
prolonged ; but weak, distrustful, difficult to please, he
finds it a torment, and renders it a torment to those who
surround him. She has obtained from him the destruc-
tion of the will you know of, which had disturbed her

Last Letter to Buzot

295

so greatly for your sake " — the memoirs Roland had
prepared, dealing with his domestic grievances — c< he put
an end to it as a final sacrifice, exacted by her with the
authority of a dying woman, of which she took ad-
vantage. ... In the strange destiny by which you are
so closely united, to be still more cruelly parted, rejoice
at least, oh my friend, in the assurance of being loved by
the tenderest heart ever created. How many tears have
I seen poor Sophie shed, as she kissed your letter and
your portrait. Preserve your life for her sake. It is
not impossible that, at her age, she may rally from the
attacks she bears with so much courage, and as long as
she lives you owe yourself to her love." After urging
ipon him the American scheme — which she also had
:ommended, in vain, to Roland — she took what she may
tave regarded as a last farewell. " Adieu, man most
rved by the most loving woman. With such a heart
ill is not yet lost. In spite of fortune, it is yours for
rver. Adieu. Oh how much you are loved ! "

The letter reached the hands of the man for whom
it was intended. It is the last of the short series which
tell the story of Madame Roland's inner life during the
Lonths of her captivity.

CHAPTER XXVI

Madame P6tion — Her mother's execution — Scenes in the prison — Madame
Roland's Memoirs — Ceases writing them — Mes demieres Pensees
— Suicidal intentions — Trial, condemnation and death of the Twenty-
two — Madame Roland receives the news — Interview with Madame
Grandchamp.

\k WHEREVER she might be, whatever might be her
* * personal cares and preoccupations, her private
anxieties and sufferings, Madame Roland retained to an
uncommon degree the faculty of throwing herself into
the life around her, regarding those with whom she was
brought into contact with the genuine interest that
transforms kindness into sympathy, copper into gold.
At Sainte-Pelagie, as afterwards at the Conciergerie, her
heart went out to her companions in misfortune, as well as
to those charged with her custody. The abuses prevailing
in the prison, the mingling of old and young, of criminals
with the innocent, shocked and distressed her ; inter-
course with women like herself victims of the present
tyranny, distracted her from her sorrows and roused her
indignation on their behalf.

Madame Petion, the wife of the ex-mayor, was
one of this last class. Waiting events at Fecamp, with
her little son of ten years old, both mother and child
had been arrested and brought to Sainte-Pelagie. What
she might more easily have endured for herself, it was
difficult to bear for the boy, whose health was suffer-
ing from the conditions of prison life ; and she begged
her mother, living at Chartres, to come to Paris and

296

Execution of Madame Lefevre 297

lead her cause with those in power. The mother, a
[adame Lefevre, responded to the appeal, and the result
is one of those tragedies becoming lamentably frequent,
[ost unsuited for the part she was called upon to play,
she was a woman who, dragged by no will of her
own into the whirlpool of revolution, became its victim.
Possessing the remains of past beauty, the desire to
please had, according to Madame Roland, severe if com-
passionate, been the principal occupation of her life. The
traces of bygone pretensions, with a groundwork of
egoism ever apparent, were all that were left to her.
Destitute of political opinions, she was incapable of form-
ing them, nor could she argue for two minutes together.
Insignificance or triviality were, however, no protection.
Imprudent talk, truly or falsely reported, caused her to
be denounced as a royalist ; she was condemned and
executed, the duty of announcing the tidings to her
daughter devolving upon Madame Roland.

Incidents of this kind, occurring almost daily, must
have thrown a sinister light upon the future prospects of
others awaiting their sentence. Yet, notwithstanding the
darkening outlook, Madame Roland would throw off at
times the oppression of uncertainty and allow her natural
gaiety to break through. In marked contrast to the
deep melancholy of her letter to Buzot of August 31 is
one — it never reached its destination — addressed to
M. Montane, once president of the Criminal Tribunal
and now a prisoner at La Force.

His wife, a petite femme du midiy was confined at
Sainte-Pelagie, and the occasion of what Madame Roland
termed a plaisanterie were the anxious inquiries he
had made as to whether the women's quarter was visited
by the Due de Biron, also a captive there. Doubtless
addicted, alike as a good judge and as a prisoner, to
dreaming — so Madame Roland wrote — he had reflected
that misfortune, even more than pleasure, served to bring

298 Life of Madame Roland

people together. But reflection was not good for hus-
bands, and she proceeded to hold up his jealousy to
good-natured ridicule, explaining that her metier was \
that of a preacher. " Each has his vocation, rarely 1
to be escaped. Heaven wills that tyrants should be \
cowardly and cruel, the vulgar crowd blind and stupid,
truly honest people contemptuous of life, husbands
jealous, women light, and I precheuse." Let him quiet
his imagination. Anxiety was a cure for nothing, a
comforting thought — to cool heads. For the rest, the
Duke visited the women's quarter daily ; but bows were
all that passed between him and its inhabitants.

A diversion in prison life was caused at the beginning
of September by the arrival at Sainte-Pelagie of the
actresses from the Theatre Francais. Anti-patriotic
demonstrations during the performance of Pamela had
roused the suspicions of the authorities ; the theatre had
been closed, and actors and author placed under arrest.
As Madame Roland sat writing on September 4 the
arrival of the newcomers was being celebrated by a
supper shared by the official who had served as their
escort to the prison. " I am writing," she said, " to the
sound of laughter in the neighbouring room. The meal
is joyous and noisy ; the coarse talk is audible ; foreign
wines sparkle. The place, the accessories, the people,
and my occupation form a piquant contrast.' '

She was to suffer more inconvenience than she
anticipated from her neighbours. The warder was no
longer able to allow her to pass through the outer hall
on the way to his apartment, and she therefore remained
confined to her cell ; whilst the loud merriment of the
comedians, their concerts and banquets, the visits they
received and the attentions paid to them, threw her own
condition into the greater relief.

The protest of the inmates of the prison at last
prevailed and the scenes enacted in the hall were put to

I

Incidents of Prison Life 299

end. It continued, however, to be used for purposes
no less disturbing to the peace of mind of the prisoner
confined in her solitary cell ; when the officials charged
with the maintenance of what was called order in the house
of detention, met there to dine, sharing the feast with
other boon companions. " It would be impossible to
imagine, and I shall certainly not attempt to describe, the
brutal mirth, the coarse conversation, the infamy of these
entertainments ; the word l patriotism ' being stupidly
applied and emphatically repeated with reference to the
scaffold whither all c suspects ' should be sent."

Madame Grandchamp supplies a graphic account —
suspected by M. Perroud to be Cl dramatised " — of one
uch occasion. She was visiting her friend, when the
rder's wife threw a note in' at the window, containing
e warning that a committee of the Commune was
out to meet for dinner in the adjoining hall, and that
hould it be discovered that their conversation could be
erheard from Madame Roland's cell, the prisoner's
struction, with that of her visitor, would be the result,
he scene that ensued may be imagined, as the two
women, scarcely daring to breathe, listened to what took
place at the other side of the door, and heard, as the
wine flowed freely, loud talk of massacres, past and
future, Madame Roland's name being placed at the head
of the list of victims to be drawn from Sainte-Pelagie.
It was even proposed to summon her at once before
the committee, the suggestion striking terror into the
hearts of the eavesdroppers ; but the idea was fortunately

I abandoned, and at six in the evening the visitors took
their departure.
Meantime the weeks were passing, and deliverance
was no nearer— rather, the chances of it were receding
with every day. The decree against suspects placed
every man's life and liberty at the mercy of the despots
ow forming the Government ; legal procedure was

1

300 Life of Madame Roland

more and more hurried ; the accused were robbed to
a greater and greater extent of their means of defence.
The withdrawal of their right of reply was a special blow
to Madame Roland. To the opportunity it would have i
afforded her of vindicating her innocence and that ofj
Roland she had looked eagerly forward ; deprived of1
this hope, it no longer mattered how or where she
was put to death. " As long as one could speak, I felt
a vocation for the guillotine," she wrote. " There is now
no choice ; and to be murdered here or judged there,
is the same to me."

