rather than her protector, they were both in her childhood absorbed in her, and proud of the beautiful and spirited creature who had so strangely arisen between two commonplace people. The mother, however, is not commonplace. She is surrounded by that halo of tender devotion which is the natural accompaniment in French sentiment of every mother — a sentiment for which we sometimes smile at our neighbors, but which can scarcely be otherwise than salutary, as it is graceful and gracious. Madame Phlipon had

ume, of her published history. It was her care first to vindicate her public character and that of her husband. In strict justice, we ought to say her husband's character, which involved her own; but the virtuous Roland, the severe and serious statesman, the high-minded patriot, with his passion for details, his power of administration, his conscientious pedantry of duty, has fallen out of the interest of his fellow-creatures, who see him only as surrounded by the halo of her presence behind him, always greater, more radiant, and visible than he. He had excellent all the watchfulness for her daughter and noble qualities; he had the good sense not to be jealous of his wife's superior gifts, or indifferent to the aid of a faculty above anything that he himself possessed; and he would appear to have been, which is noteworthy, more beloved by his daughter than her far more attractive and attaching mother: but to us the interest has ebbed out of Roland. And the picture of her youth and up-bringing, and the development of her brilliant young intelligence, coming so strangely out of that prison from under the very shadow of the guillotine, has a charm of contrast which is indescribable. She draws her own portrait with a fine touch, with a pleasure in going back upon those records of a youth which is still alive in her heart, which secures our best sympathies. As she writes, she is again the little Manon of the Quai des Lunettes, the pupil of the ladies of the "Congrégation," the friend of Sophie, the adored of so many elder women, to whom this little creature, so full of all the gifts of nature, so brave, so great in her heroic infancy, conquering all things, was the very ideal of womankind, victorious over all their failures, and capable of all the elevations to which they had never reached. The instinctive homage which such a child receives from all around her is one of the most touching things in nature. The gay and brave old grandmother Phlipon; her gentle sister Angélique; the sterner aunt Besnard, who is afraid that the elders will spoil the child, yet if she cuts her finger comes twice a day to see how it is going on; Sister Agathe at the convent, whose loving regard never fails, form a circle of tender faces about the little central figure, wistful worshippers, all projecting 'themselves forward by her means into a future radiant with life and hope.

She was the only surviving child of her parents; and though the father had little elevation of character, and in later days was an anxiety and trouble for his child

which is natural to her race, yet treated her in some respects with a little of that "wholesome neglect" which is more English than French, and allowed her to pasture almost where she pleased in the field of literature. We share, we allow, the horror of this good woman who saw with a shudder Voltaire's "Candide" in the hands of the youthful reader. But the good mother did not trouble herself, and the child's youth and ignorance kept her apparently from all harm. Her reading, however, was of the most singular description. Her father was in the habit of making her presents of books; "but as he piqued himself on my serious tastes, his choice was often of the strangest. He gave me the treatise of Fénelon upon the education of girls, and the work of Locke upon that of children, thus putting into the hands of a pupil what was intended for the direction of her instructors." The curious medley of books that thus came into her hands, some worthless, some excellent, all giving something to the eager reader, is contrary to all rules of education, to be sure; but there are other cases besides that of Madame Roland in which the system, or rather want of system, has, as she says, "succeeded very well, chance serving the purpose perhaps better than ordinary combinations would have done." She read everything that came in her way - books of devotion and books of philosophy; Plutarch and the Lives of the Saints; Locke, Montesquieu, Pascal, the Abbé Raynal, — everything on every side that she could lay her hands on. This course of literature began from her earliest years - the days when other children are still at fables and fairy-tales. "Télémaque "and the "Jerusalem Delivered " represented to her the age of Cinderella and Puss in Boots. She threw herself into the new worlds thus disclosed to her with all the force of her nature. "I was Eucharis for Telemachus, and Herminia for Tancred," she says, "entirely trans

formed into their being. I never dreamed | effort to-day to ascend proudly the scafof being one day, in my own person, some fold, than I made then in giving myself one for somebody. I made no return up to a barbarous punishment, which upon myself, demanded nothing of what might kill me but never overcome me." was around me; I existed in them, and scarcely saw the objects around. It was a dream without any awaking."

