such was her maiden name the only herself, whose shrewd sense, mature one being the death of her mother; judgment, and variety of knowledge attracted the fastidious Manon. Jet in the back parlor of her father's shop, or in the solitude of her own For nine years Madame Roland led room, this wonderful girl, with no com- a peaceful and uneventful life near panions but her beloved books, and Lyons with her husband and only child no cultured acquaintances of either Eudora. She identified herself in all sex in Paris after she left her convent Roland's intellectual pursuits, however school, evolved for herself a scheme dry and tedious to a young woman of of duty and principle from which her breadth of mind, and led the busy she never swerved, and cultivated life of the middle-class Frenchwoman one of the most critical and intellec- |(than whom a more clever, capable, tual minds ever possessed by man or Woman. and active member of her sex does not exist). She helped the poor around Probably no young damsel in the her and formed life-long friendships middle-class of life ever attracted more with men of culture and intelligence, admirers than Manon Phlipon. In such as Champagneux, the founder of taro, she rejected a music master, Le Courrier de Lyon (a paper of addancing master, butcher, jeweller, pas-vanced Liberal principles, to which try-cook, and woollen-draper. Viewed Madame Roland contributed articles, from her high intellectual standpoint, one of which created so much effect these doubtless worthy but uninterest- that sixty thousand copies of it were ing tradesmen were decidedly wanting in all that she valued most highly. "Have I lived with Plutarch and the philosophers," she wrote to her school friend, Sophie Cannet, at Amiens, "simply to marry a tradesman with whom I have nothing in commou?" So she turned for companionship to her pen, her violin, her guitar, her books, and above all to Rousseau, whom she worshipped absorbingly, and who had immense influence on the heart and imagination of the enthusiastic young Republican. After a time aspirants for her hand in a higher position, a doctor, a writer, a deputy from Pondicherry, were rejected by this particular young lady, who declared that " Marriage should be the most intimate union of hearts," and so exasperated Père Phlipou, the typical French father in his ideas of matrimony, that he threatened to marry her off-hand to the first man who came in his shop, if she did not change her line of conduct. After several vicissitudes, and at last being turned out of the house by her unworthy and dissipated father, she eventually espoused a gentleman of good position, Roland de la Platière, a "philosopher," or learned man of austere life, twenty years older than sold), and the admirable Bosc, who published the incomparable memoirs she afterwards wrote in prison. A friendship once formed with Madame Roland ended only with death. When the news of the fall of the Bastille, July 14th, 1789, thundered in the ears of all France, and the Revolution was fairly launched, no one was more deeply stirred than Madame Roland. Her soul was full of joy and hope of a new national birth, and she followed the Revolutionary battle with the deepest emotion. Henceforth she lived only for her country. All her previous training had led up to this. She wished for nothing now but the triumph of great truths, and the regeneration of the country. She wrote soul-stirring letters, most of which appeared in print, to her friends in Paris, and inspired her readers with her own detestation of the unqualified powers of evil of the French monarchy and its parasites. In 1791, Roland being elected deputy for Lyons in the French National Assembly, he and his wife and child settled in Paris, where the gifted and eloquent wife of the Lyons deputy became at once a power, and the centre of the political circle which surrounded her husband. The year 1791, when "love of coun- tariat, only just enfranchised, cared try, liberty, the human race, filled the nothing for ideal sentiments. Brutalhearts of men," was the year of wom-ized by many years of coarse tyranny an's influence par excellence. Nothing contributed more to urge men on to heroic deeds than the enthusiasm of the women, or more hastened the cause of the Revolution. They compared the men of their day to the heroes of old time, and held up for their emulation the sacrifices and pure patriotic ideals of republican Greece and Rome. Their enthusiasm as usual was contagious. "Who could resist these large-hearted women," say's Michelet, "who suffered for others, and articulated their demands in glowing language, and appealed powerfully to the emotions by their courage, ability, and devotion? The heart played an immense part in the history of that Lime. The women ruled the men by sentiment, passion, and the superiority of their initiative." Ma and misery, with dulled and blunted If the Girondins had exercised more g brute force, and had talked less, they t Of all the women who in their turn would have dominated the situation; influenced their contemporaries, none as it was they entirely misunderstood surpassed or equalled Madame Roland. the development of the latter part of Her salon in the Rue de la Harpe be- the Revolution. This may be summed came the chosen resort of the cele-up by saying that on September 21st, brated Girondins, of the eloquent 1792, when the Republic was declared, Vergniaud, of the "high-souled Bu- they congratulated themselves that the zot," soon to be passionately in love Revolution had ended, the Jacobins on with Madame Roland, of the handsome the contrary thought that it had only and gifted Barbaroux, of Pétion, the just begun. idolized mayor of Paris, of Brissot, the originator of the celebrated saying, La propriété, c'est le vol, and many others, mostly young, and all ardent and enthusiastic votaries of, and believers in, the Revolution. By her eloquent words, Madame Roland inspired these men with her own lofty republican ideals, and political dogmas, and if not nominally the head of the Gironde, she was so in reality. Nothing base, or mean, or cruel was to enter into the formation of the republic of the Gironde. It was to