She was carrying on, in spite of interruptions, the pre-
paration of her Memoirs, and contemplated making the story
of her life complete. Her first eighteen years seemed
to her, looking back, the happiest she had known. " No
passion was mine ; all was premature, but calm and quiet,
like the mornings of the most serene spring days." If
adversity had followed, it had developed the strength that
had rendered her superior to misfortune. Laborious years
ensued, marked by the stern joy belonging to duties
fulfilled ; and lastly came the days of revolution, with
the maturing of her character and the scope afforded to
it. So she wrote, summarising what she had to record
in a letter to the friend she addressed by the pseudonym of
"Jany " — believed to be the historian Mentelle. She was
not destined to carry out her purpose, and it is the earlier
part of her life alone of which a detailed and consecutive
account was written. On October 4 — it was Eudora's
twelfth birthday — news was brought of the decree of the
previous day, proscribing practically the whole of the
Girondist party. " The tyrants," she wrote, " are at
bay. They think to fill the chasm open before them by
throwing honest men into it ; but they will fall into it
afterwards. I do not fear to walk to the scaffold in such
good company. There is shame in living in the midst
of scoundrels." Though for a little longer she continued

"Mes Derniferes Pens6es " 301

the work she had in hand, there are limits to the power
of abstracting the mind from current events : the time
came when she no longer felt it possible, and she
abandoned the hope of adding to what she had already
written the portion she had expected to be the most
interesting part of her reminiscences.

" I no longer know how to hold my pen in the midst
of the horrors which rend my country. I cannot live
upon its ruins ; I would rather be buried beneath them.
Nature, open your bosom. . . . Just God, receive me."

The history of the weeks that remained to her is
the history of a death-bed, rendered the more tragic by
reason of the strong vitality of the victim and the tenacity
of her hold on life. The gradual extinction of hope, the
last flickering sparks of her determination to dispute every
inch of the ground with the great enemy, her ultimate
acceptance of the inevitable — these are the main features
of the prolonged agony at which those who loved, Madame
Roland looked helplessly on.

The decree launched against the Girondists had been

e last drop in her cup of bitterness. For the moment

urage to meet life, though not to meet death, failed her,

d she determined to put an end to an existence that

become intolerable. In a paper called Mes

'ernieres Pensees she affirmed her deliberate conviction

of the right of the individual to dispose of his own life,

and gave her reasons for the step she contemplated.

Persons brought to trial being denied an opportunity

of vindicating their life and principles, to prolong her

existence would be only to supply another opportunity

for the exercise of tyranny. Of Roland she craved

forgiveness for ending a life she was not permitted to

give up to the alleviation of his sorrows. She likewise

asked pardon of her child. Yet she could say, at the

very portals of the grave, that the example she left her

was a rich inheritance. Lastly, she turned to Buzot.

3Q2 Life of Madame Roland

" And you whom I dare not name, you who will be more
truly known when, one day, our common misfortunes
are commiserated, you whom the most terrible of passions
did not prevent from respecting the barriers set up by
virtue, will you grieve to see me precede you to those
realms where we shall be able to love without a crime,
where nothing will prevent our union ? There evil
prejudices are silent — there are silent arbitrary exclusions,
the passion of hate, ail kinds of tyranny. I go thither to
await you and to find rest. Remain here below, if any
refuge is open to uprightness. Remain, a proof of the
injustice by which you are proscribed. But should ill-
fortune cause you to be tracked by your enemy, do not suffer
the hand of a mercenary to be lifted against you. Die,
as you have known how to live, free ; and by your last
act let the noble courage that has been my justification
render that justification complete." The expression of her
vague hopes of an after-life follow. " Supreme Being,
soul of the world, principle of all I feel that is great or
good or happy, Thou in Whose existence I believe because
it cannot be but that I proceed from something better
than what I see, I am about to reunite myself to Thine
Essence."

Directions as to her property ensue ; with reiterated
farewells to those she was leaving — save only to the man
she loved above them all. From Buzot, with the illogical
confidence of love, she felt no final parting was possible, j
" Adieu . . ." she wrote ; " no, from you alone I part
not. To leave this earth is to bring us together."

To Eudora she addressed a letter of leave-taking.
If, in spite of the affection bestowed upon her, the child
had brought disappointment to her mother, now, in what
she believed to be her last hours, she clung to the
thought of her with anxious tenderness. A time, she
wrote, would come when Eudora would know what it
cost her not to give way to emotion as she called her to

Trial of the Twenty^two 303

iind. The letter to her daughter, with a kindly note
her faithful maid and the manuscript of the Bernieres
}ensees, were all enclosed in another letter to " Jany."
Then he received the packet, she told him, she would
>e no longer living. He would find in the papers she
*ent the reasons dictating her determination to die of
hunger. She only waited to learn that sentence had been
passed upon the Girondist deputies before putting her
project into effect.

Her intention was not carried out. The trial of the
Twenty-two lingered. That October was a busy month.
On the 1 2th the examination of Marie Antoinette began.
Four days later she was dead. Prisons throughout the
country were crowded. Men murmured that the trial of
the Girondists was threatening to endure for an eternity.
Impatience was common in those days. As she awaited
tidings in her prison, Madame Roland's health was
failing, and she was lodged in the infirmary and given
medical attendance. She herself recognised the symptoms
of her disease, and knew it was not one that the doctors
could cure.

" As for me, Jany," she wrote, in an undated letter
of this month, "all is ended. You know the sickness
the English call heart-breaken ? I am attacked by it
beyond cure, nor have I any desire to retard its effects.
The fever is beginning to develop. I hope it will not
ike very long. It is a good."

She was still capable of rousing herself to enter
ipon an argument with the physician brought to attend
ler. He was, he observed, the friend of a man whom
she did not perhaps love — namely, of Robespierre.

" I knew him well and esteemed him much," she
•eplied. " I believed him to be an ardent and sincere
Friend of liberty."

" And is he so no longer ? " was the answer.

u 1 fear he also loves power," she returned, " possibly

304 Life of Madame Roland

thinking that he knows how to do good, or wishes to do
it, more than any one else. I fear he loves vengeance
greatly, and to take it upon those by whom he believes
he is not admired. I think he is very open to prejudice,
easy to excite to anger in consequence, and decides too
quickly that those who do not share all his opinions are
guilty."

" You have not seen him twice," objected the doctor.

" I have seen him far more often," she replied.
" Ask him. Let him put his hand on his conscience,
and you will see whether he can say any evil of me."

The conversation is repeated in a letter Madame
Roland addressed to the subject of it himself, intending
to entrust it to the hands of his friend. She abandoned
her design, and the letter was not sent. To what pur-
pose, she reflected, would her protest be made to a man
who was sacrificing colleagues of whose innocence he was
assured ?