It does not, perhaps, always follow that a child thus proudly resistent should be at the same time a creature of generous In the mean time, the child and all her nature, open to every tender influence. surroundings are set before us with the But it was so in the case of the wondermost vivid reality. As little Manon threw ful child, thus strangely fallen, with the herself into the heroines of the classical soul of a hero, into this humble bourgeois romance, so Madame Roland, the wife of house, with its atelier communicating with the disgraced statesman, the imprisoned its sitting-room, and the journeyman enqueen of society, deprived of all her court gravers working almost within sight of and suite, throws herself with delightful that deep recess at the side of the chimcompleteness back into little Manon. She ney in which a little window, a chair and is, as she writes, the young, eager creature table squeezed between the wall and her she once was, devouring all knowledge, bed, formed the child's study and schoolopening her earnest and wondering eyes room, - the very home of her soul. The upon a world full of wonder and myste- window looked out upon the Seine, upon ries made to be fathomed and penetrated, the thronging passengers that went and and in all its grandeur and beauty already came by the Pont Neuf, and all the subject to her, the all-embracing, all-com- traffic and lively movement of the quays. prehending sovereign of the earth - the" How often," she says, "from my winnew Adam, alone qualified to give their dow, "I have contemplated with emotion names to the subject creatures, and to the vast deserts of the sky, its superb reign over them. Her own character blue vault, so boldly designed, from the dawns upon her with wonder, like all the pale dawn behind the Pont au Change, rest. One of the incidents which she de- until the sunset glowed with brilliant colscribes, all childish, all homely as it is, is ors behind the trees of the Cours, and the the revelation to her of herself in her houses of Chaillot." When she was still days of infancy-herself as now so well little more than an infant, she would rise known to the mature and clear-sighted from her mother's side, and patter with woman. It had been necessary in those little bare feet, and a little peignoir hastily distant days to administer to her a dis-drawn over her shoulders, to the table agreeable medicine, which she would not 'take. Her mother's entreaties having had no effect, the injudicious, trifling father, who was proud of her without understand ing her, whipped the little rebel. She had been struggling with herself to swallow the nauseous draught, but the punishment changed her mind: the whipping was repeated, then for a third time threatened. "I feel at the hour I write," she says, "the revolution and the new development which I felt within me. My tears were dried at once, my sobs ceased, a sudden calm collected all my faculties in one resolution. Je me lève sur mon lit" (the rest we leave in the original), "je me tourne du côté de la ruelle: j'incline ma tête en l'appuyant sur le mur: je trousse ma chemise, et je m'offre aux coups en silence: on m'aurait tuée sur place sans m'arracher un soupir." "All the details of this scene," she adds, "are present to me, as if it had happened yesterday; all the sensations I felt are as distinct-it was the same sudden resistance of the whole being as I have felt since in solemn moments; and it would be no greater

in this corner with its books and papers, where the little student sat and copied the passages she loved best out of the books that were lent to her, long before the busy life began outside, or maman opened her tender eyes. Never was there a prettier picture of a child's life. She had masters at this early age for various branches, and eagerly studied everything, from Latin to the violin. Nothing came amiss to her eager intelligence. She astonished Father Colomb, the good Barnabite, her mother's confessor, by playing several airs on his bass fiddle. "Had I been able to to get at a violoncello," she says, "I should have got up on a chair and made something of it." Her father, who was an engraver, taught her the use of the burin; and when her uncle, the young priest, the petit oncle whom she always loved, proposed to teach her Latin, "I was delighted; it was a holiday for me when I found a new subject of study. The rage of learning possessed me to such an extent that, having disinterred a treatise on heraldry, I set to work to study it: it had colored pictures, which amused