be founded on the noblest and finest principles of the great old-world republics, when only the best and most capable citizens were to rule for the benefit of Always clear-sighted, Madame Roland was fully alive to the fact that the Girondins, in spite of their learning and ability, did not know how to lead. The Jacobins realized perfectly that violence and brutality joined, with sentiment would make them masters of the position. When the Roland ministry was formed in the spring of 1792, and Roland became minister of the interior, his gifted wife came in contact with a numerous circle, but what struck her most painfully was the universal mediocrity of intelligence, which surpassed all that could be imagined, from the clerk to the minister, from the soldier to the ambassador. "I never, without this experience, all. Unfortunately they ignored the could have believed my species so fact that the huge mass of the prole-poor," she said. Before that she thought that men the mob in thousands from the Fauwith stronger wills were also cleverer. bourg St. Antoine, headed by Santerre. When the misguided Louis XVI. and Théroigne de Méricourt, poured. bed the decree of the National into the Tuileries Palace armed with Assembly for the banishment of the pikes, and shouting "Down with the priests, and dismissed the ministry, Veto!" Roland as minister of the interior ad- Even then the king's eyes were not dressed to the poor monarch, who had opened. It required the massacre of either sufficient force to stem the Rev-his Swiss Guards on the 10th of Audation nor sense to go with it, one of gust to do this thoroughly, when the the most plain-spoken and ablest re- "Marseillaise hymn "" was first heard monstrances that his wife's pen ever in Paris, and by that time all was over dited. In this letter, written at one for him and his forever. sitting, aud without correction, Maame Roland gave a masterly review the events of the last four years, and exactly gauged the feeling of the community. She told the king: There is no time for drawing back, there is no time even for temporizing. The Revolution is accomplished in all inds, it will be achieved by blood and cemented by it, if wisdom do not orestall the evils which can still be roided. The ferment is extreme in parts of the empire, it will burst out a terrible manner unless confidence the intentions of your Majesty can alm it." She then sketches the dangers more ally to the king and the monarchy, by is resistance to the people's will, and is why should tardy delays give him appearance of reluctance when expedition would gain all hearts ? the "I know," she writes in conclusion, that the austere language of truth is arely welcomed near the throne; I now also because it is hardly ever beard there, that revolutions become ecessary. I know above all, that it is By duty to maintain it with your Majsty, not only as a citizen in submission the laws, but as a minister honored with your confidence, or invested with powers that infer it, and I know nothing which can prevent me fulfilling a daty of which I am conscious." Then followed the prison massacres of the first week in September. Danton, Marat, and Robespierre had lashed the populace into frenzy by their denunciations of the foreign troops on their borders, who had begun the campaign by taking Longwy. The cry was that their enemies were coming to Paris to crush out their newly won liberty. Maddened by panic, the people rushed to the prisons and ruthlessly butchered fourteen hundred and eighty Royalists on the steps, or in the courtyards of the prisons. The horrors of the massacre made. an intense and ineffaceable impression on Madame Roland. She with the Gironde party never ceased denouncing Danton and the "Septembriseurs," and demanding their chastisement. Nothing however shows the incompetency of the Girondins to rule more than their inability to stop these massacres. They were in power, as the king had recalled the Roland ministry in August, Pétion, one of their chief men, was mayor of Paris, yet ministers and officials did nothing but wring their hands, when a small number of determined men sent by the mayor to the prisons would have prevented the carnage. Rulers of a lawless and sanguinary mob must be something more than Parliamentarians. Such plain speaking to a king as The horror which Madame Roland tenacious of his royal prerogative as had conceived of the crimes of SeptemLouis XVI. could have only one result ber filled her with unappeasable indig-the dismissal of the Roland ministry. nation and grief. She, the disciple of Then immediately followed such an Rousseau, who believed with her masevent as Madame Roland had prognos-ter that "it was not allowable for a licated: "The 20th of June," when nation to purchase the most desirable revolution with the blood of one inno- | whom she would even sacrifice he cent person," could never gloss over husband, but I have found the ma sanguinary crimes from motives of ex- who could be my lover," she wrote. pediency. She had confessed to Roland tha she loved Buzot, but had promised th ailing man she would never leave him She struggled against her feelings fo Buzot, and even quitted Paris to avoi She inspired her party with her own hatred of Danton, whom posperity has, however, absolved from the immediate instigation of the prison massacres. The Girondins attacked him unceas-coming in contact with him. ingly in the Convention, but he and Robespierre were too strong for them. "We want men who see by other eyes than those of their wives," said Danton jeeringly of Roland. Buzot was married to a woma worthy of esteem and regard which h fully recognized, although she woul not bear comparison with the brillian wife of Roland. For a few months after the declara- The latter suffered as only a woma tion of the Republic, September 21st, of her intensely emotional and passion 1792, the Girondins waged their hope- ate nature can do. She felt there wa less war with the Jacobins, but with no hope of happiness for all four o the formation of the Revolutionary them, and when the prison door shu Tribunal with powers to kill or to fill her off from the outside world and the prisons with "suspects," or