Another disappointment was in store for her. Hopes
had been raised that she was to be called as a witness
in the Girondist trial, and on October 24 she had
been taken to the Palais and there held in readiness.
Her turn, however, never came, and she was denied the
satisfaction of speaking in the presence of her friends.
Their enemies were in haste to be done with the Twenty-
two and with their unprovable guilt. Vergniaud's
oratory was a danger ; he had drawn tears. Time was
being wasted, and time was valuable. A deputation from
the Revolutionary Tribunal represented to the Con-
vention that it was impeded by " forms of law," and
suggested that the jury should be authorised to cut
discussion short when they felt themselves convinced.
The suggestion was accepted and the necessary powers
were granted. Freed from legal impediments, progress
was rapid. On October 30 the jury felt themselves
convinced ; the accused were found guilty, and sentence

Execution of the Twenty-two 305

of death, with confiscation of goods, was pronounced on
all the Twenty-two.

One man — Valaze — forestalled the vengeance of his
enemies by stabbing himself in court. The rest returned,
singing the Marseillaise, to the Conciergerie. The next

day the heads of all — including that of the dead Valaze

had fallen on the scaffold.

(Throughout the trial Madame Roland had suffered
nxiety so great that Madame Grandchamp had thought
t well at first, lest she should be moved to attempt
uicide, that the course of events should be concealed
from her ; but divining the reason of her friend's silence,
she begged to be kept informed of all that passed. To
hide nothing was, she said, the only way to keep up
her courage. Though Madame Grandchamp acted on
her wishes, the task laid upon her was a hard one. The
sentence having been carried out, and the hopes of a
rescue she had entertained over, she dragged herself to
the prison to communicate the heavy tidings. She has
described what followed.1 Her face had betrayed her.
" She had hardly looked at me before she drew back and
sank upon a chair. Her countenance was pale as death ;
my tears recalled her to life ; her own flowed and relieved
her.

W" c It is for my country,' she said, ' that I shed these
ears. My friends have died martyrs to liberty. It is
not tokens of weakness their memory demands. My
doom is now fixed. Uncertainty is over. I shall shortly
join them and show myself worthy to follow them.' '
At Madame Grandchamp's departure that evening

1

M. Perroud considers that Madame Grandchamp's narrative, written
irteen years later, bears on the whole the mark of veracity. It will be
seen, however, that she describes interviews belonging to November I
and 2 as taking place at Sainte-P6lagie. Madame Roland was transferred
to the Conciergerie some time on October 31— the day of the execution
of the Twenty-two. Dates or place must therefore have become confused
in the narrator's memory.
20

306 Life of Madame Roland

Madame Roland displayed, for the first time, signs of
emotion, begging her to return early next day ; she would
then be calmer, and more capable of turning her thoughts
to her own affairs. By the morning she had been removed
to the Conciergerie, and the conversation Madame Grand-
champ records must have taken place some days earlier.
Reverting to her former purpose, she had begged to be
supplied with a sufficient quantity of opium to enable her
to choose her time for departure. Seeing in suicide no
breach of the moral law, she argued the point calmly and
quietly with her friend.

"Let us consider whether I cannot, ought not, to
avoid what appals me," she said. " It is not death, nor
the scaffold, that I fear. It is the sight of that infamous
tribunal ; of the people who look on, as if it were a
triumph, at the murder of those who loved and wished
to serve them." Was any wrong done to her reputation
by avoiding that ordeal ?

Madame Grandchamp, though not at once, decided
that, until sentence had actually been passed, she could
not reconcile it with her conscience to afford the prisoner
the means of escape. Another petition she granted.
Would she, Madame Roland asked, have courage to
witness the last scene ? As Madame Grandchamp
promised, her countenance betrayed the cost at which
the pledge was given. For a moment Madame Roland
caught the infection of the horror there depicted, and she
covered her face with her hands.

" Ah ! " she cried, " it is horrible. What I have asked
fills me with horror. Promise only to see me pass by.
Your presence will lessen my dread of that odious
transit." One friend would at least see how she bore
that ultimate trial, and she added the promise that her
manner of meeting it should render Madame Grandchamp
content.

Again Madame Grandchamp gave the required

p

Wish to Commit Suicide 307

ledge. The rendezvous was to be at the end of the
Pont Neuf, where she was to lean against the parapet.
To Bosc Madame Roland had made in writing the
same request she had vainly proffered to Madame Grand-
champ, meeting with a like refusal of the means of evasion
she craved. " In the most painful letter he had ever
written " her old and true comrade and brother-in-arms
explained his inability to supply her want. Her un-
resentful reply is extant. His affection, she told him,
had done her good. But he misunderstood her. Her
desire had not been to die at once, only to secure the
means of choosing her time to do so. " I wished to
do homage to the truth ; then to go hence before

Ihe final ceremony." It was not weakness that had in-
pired the desire. And yet she truthfully admitted that
nger and bitterness, and the belief that the fugitive
Girondists had been captured, might have secretly con-
tributed to a determination for which the mind had found
good motives. Begging Bosc to reconsider his refusal,
she nevertheless expressed her readiness to submit to
is deliberate judgment.

CHAPTER XXVII

The Conciergerie — Comte Beugnot — Riouffe — Madame Roland's examina-
tion— Condemned to death — The last scene.

THE Conciergerie when Madame Roland entered it
contained a strange medley of inmates. Aristo-
crats, republicans, thieves, women from the street, were
to be found in indiscriminate proximity. Amongst
women, Madame Du Barry represented the past,
Madame Roland the present, Josephine Beauharnais the
future. Philippe Egalite was there awaiting his sentence.
Amongst the great names of France was that of the
Duchesse de Grammont. Comte Beugnot was likewise
a prisoner ; and, regarding the newcomer with a scrutiny
at first curious and quickly becoming sympathetic, has
left upon record the impression she produced upon a
stranger in no way prepossessed in her favour.

In the days of her prosperity, when a large part of
Paris was at her feet, Beugnot had refused an introduction
to the wife of the minister. Of the women who had
won notoriety in the course of the Revolution he had
respected none, and he attributed the praises he had heard
of her to party spirit. As the two now met, involved
in a common misfortune, he confessed that he had been
mistaken. Though devoid of regular beauty, something
noble and insinuant in her countenance at once attracted
him. When he had had an opportunity of hearing
her converse, he was able to affirm that he had never
heard any woman speak with more grace and purity.

308

Estimation of Fellowvprisoners 309

"Daily," he wrote, "I felt a fresh charm in listening
to her, less by reason of what she said than because of
the magic of her utterance." Yet he was not too much
blinded by admiration to be incapable of criticism. She
was, he thought, more carried away by her head than
she would have been by her heart ; her opinions were
held with the violence of a passion ; she loved those who
shared them, hated those who did not. Therefore, in
the estimation of the count, who no doubt belonged
to the latter class, she was absolutely unjust, and had
inspired all her party with a heat of prejudice not a little
contributing to the alienation of other minds. Her
vanity, too, was always and undisguisedly apparent.
" She robbed others of the pleasure of extolling her by
loing it herself."

The severity of the animadversions, the impartiality of
:he judge, serve to enhance the power of the attraction
>y which, in spite of blemishes noted and condemned, he
;lt himself subjugated. " Surprised by the beauty and
le elevation of her language, I could not connect her
rith the woman who had frequented the Jacobins and
ras soiled with the mud of the fraternal societies."
With death close at hand, she had not lost her readi-
ness to talk, sometimes on one subject, sometimes upon
another. Beugnot, out of sympathy with her opinions
however much in sympathy with herself, admired her
most when, turning from politics, she would speak of
those domestic duties in the fulfilment of which she held
that a woman's supreme happiness lay ; or when speaking
of her husband and child, her eyes would fill with tears.
Riouffe, a Girondist fellow-prisoner, who has also
rritten of these days, took a different view. To him the
inguage of a republican on the lips of a woman for
rhom the scaffold was being prepared was one of the
still unfamiliar miracles of the Revolution. " We all
istened to her in admiration and amazement. She ex-

3IQ Life of Madame Roland

pressed herself with a purity, a rhythm, and a prosody
rendering her words a sort of music of which the ear
never wearied."

Amongst the lower inmates of the crowded prison
her influence, during the few days she spent at the
Conciergerie, made itself felt. The room she inhabited
became, said Beugnot, a refuge of peace in that hell. If
she entered the courtyard where the wretched women
who shared her captivity herded together and quarrelled
or fought, her presence was sufficient to restore order.
Recognising no other authority, they would control
themselves rather than cause her annoyance. Surrounded
by these outcasts of society, giving alms, counsel, and,
where it was possible, comfort, she won from them
honour and respect. Du Barry they treated as an equal.

Claviere, once her husband's colleague in the Ministry,
was confined in the Conciergerie, and the two often
talked together — talked of u nos amis," as Madame
Roland termed the Twenty-two whose blood was wet,
and to whose errors, in spite of her affection, she was
not blind. Their measures, she considered, had lacked
strength.

Such she was, a calm, gracious presence, in the eyes
of those around her, in these last days, her face bearing
the impress of melancholy stamped upon it by the five
months' captivity nearing its end ; no hope of life or
freedom modifying her language or restraining the pro-
fession of the creed in which she was to die.

Yet there is another side to the picture — a more
pathetic, perhaps a more human, one.

" Before you she gathers up all her strength," RioufTe
was told by the woman who attended on her ; " but in
her own room she will sometimes remain for three hours
leaning against the window and weeping." Alone, she
was perhaps least solitary. At such times her thoughts
were at liberty to wander away to those she loved — to

Before the Revolutionary Tribunal 311

little Eudora, soon to be left a motherless waif; to
Roland, in hiding, desolate and miserable, whom she did
not expect to survive her, and who was to verify her
forecast by putting an end to himself at the tidings of
her execution ; to Bosc, the true friend of prosperity and
adversity alike ; and to the many who had loved her
and from whom she was to part with no farewell taken.
Above all, she will have been in spirit with Buzot, a
hunted man whom her death would rob of all that gave
life its chief value. " She is no more," he afterwards
wrote, giving vent to his passionate grief in a letter to Le
Tellier — " she is no more ; the wretches have murdered
her. Judge if anything remains upon earth for me to
regret." What wonder if at times, when the noise and
tumult of the prison-house were somewhat stilled, she
would appear, buried in deep thought, to have escaped
from her surroundings and to have withdrawn into a
region whither her companions could not follow her.

No time was to be lost in disposing of her case.
On November 1, the day after her transference to the
Conciergerie, she underwent, at the office of the Revolu-
tionary Tribunal, a preliminary examination conducted by
David, the judge, Lescot Fleuriot, representing the
public prosecutor, and a clerk, Derbey, no one else
apparently being present. It lasted three hours, the
object being to obtain admissions from the prisoner which
should justify a sentence already determined upon.

" There was a long hard argument," she wrote,
" before I could have my answers recorded. They wanted
me to reply yes or no, accused me of loquacity, said we
were not there to be clever. . . . When the judge
asked a question not to the taste of the public prosecutor,
he put it into other words, lengthened it, made it complex
or insidious, interrupted my answers, forced me to curtail
them. . . . The intention to ruin me seems plain. I
will not preserve my days by baseness, but neither will

312 Life of Madame Roland

I afford an opportunity to malice, or facilitate by folly the
labours of the public prosecutor. . . ."

The official account of the affair corroborates her
statements, and exhibits the spirit animating the examina-
tion. The inquiries put to her were clearly framed with
the object of proving that she, with others of her party,
had attempted to destroy the unity of the Republic and
to place the departments in opposition to Paris. The
letters found upon Lauze Duperret were produced as
evidence that he had served as a channel of communication
between the prisoner and the fugitive and attainted
Girondists.

By the questions addressed to her in the character
of a political agitator Madame Roland was unmoved,
simply disclaiming responsibility for what, as a woman,
concerned her merely as an outsider. To the inquiry
whether she had not maintained intercourse with Barbaroux
and other traitors, she replied boldly that since the men
in question had left Paris as her friends and she did
not regard them as traitors, she had desired to have
tidings of them, and had not had it. Other interrogations
did not leave her equally calm. Riouffe, watching her
go to the Tribunal, noticed that her habitual assurance
was undisturbed. On her return her eyes were wet,
and she confessed that questions had been asked causing
her to shed tears. She referred to inquiries, doubtless
intended as a gratuitous insult, as to whether, amongst
the Girondists, there had not been men with whom her
relations were more intimate and private than with others.

" To which she replied " — to quote the official record —
" that from the time of the Constituent Assembly she and
Roland had been intimate with Brissot, Petion, and
Buzot. Asked repeatedly whether, apart from Roland,
her husband, she had not had private relations with any
of those named, she replied that she, together with
Roland, had been acquainted with them ; and, knowing

Before the Revolutionary Tribunal 313

Iiem, had entertained for each the degree of esteem and
ttachment he seemed to her to merit.,,
The evasion is palpable. It is curious that whilst
o less than ten persons appear to have been cognisant of
le truth as to her relations with Buzot, not one of them,
ither through unfaith or indiscretion, allowed it to
become known, nor was it till some seventy years later
that the facts became public. At this time it was
young Barbaroux who was generally credited with being
her lover — a misconception she herself furthered during
her examination ; since, asked to name those of the
fugitives who were more particularly her friends and
the friends of Duperret, she named him. The young
Marseillais, as M. Perroud points out, was already as
deeply compromised as it was possible to be, and her
avowal could do him no harm. Buzot's name was best
left out.

This incident took place on November 3, when, her

examination having been resumed, the correspondence

with Lauze Duperret was again made a subject of minute

investigation. Furthermore, Roland was charged with

sowing dissension between the departments and Paris

iuring his term of office, and it was asserted that, with

:hat object, he had established a Bureau of Public Spirit

>f which she had been directress ; her categorical denial

>f both statements being characterised as an outrage on

'ruth. The interview ended with a passage of arms, in

rhich her old spirit flashed out. When, she was asked,

tad her husband left Paris? and did she know where

Le was ?

She might well have smiled at the question. Was
it likely that she would point out to his enemies the
refuge where Roland had found shelter ? In this instance
she used no evasion in declining to reply. Whether she
knew where he was or not, she answered, she neither
ought, nor would, say — the reply being qualified as open

3 H Life of Madame Roland

rebellion against the law. Truth was due to justice, she
was told ; and though she had again manifested her
intention of concealing it, it would pierce through lies,
however well disguised.

With a final defence of her husband and with her
choice of M. Chauveau as her counsel, the examination
closed.

On November 7 the depositions of Mademoiselle
Mignot, Eudora's governess, and the Rolands1 servants,
Louis Lecoq and Catherine Fleury, were taken. From
the two last, faithful to their mistress, nothing incrimina-
ting could be elicited. Mignot, on the other hand, in
whom Madame Roland had placed the fullest confidence
and for whose future she had even now been caring, did
her utmost to assist the prosecution. Such testimony,
true or false, was of small importance. Madame Roland
was to die. Had her innocence been as clear as daylight
it would not have availed to save her. Her loathing of
the men in power, and of their methods of government
was known to all ; it mattered little of what specific
offence she was accused. Fouquier-Tinville based his
attack upon the letters found in Duperret's possession.
Her real crime was that she was a Girondist and shared
the views of her party. A conspiracy against the
Republic was alleged to have been formed ; its leaders had ;
held at her house secret meetings of which she had been i
the animating spirit. She had received in prison letters j
from Barbaroux and the other fugitives, answering them j
in a sense favourable to the conspiracy. Her letters to
Duperret himself had been expressed in a like sense, j
These were, in brief, the charges against her.