oppo- freedom forevermore, we can well be nents to Jacobinism, the Reign of Ter-lieve what she tells us, that it was ፡ ror of 1793-4 began, and in the spring relief to feel that her struggle be of that year Madame Roland and the Gironde party were arrested or proscribed. tween "love and duty" was over Prison removed the strain, and was welcome to the worn, passionate soul. Ou May 31st, 1793, twenty-one mem In the meanwhile, the warm friendship and sympathy that existed be-bers of the Gironde were arrested by tween Buzot and Madame Roland, had order of the Revolutionary Tribunal in the midst of dangers and trials de- and in the middle of the same night veloped into profound love. We know "the Great Citoyenne was aroused that Madame Roland and her contem- from sleep, and conveyed to the Ab poraries did not regard the marriage tie | baye Prison during the early hours of as inviolable. The society of the day June 1st. looked upon such a bond as ridicu The women of the streets and mar lous, if it were uncongenial or hateful.kets, always exulting at the prospect of Divorce was easily procured, and con- another victim, shouted after her "To stantly resorted to. All honor, then, the guillotine!" must be given to Madame Roland for She languished in the stifling, horher determination never to take facile rible prison for three months, bearing advantage of the law, and seek divorce all her sufferings with exemplary pa from Roland, now grown old, queru- tience and sweetness, and winning the lous, and a source of irritation, in order | love and respect of all, even the most to unite herself to the only man she debased and criminal. Her cell was ever passionately loved. Her husband now entirely depended upon her; she honored and respected him, although we know from her memoirs written in prison, that life with him had often been very trying. She felt the disparity in their age when going into the world, and surrounded by younger and more congenial spirits. "I loved my husband as a tender daughter adores a virtuous father, to just large enough for her bed, one chair, and a small table. Her faithful friends did not desert her. Bosc came to see her and sent her plants from the Jardin des Plantes; Champagneux came so often that he became suspect " through his visits, and Henriette Cannet offered to exchange garments with her, and give up her life for her friend. She occupied her time in reading, writing, and drawing, and endeavored "How often I read them!" she wrote, referring to his two letters. "I press them to my heart, I cover them with kisses. I never hoped to receive any again." to lighten the captivity of her fellow prisoners by her sympathy and help. She always presented a cheerful face to them, although the jailer's wife told one of Madame Roland's friends she Fould sometimes weep for hours together when alone. She feared he would make some imprudent attempt to rescue her, and begs him not to do so. 66 Worst torture of all to a sensitive My friend, it is in saving thy counmind, she had to listen to horrible and try that thou canst work out my salvathy denunciations of herself that tion. Death, torments, pain are nothing vere shouted beneath her prison win- to me. I can defy them all. . . I dow, by the newsvendors sent by dare tell thee, and thou art the only Hébert, the owner of the infamous and one in the world who can appreciate Duchesne. it, that I was not very sorry to be disgusting journal, Père arrested. I owe it to my executioners that they have reconciled love and duty for me. Do not pity me." ་ Hébert, the jackal of the press, had Dever ceased attacking Madame Roand, her principles, actions, manners, and even her looks. "Toothless hag" The conflict between "love and was one of the least offensive epithets duty" was over, she was about to die. be applied to this most beautiful Henceforth her heart and feelings could Père Duchesne from first to go forth unreservedly to her lover. ast was full of the most indecent accusations and insinuations against all reputable people, which immensely palatable to the taste of the Toman. were On the 3rd of July she wrote her second letter to Buzot, in which she says of Roland: "It is ou In her third letter, on the 6th of July, she tells him she had had "this dear picture " (Buzot's miniature) brought to her in prison. my heart, hidden from all eyes, felt every moment, and often bathed with my tears." "I should like to sacrifice my life for nob. The paper pandered to the vil-him to acquire the right to give my last st instincts, and urged the people on breath to thee." theft and murder. Loathsome deails of fictitious interviews with Madame Roland were shouted under her windows during the hot summer days. Every gross and insulting epithet was applied to her. From this she could The Sans-Culottes gloated over the stories, and crowded round the newsvendors with delighted appreciation. not escape. The wretched Hébert, contrary to hat may be expected, was a man of distinguished manners, with fair hair, blue eyes, and the sweetest expression of face possible. He left an enormous fortune behind him, which was confiscated after retribution in the shape of the guillotine overtook him in 1794. Three weeks after Madame Roland's arrest, two letters were brought to her by a Mademoiselle Goussard from Bazot, who had escaped from Paris, and was wandering about with other Girondins in Normandy. On the 22nd of June she wrote to him the first of five letters, all of which have been preserved. Her fourth letter, dated the 7th of July, was the most ardent of them all, and was the last Buzot received. In her fifth letter, written the same evening, she says: "O thou! so dear and so worthy to be, moderate the impatience which makes thee shudder. In thinking of the irons with which they fetter me, dost thou not see the blessings which I owe to them? With thy portrait on my heart, or beneath my eyes, I thank Heaven for having made me taste the inexpressible happiness of loving and being loved with that generosity, that delicacy, which vulgar souls will never know, and which are above all other pleasures." During the months of September and October, she was at the prison of Ste. Pélagie. |