On November 8 judgment was to be pronounced, j
The preceding day her last letter was written. It was
addressed to a Madame Godefroid, to whose care Eudora |
had been confided, the friends who had first given
her shelter having been forced, in consideration of the

Last Letter 315

•isle involved, to place her elsewhere. Madame Gode-
•oid, who kept a pension, had consented, on condition
tat the child's name was changed, to receive her ; but
fte knowledge that she was thus thrown on the world
was a blow to her mother. " Ce cceur si ferme se
troubla tout a coup," wrote Barriere, inspired by Bosc.

" You owe to misfortune and to the confidence felt
in you a trust very dear to me," she wrote to Madame
Godefroid. " . . . Courage makes it easy to bear our
own ills, but the heart of a mother is difficult to quiet
with regard to the fate of a child from whom she is torn.
If calamity has a sacredness of its own, may it preserve
my dear Eudora, I will not say from troubles like mine
>ut from perils infinitely more formidable in my eyes,
[ay she keep her innocence, and one day fulfil, in peace
md obscurity, the duties of wife and mother. . . ." A
Few simple directions followed, and the letter, signed
f Eudora's mother," ended.

That same evening she had an interview with
'hauveau, the lawyer she had chosen to conduct her
lefence, and the matter was discussed between them.
>he had changed her mind and had decided against per-
litting him to incur the odium attaching to the office ;
ihe would be no man's ruin. The ring she gave him
it parting was a farewell gift. His advocacy, she told
lim, could be of no service to her ; her doom was
lecided ; to defend her might be fatal to him. For-
>idding him to appear in court, she warned him that,
jhould he disregard the injunction, she would disavow
iim. And so the two parted.1

The next day was a Friday. As she was waiting
:hat morning to be summoned before the Tribunal,

This incident is related in Miss Tarbell's biography of Madame
•oland. I have not found it mentioned elsewhere, but it may be one of
le traditions communicated to her by the members of the family with
fhom she was acquainted.

316 Life of Madame Roland

Beugnot and Riouffe were present. Both have left upon
record their impressions of the scene. In anticipation
of her death sentence, she had put on what Madame
Grandchamp had heard her call her toilette de mort. Her
dress was white, confined at her waist with a black girdle.
Her long black hair fell loose ; a lawn handkerchief
covered her head. Her colour was bright, and she was
smiling. One hand held up her gown, the other was
abandoned to the women who crowded around her to
kiss it. Some of them were sobbing. " Rien ne peut
rendre ce tableau," said Beugnot ; " il faut l'avoir vu."

To all she gave kind words, counsels of courage,
hope, and peace. Though she did not say she was
going to her death, it was noticed that she made no
promise to return. Presently an aged gaoler — one who
had filled his thankless office for thirty years — appeared
to open the gate that she might pass through.

Following her to the passage, Beugnot gave her a
message Claviere had asked him to deliver. She had
replied to it, and was still speaking when the summons
came for her to start on her way to the Tribunal, and
breaking off in what she was saying, she prepared to
obey.

" Adieu, monsieur," she said, as she gave Beugnot
her hand ; then, remembering no doubt past discussions,
" let us make peace — it is time. Du courage" she added
as she saw his struggle to restrain his tears.

One Guyot, a lawyer appointed by the Tribunal,
undertook the defence. It was in her eyes a matter of
small importance. She was, as she had told Chauveau,
foredoomed. When Guyot had finished what he had
to say she spoke, openly avowing the men who were
her friends, and was proceeding to give a summary of her
political past when she was interrupted and forbidden to
continue a speech " breathing federalism throughout."
Turning to the audience, she made a vain appeal, an-

Sentence of Death 317

swered only by cries of u Vive la Republique ! A bas les
traitres ! " And two questions were put, without further
delay, to the jury : Had the conspiracy against the
Republic existed ? Had the accused been one of its
originators or accomplices? To both an answer in
the affirmative was given, and the death-sentence was
pronounced, by virtue of the law passed the previous
December decreeing that whosoever should attempt or
propose to break the unity of the Republic or of its
government, or to detach any portion of it in order to
unite it to foreign territory, should suffer the capital
penalty.

It is affirmed by a contemporary, Des Essarts, that
the prisoner then spoke, and that her words were a
defiance.

" You judge me worthy," she said, " to share the
fate of the great men you have assassinated. I shall
endeavour to carry to the scaffold the courage they
displayed."

No time was to be lost. The execution was to take
place that day at half-past three. The commander-in-
chief was ordered to send troops to assist at it, his direc-
:ions explaining that the wife of an ex-minister was to
>uffer, and the public interests demanded that there should
>e no delay. The paper bore on it the words " Tres
>resse."

It may be that the captive was likewise in haste. As
jhe re-entered the prison, Riouffe noted that the swiftness
of her movements seemed to betoken something of joy.

That day, dining with Lamarche, a criminal con-
demned, as a fabricator of false notes, to suffer with her,
;he strove to induce him to eat, and, trying to inspire him
with courage, showed a gaiety so gentle and so sincere
that more than once he was moved to laughter. Of her
own feelings it is not recorded that, at this last hour, she
spoke. And thus the moment of departure drew near.

3*8 Life of Madame Roland

All Paris was on the alert. It had grown used to
death-spectacles. To those who asked for bread, as
Vergniaud once said, corpses were now given — in abun-
dance. But the present victim did not belong to the
rank and file of those sent to the scaffold, and the streets
were crowded with men and women eager to gaze upon
one whose name was familiar to all. Amongst the throng
of sightseers, malevolent or indifferent or curious, were
men and women who loved her. Bosc, in hiding in the
neighbourhood, only reached Paris that evening, unable
to await tidings at a distance. But Mentelle — the
" Jany " of her letters — was there, and Madame Grand-
champ had summoned up her courage and was carrying
out the promise she had given to the prisoner.
Forcing her way through the throng, she had taken up
her place by the parapet of the Pont Neuf, the spot
agreed upon for the mournful tryst, and there awaited
the funeral procession.

The one ordeal the victim had dreaded, the one test
she would, if possible, have escaped, was at hand. To
face the people she had loved and idealised, who
hated and reviled her as a traitor to their cause and to
the country — from this even her brave spirit had
shrunk. But she had, for once, underrated her
strength.

As Madame Grandchamp kept her post on the Pont
Neuf a cry from the crowd warned her that the moment
of meeting was at hand. " She is here ! — she is here ! "
the shout went up. Another few minutes, and the central
figure of the show had appeared. Calm and smiling,
Madame Roland was still striving to impart courage to
her unhappy companion. Then, as the appointed spot
was reached, her eyes sought and found the familiar face
of her friend ; a smile lit her own ; the cart moved on,
and their parting was over.

There is little more to be told. Round the deaths

The Last Scene 319

of men and women of moment to the world traditions,
true or false, are apt to gather. Upon most of those

I belonging to this final scene of Madame Roland's life the
stamp of truth would seem to be set. They are in
character with the woman as we know her.
Her last journey was ended. She had passed the spot
where her serene and tranquil girlhood had been spent ;
followed by the mob, now greeting her with fierce snouts,
now falling into silence, she had traversed the familiar
streets. As the cry " A la guillotine ! " was raised, it is
said that she turned upon the crowd.

" I go there," she answered ; u soon I shall have

reached it ; but those who send me thither will not be

long before they follow me. I go to the scaffold inno-

ent ; they will come there as criminals ; and you who

pplaud to-day will then applaud/'

Arrived at the place of execution, she proffered a

ingular request. Incredible in the case of another

oman and unsupported by evidence, it is yet too much

character to be rejected on the score of improbability.

t was that paper and pen might be given her, so that she

ight set down the strange thoughts that had arisen

ithin her. The request, if made, was refused.

One ultimate act of mercy remained for her to per-

brm. It was her right, according to the customs of that

lace of slaughter, to suffer before her companion ; but

e begged that Lamarche should be spared the spectacle

f her execution. The executioner demurred.

" Will you refuse a woman her last request ? " she
sked him ; and the man gave way.

She had not long to wait. Bound to the plank, her
yes — so they say — turned to the statue of Liberty
rected in memory of August 10.

" O Liberty," she said — words which have echoed
hrough the world — " O Liberty, what crimes are com-
itted in thy name ! "

320 Life of Madame Roland

Then the axe did its work and all was over.

Marie Jeanne Roland, in dedicating herself to the
Revolution, had done it with her eyes open. " Fate, in
causing us to be born at the epoch of the birth of
liberty," she had written to Bancal des Issarts, " has
made us the enfants perdus of the army which is to
fight and to triumph for her. It is for us to perform
our task well, and thus to prepare the happiness of
generations to come."

The work, so far as she was concerned, had been
done ; nor was she the woman to grudge the cost. To
the end she remained faithful to the creed of liberty.
Defaced with crime, stained with blood as it had been by
those who claimed the name of its disciples, she never
charged their sins upon the faith they professed or shrank
from proclaiming herself its devotee. She died as she
had lived, fighting in the ranks of the revolutionary
army.

PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES

11 Lettres de Madame Roland aux Demoiselles Cannet." Ed. C. A.

Dauban. 2 T.
" Le Mariage de Madame Roland." A. Join-Lambert.
" Memoires de Madame Roland." C. A. Dauban.
" Memoires de Madame Roland." Claude Perroud. 2 T.
" Lettres de Madame Roland," publiees par Claude Perroud.

2 T.
"Lettres de Madame Roland 'aux Demoiselles Cannet." Ed.

Auguste Breuil.
" Madame Roland." Mathilde Blind.
" Madame Roland." I. M. Tarbell.
"Memoires du Comte Beugnot." A. Beugnot.
" Dumouriez : Vie et Memoires."

11 Histoire de la Faction de la Gironde." Camille Desmoulins.
" La Legende des Girondins." Bire.
" Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris."
" Memoires sur les Prisons." Riouffe.
" Memoires de Louvet de Couvrai."
" Frangois Buzot." Jacques Hdrissay.
" French Revolution." Carlyles.
M Danton." H. Belloc.
" Danton." Beesly.

" Etude sur Madame Roland." C. A. Dauban.
" Portraits de Femmes." Sainte-Beuve.
" Les Femmes de la Revolution." Michelet.

21 321

INDEX

Abbaye, the prison, Madame Ro-
land at, 270 seq.

Adelaide, Madame, 93

Agathe, Sceur, 12, 79, 93

Amiens, the Rolands at, 87 seq.

Antic, M. Louis Bosc d'. See
Bosc

Aulard, M., quoted, 239

Bancal des Issarts, M., 100, 121,
127, 140, 141, 161, 173, 219, 221,
223, 227, 256, 257
Barbaroux, the Girondist, 193,
196-198, 201, 202, 243, 313, 314

5arnave, 133

Jarriere, 313

Jastille, fall of the, 112

5eauharnais, Josephine, 308

Jeesly, Mr., quoted, 215 note
illoc, H., quoted, 207

Jesenval, 109

teugnot, the Comte, 21 note, 308,
309, 3i°» 316

Jillaud-Varennes, 161

limont, the Abbe, 5, 6, 28, 34, 35 ;
Canon of Vincennes, 56, 58 ;
his death, 119

5imont, Madame, Madame Ro-
land's grandmother, 8

Jimont, Marguerite. See Phlipon

Jiron, Due de, 297, 298

►lancherie, Pahin de La, 22, 23 ;
Madame Roland's love-affair with,
42-45, 103, 104

Joismorel, Madame de, 13, 14, 17

Joismorel, M. de, 46, 47, 54

Jose, M. Louis Bosc d'Antic, 90,
9i, 95, 99, 100, 101, 102, 106, 112,
113, 115, 116, 121, 135, 149-152,

161, 171, 184, 219, 252, 258, 275,

280, 291, 307, 311
Bouchard, Madame, 287
Bourg-en-Bresse, 113

Brienne, Lomenie de, Archbishop
of Toulouse, 107, 108, no

Brissot, Madame, 148

Brissot, the Girondist, 116, 121,
125, 134, 135, 136, 159, 160, 164,
165, 176, 182, 200, 201, 203, 236,

281, 283, 290, 312
Britannique, the Hotel, the Ro-
lands at, 131 seq.

Brunswick, Duke of, 201, 211, 224
Buzot, Francois, the Girondist, 49,
J35» J36, 140, 144, 146, 147, i6o#

162, 226 seq., 236, 237, 239, 240*
243, 247-250, 255, 256, 258, 261,
264, 272 seq., 274, 278, 280, 281
seq., 293 seq., 301, 311, 312

Buzot, Madame, 136, 228, 229

Caen, the rendezvous of the
Girondists, 279

Calonne, 108, 109

Campan, Madame, no

Cannet, Henriette, 12, 48, 54, 56,
62, 65, 67, 78, 85, 286

Cannet, Sophie, 12, 13 ; Madame
Roland's letters to, 15, 16, 19, 27,
29, 36 ; visit to Paris, 40, 44 ;
decline of Madame Roland's
friendship with, 64-67 ; 71, 77 ,
78, 81, 82, 86 ; marriage, 91; 99

Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, 26, 36, 64

Cazal£s, 133

Chabot, 233, 240

Champagneux, M., 20, 90, 121, 167,
225, 259, 282, 290, 291, 292

323

3*4

Index

Champs de Mars, massacre of the,

143 seq.
Claviere, Minister of Finance, 135*

177, 178, 192, 204, 211, 310, 316
Cloots, 218
Collart, 93
Conciergerie, Madame Roland at

the, 308 seq.
Convention, the National, meets,

224 seq.
Corday, Charlotte, 281, 289, 290
Cordelier Club, 142
Couthon, 223
Custine, 224

Dames de la Congregation, the
Convent of the, Madame Roland
placed at, 9 seq. ; she revisits it,
77 seq.

Danton, 161, 204 ; Minister of
Justice, 205 ; Madame Roland's
hatred for, 205 seq., 209, 211, 212,
213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 222, 224,
235. 236, 238, 254, 255

Daudet, If., quoted, 248

David, Judge, 311

Delolme, 96

Derbey, a clerk, 311

Des Essarts, quoted, 317

Desmoulins, Camille, 21, 255

Dieppe, Madame Roland at, 87

Du Barry, Madame, 308, 310

Ducos, Girondist, 159

Dumouriez, General, 165, 166, 175,
176, 178, 179, 186, 188, 189, 190,
191, 192, 194, 195. 224, 235, 236,
247 ; his treachery, 255, 257

Duperret, M. Lauze, 285, 286,
312, 313, 314

Duranthon, Minister of Justice,
179, 189, 192

Encyclopaedia, Roland a contribu-
tor to the, 89
England, the Rolands' visit to, 96
Erxleben, the naturalist, 115
Eu, Madame d', 87

Fabre d'Eglantine, 211, 233
Fauchet, 243

Feuillants, the Club of the, 143, 144,
194

FitzGerald, Lord Edward, 225

Fleuriot, Lescot, 311

Fleury, Madame Roland's maid, 92,

314
Fouquier-Tinville, 314
Francis II., Emperor, 182
Frossard, Dr., 129, 130

Garat, Minister of the Interior, 282

Gensonn6, Girondist, 159, 236

Gibert, M., 174

Godefroid, Madame, takes charge
of Eudora Roland, 314, 315

Gomiecourt, the Chevalier de, 91

Goussart, Madame, 279

Grammont, the Duchesse de, 308

Grandchamp, Madame Sophie, 47 ;
becomes acquainted with
Madame Roland, 148 ; her visit
to Le Clos, 152 seq. ; 158, 159 ;
Roland's amanuensis, 161 ; 168,
171-3 ; 194, 257, 258 ; 277, 278,
283, 287 ; at Sainte-Pelagie,
299, 3°5. 306 ; 316, 318

Grandpre, Inspector of Prisons, 214,
274, 275, 278, 283, 290, 291

Grave, de, Minister of War, 179, 186

Guadet, Girondist, 159, 189, 236,

243
Guyot, 316

Hannaches, Mademoiselle de, 17, 29

Harpe, rue de la, the Rolands at,
194 seq., 251 seq.

Hebert, 205, 243

Herissay, M., quoted, 289

Horloge, quai de 1', Madame Ro-
land's home, 3 seq.

Jacobin Club, 121, 135, 140, 142,

143, 144, 149, 161
" Jany." See Mentelle
Join-Lambert, M., quoted, 42, 48,

61, 68, 69, 70, 72

Keralio, Guynement de, 145
Kersaint, 211

Lacoste, Minister of the Marine,

179, 188
Lafayette, General, 145, 161, 195*

197, 200

Index

325

Lamarche, executed with Madame

Roland, 317, 319
Lamartine, quoted, 52, 160, 170
Lameths, the, 133
Lanterne, rue de la, Madame

Roland born at, 3
Lanthenas, Dr., 92, 93, 99, 100, 121,

123, 135, 161, 163, 174, 196, 225,

229-231, 238, 244, 245
Lasource, 255
Latouche, Madame Creuze, takes

charge of Eudora Roland, 275
Lavacquerie, prison warder, 281
Lavater, Jean Gaspard, 129, 130,

233-235

Lebrun, Minister for Foreign
Affairs, 204

Le Clos, the Roland property, 97,
104-106, 120, 121

Lecoq, Louis, the Rolands' servant,
314

Lefevre, Madame, 297

Lemontey, quoted, 41, 125, 180, 181

Le Tellier, Buzot's letter to, 311

Liancourt, the Due de, 112

Longwy, fall of, 211

Louis XV., King, death of, 26

Louis XVI., King, accession of, 27 ;
his reforms, 30 ; 31, 51, 52, 112,
113 ; his flight, 140 ; 163, 165,
177-179 ; declares war, 182 ;
183, 186 seq. ; dismisses Patriot
Ministry, 191 ; Roland's letter
to, 193 ; 199 ; his suspension,
204 ; in the Temple, 208 ; his
trial, 241, and execution, 243

Louvet de Couvray, Girondist,
205, 243, 274

Lyons, the Rolands at, 95, 98 seq.

Malortie, the demoiselles, 87
Mandat, murder of, 204
Manuel, 204
Marat, 25, 208-210, 216, 221-223,

236, 238, 241, 251, 261 ; his

murder, 289, 290
Marchand, M., 5
Manage de Figaro, 94
Maria Theresa, the Empress, 8
Marie Antoinette, Queen, 8, 28, 52,

no, 122, 161, 244

Maury, 133

Meillan, 254, 274

Mentelle (" Jany "), the historian,

3°o. 303. 318
Mes Derniires PensSes, by Madame

Roland, 301, 302, 303
Meudon, visits to, 16, 252
Michelet, quoted, 1, 73, 122, 124,

125
Mignard, M., 5
Mignonne, Madame Roland's maid,

73
Mignot, Mademoiselle, Eudora

Roland's governess, 242, 314
Mirabeau, 133, 139
Monge, Minister of the Marine, 204
Montane, Madame Roland's letter

to, 297, 298
Morris, Gouverneur, American Am-
bassador, 237, 260

Narbonne, 240

Necker, 107, no

Notables, Assembly of the, 108

Notices Historiques, by Madame

Roland, 278 ; their destruction,

291, 292
Nouvelle Heloise, the, 69

Pache, Roland's subordinate, after-
wards Minister of War, 174, 190,
225, 232, 233

Patriot Francais, the, edited by
Brissot, n6, 121, 134, 139

Phre Duchesne, the, 282, 293

Perroud, M. Claude, quoted, in,
229, 252, 291, 297, 305 note, 313

Petion, Girondist, 135, 146, 147;
Mayor, 160, 161

Petion, Madame, 148, 160, 175,
199, 216, 255, 296, 297

Phlipon, Gacien, Madame Roland's
grandfather, 2

Phlipon, Madame, 13, 14

Phlipon, Marguerite Bimont, mar-
ried Pierre Gacien Phlipon, 1, 3,
4, 7 ; her relations with her
daughter, 16, 17 ; 23-25 ; her
death, 34

326

Index

Phlipon, Marie Jeanne, afterwards
Madame Roland : birth, i ;
various estimates of, ibid. ; par-
entage, 2 ; childhood, 3 seq. ;
struggle for mastery with her
father, 4, 5 ; education, 5 seq. ;
religious experiences, 8, 9 ; placed
at convent school, 10 seq. ;
friendship with Sophie Cannet,
12, 13 ; visit to her grandmother,
14 ; correspondence with Sophie,

15, 16 ; relations with her mother,

16, 24 ; impatience of social
inequalities, 17, 18 ; question of
marriage, 19 seq. ; personal ap-
pearance, 20, 21 ; suitors, 21-23 ;
indifference to politics, 26, 27, 31,
32 ; visit to Versailles, 28-30 ;
her mother's death, 34, 35 ;
character, gifts, and development
of opinions, 35-40 ; literary work,
40 ; first acquaintance with
Rousseau, 41 ; his influence on
her, 41, 42; love-affair with
de La Blancherie, 42-45 ; first
meeting with Roland, 44, 50, 51 ;
friendship with M. de Boismorel,
46, 47 ; intercourse with Roland,

53 ; attempts to visit Rousseau,

54 ; friendship with M. de Sainte-
Lette, 51 seq. ; and with M.
de Sevelinges, 56-58, 64 ; letter
from Roland, and her reply, 60,
61 ; her later account of her
feelings, 61, 62 ; failing fortunes
and dejection, 62, 63 ; increasing
intimacy with Roland, 65 seq. ;
Roland a lover, 68 ; her attitude,
68-70 ; letters to Roland, 71
seq. ; rupture, 74-76 ; retires to
the convent, yy seq. ; life there,
yS, 79 ; Roland's renewed pro-
posals, 81 ; marriage, 82. See
Roland

Phlipon, Pierre Gacien, Madame
Roland's father, 2, 3, 5, 20-25,
43. 54, 55. 62, 71-75

Plutarch's Lives, 7

Rabaut, 236
Rebecqui, 193, 196

Riouffe, 21 note, 309, 310, 312, 317

Robert, Madame, 145 seq. ; 175,
176

Robert, M., 145 seq. ; 175, 176

Robespierre, Maximilien, 73, 135,
141, 143, 144, 147, 161, 170, 184,
185, 221, 236, 256, 262, 303, 304

Roland, Canon, 98, 99, 102; 116,
123, 242

Roland, Eudora, birth of, 89, 90 ;
95, 96, 101, 102, 105, 106, 128-
130 ; 153-156, 162, 163, 227,
241, 242, 258, 268, 269, 301, 302,
311, 314, 315

Roland, Jean Marie Roland de la
Platiere, first meeting with
Manon Phlipon, 44 ; parentage
and position, 48 ; intercourse
with Manon, 51, 55 ; travels
abroad, 55, 56 ; returns to
France, 60, 61 ; Madame Roland
on their relationship, 61, 62 ;
increasing intimacy, 65 seq. ;
Roland a lover, 68 seq. ; pro-
jected marriage, 70-74 ; rupture,
y5 ; renews his proposals, 81 ;
marriage, 82 ; early married life,
83 seq. : visit to Villefranche,
86 ; his Lettres d'ltalie, 87 ; at
Amiens, 87 seq. ; his daughter's
birth, 89 ; solicits lettres de
noblesse, 92-95 ; visit to Eng-
land, 96 ; at Lyons, Villefranche,
and Le Clos, 98 seq. ; domestic
life, 106; serious illness, 112;
welcomes the Revolution, 1 14 ;
friendship with Bancal, 124, 125 ;
confidence in his wife, 124 ; sent
to Paris, 131 ; his account of the
massacre of the Champs de Mars,
143 ; 149, 150 ; return to Le
Clos, 153 ; Roland and Madame
Grandchamp, 153 ; 156 ; in Paris
again, 157 ; work there, ibid. ;
in the background, 160 ; call to
office, 163-168 ; Minister of the
Interior, 173 seq. ; his opinion of
Louis XVI., and relations with
him, 177, 178, 179 ; his wife's
share in his work, 180, 181 ; dis-
sension in the Cabinet, 188 ; his

Index

3*7

letter to the King, 189-193 ;
dismissed, 192 ; at the rue de la
Harpe, 194 seq. ; acquaintance
with Barbaroux, 196-198 ; re-
called to office, 203 ; hard work,
210 ; advises retreat to Blois,
211 ; position with regard to
September massacres, 213-219 ;
Marat's attacks, 222 ; his reply,
223 ; his report upon Paris, 237 ;
at the Bar of the Convention.
240, 241 ; his life in danger, 244 ;
resignation, and its causes, 245
seq. ; domestic unhappiness,
247-252 ; 253, 254 ; his papers
seized, 255 ; attempt to arrest
him, 262 ; his escape, 265 ; at
Rouen, 279 ; endeavours to con-
trive his wife's escape, 286 ; her
account of him, 294, 295 ; 301,
311, 312, 313
Roland, Marie Jeanne, marriage,
82 ; early married life, 83 ; in
Paris, 85 ; visits Villefranche,
86 ; at Rouen, Dieppe, and Ami-
ens, 87 ; views on the position of
women, 88, 89 ; her child's birth,
89 ; friendship with Bosc, 90 ;
indifference to politics, 91 ; at
Paris soliciting lettres de no-
blesse, 92-95 ; visits England,
95 ; life at Le Clos, 97 ; in-
stalled at Villefranche, 98 seq. ;
Bosc and Lanthenas, 99-101 ;
domestic life, 10 1 ; visits to
Lyons, 103 ; devotion to Roland,
106 ; continued indifference to
politics, 107, in, 112 ; her
awakening, 112 seq. ; an ex-
tremist, 1 16 ; absorbed in public
affairs, 119 ; friendship with
Bancal, 1 21-126 ; its nature,
126, and course, 127 ; Eudora
a disappointment, 128-130, 152,
162 ; goes to Paris, 131 ; first
experiences there, 132 seq. ; her
salon, 135-138 ; on the flight to
Varennes, 140 ; the Rolands and
Robespierre, 143 ; the massacre
of the Champs de Mars, 143-146 ;
friendship with Madame Grand-

champ, 149 ; at Le Clos, 152 ;
weary of country life, 153 seq. ;
return to Paris, 157 ; disappoint-
ment, 160 ; failing health and
spirits, 161, 162 ; Roland called
to take office, 164-168 ; her
satisfaction, 169 ; reconciliation
with Bosc, 171 ; estrangement
from Madame Grandchamp, 172 ;
enters on her new life, 174 seq. ;
impatience, 178, 179 ; shares in
Roland's work, 180, 181 ; re-
monstrates with Robespierre,
185 ; admonishes Servan, 186 ;
writes the letter to the King,
189 ; Roland dismissed, 192 ;
at the rue de la Harpe, 194 seq. ;
makes Barbaroux's acquaint-
ance, 197, 198 ; Roland recalled
to office, 203 ; her increasing
power, 205 ; hatred of Danton,
206-208 ; wish to see Marat,
209 ; horror at September
massacres, 213-219; after the
massacres, 221 ; Marat's attacks,
222 ; reviving hopes, 223 ; her
guests, 226 ; renewed intercourse
with Buzot, 227 ; rupture with
Lanthenas, 229-231 ; corre-
spondence with Lavater, 234, 235 ;
growing love for Buzot, 239 ; at
the Bar of the Convention, 240,

241 ; fears of insurrection, 241,

242 ; Hebert's attacks on her,

243 ; her assassination possible,

244 ; refuses to fly, ibid. ; Ro-
land's resignation, 245 seq. ;
effect of her love for Buzot on
domestic life, 247-252 ; letter to
Bancal, 257 ; to leave Paris,
258 ; May 31 and her arrest,
260-269 ; at the Abbaye, 270
seq. ; her relief, 271 ; letters to
Buzot, 273, 287, 288 ; prison
life, 274 seq. ; interview with
Madame Grandchamp, 277, 278 ;
literary activity, 278, 279 ; re-
lease and rearrest, 283, 284 ; at
Sainte-Pelagie, 284 seq. ; view of
Marat's murder, 290 ; her manu-
scripts destroyed, 291, 292 ; last

328

Index

letter to Buzot, 293-295 ; prison
incidents, 296-299 ; her Memoirs,
300 ; Mes Dernidres Pensdes,
301-303 ; execution of the
Twenty-two, 305 ; her suicidal
intentions, 306, 307 ; at the Con-
ciergerie, 308 seq. ; Comte Beug-
not's account of her, 309, 310 ;
and that of Riouffe, ibid. ; her
examination, 31 1-3 14; letter
from "Eudora's mother," 315;
death sentence, 317 ; the last
day, 317-319 ; execution, 320.
See Phlipon
Rouen, Madame Roland at, 87
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 7 ; his
influence on Madame Roland, 41,
42, 128 ; her attempt to visit
him, 53, 54
Roze, an usher, 263, 264

Sainte-Beuve, quoted, 1, 3, 203, 248
Sainte-Lette, M. de, 51, 53, 54, 56,

57
Sainte-Pelagie, prison of, Madame

Roland at, 284 seq.
Saint-Just, Louis Antoine de, 20
Santerre, 215

September massacres, 213 seq.
Servan, War Minister, 186, 188,

191-193, 198, 204, 211, 238, 241
Sevelinges, M. de, 56-58, 64

Tallien, 161

ThermomHre du Jour, 279
Thie\ze, village of, 104
Tuileries, invasion of the, 199
Turgot, Comptroller-General,

48 ; his fall, 52
Tyrrell, George, quoted, 254

3i,

Vachard, a news vendor, 145

Valaze, Girondist, commits suicide,
305

Varennes, the flight to, 140

Vendee, revolt of La, 212

Verdun, fall of, 211, 212

Vergniaud, Girondist, 159, 164, 199,
200, 243, 245, 264, 265, 304, 318

Versailles, Madame Roland's visit
to, 28-30 ; 93 ; National Assem-
bly removes from, 119

Viard, 240, 241, 263

Villefranche, visit to, 86 ; the
Rolands live there, 97 seq.

Vin, M. de, 91

Visitation, nuns of the, Eudora
Roland a pupil with, 130

Voltaire, at Paris, 64

Williams, David, 226
Williams, Helena, 256, 257
Wimppfen, General, 289

Young, Arthur, 124

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