M

me, and I delighted in finding out how all | part, threw herself with all her soul into
those little figures were named. Soon the exercises of religion. She had her
after, I astonished my father by the ob- backslidings, no doubt, as when she took
servations I made upon a seal which was her Plutarch to church with her in the
composed contrary to the rules of the art. long services before Good Friday, in-
I became his oracle on this point, and stead of the Semaine Sainte, an impiety
never led him into error. A treatise on that happened when she was nine — quite
contracts fell into my hands, which I at- a responsible age. Later, however, when
tempted also to understand, for I never the period of the first communion began
read anything without a desire to retain to draw near, little Manon perceived that
the information it conveyed; but it bored her little life was not holy enough for that
me, and I never got beyond the fourth privilege. "I turned over daily the Lives
chapter."
of the Saints, and sighed for the days
In the mean time, the little prodigy was when the fury of paganism procured for
not left entirely to the action of her all- generous Christians the crown of martyr-
devouring, never-wearied intelligence. dom. I considered seriously how to
"This child," she says, her spirit rising adopt a new life, and, after profound med-
with her own description, and a curious itation, I settled what to do." Up to this
tender pride, as if she were describing time the thought of leaving her mother
the feats of a child of her own, coming had been terrible to her, but now the duty
into the torn heart of the woman, older of sacrifice was clearly revealed. "One
now than Manon's mother, to whom, in evening after supper, being alone with
the midst of all her anguish, it is amus- my father and mother, I threw myself at
ing to be once more Manon, though in their feet, my tears burst forth and inter-
the very valley of the shadow of death, rupted my voice. Astonished and trou-
the shadow of the guillotine, "this child, bled, they asked the cause of this strange
who read so many serious works, who act. 'I want to ask you,' I cried, sob-
could explain the oracles of the celestial bing, to do a thing which rends my
sphere, use the pencil and the burin, and heart, but which my conscience demands.
who, at eight years old, was the best Send me to the convent."" The little
dancer among an assembly of young peo- heroine was eleven, and her parents de-
ple older than herself, this child was sired nothing so much as this mode of
often called to the kitchen to make an finishing her education. With as short
omelette, shell the peas, or skim the pot. an interval as possible, they placed her
Such a mixture of grave studies, of pleas- under the charge of the ladies of the
ant exercises, and of domestic cares, has" Congrégation," in the Faubourg Saint
made me fit for everything that may hap- Marcel. What were her emotions in tak-
pen my training thus served to predicting leave of her mother!
the vicissitudes of my fortune, and has
helped me to support them. I am out of
place nowhere; I can make my soup as
cheerfully as Philopomen cut his wood."
Religion was not left out of the range
of her studies; and the young soul, as
yet untouched by the rising wave of un-
belief which belonged to her generation,
seized eagerly upon the heavenly fare set
before her. Her mother, though not so
free from the influences of the time, pos-
sessed some natural piety, though she
was not dévote. "She believed, or tried
to believe, and conformed her conduct to
the rules of the Church, with the modesty
of a person who, feeling the need of her
heart for great principles, would not chaf-
fer over details." Little Manon was sent
to the catéchisme of the parish, with all
the more zeal that her beloved little uncle,
a very young priest, had the charge of
this duty; and it was a feather in his cap
that the best answers given should be
those of his little niece. She, on her

66

My heart was broken," she cries; "I was rent in sunder: but I obeyed the voice of God, and crossed the threshold of the cloister, offering him with tears the greatest sacrifice which I could make to him."

The picture of the convent is the most delicate and heavenly of sketches. Madame Roland loved neither priest nor nun, and when she wrote believed scarcely at all; but the tender peacefulness of the religious house, the atmosphere of kindness and love, the generous simple attachments, the pleasure of the gentle sisters in their brilliant little pupil, were evidently too warm in her heart to be affected by the change in her views. The moonlight in the garden, the serene blue above, the great trees throwing here and there their gigantic shadows, the stillness of the sleeping house, with this one small white figure trembling at the window looking out, leaves not a more pure and tender impression than the smiling faces of the mild nuns, the sweetness of their care,

attractive, or at least to make it apparent that she had been attractive. She was sixty-five or sixty-six, but still careful of her dress, which was, however, entirely appropriate to her age, for,she piqued herself above everything on preperson, her light step, her erect carriage, the serving a perfect propriety. Though stout in graceful gesticulations of her little hands, her

off all appearance of old age. She was very kind to the young people whom she loved to have about her, and by whom it gave her pleasure to be sought. Left a widow after a single year of married life, my father was her only and posthumous child; and some losses she had been obliged to have recourse to some in business having thrown her into misfortune, distant and rich relatives, who preferred her to a stranger for the education of their family. A small inheritance finally made her independent. She lived in the Ile Saint Louis, where she occupied a little apartment with her sister, Mademoiselle Rotisset, whom she called Angélique. This excellent creature, asthmatical and devout, pure as an angel, simple as a child, was the very humble servant of the elder sister the charge of their little housekeeping was entirely in her hands: a charwoman (do mestique ambulante), who came twice a day, did the coarser part of the work, but Angélique did all the rest, and reverently dressed her sister. She became quite naturally my maid, while Madame Phlipon constituted herself my governess.

the hum of the pretty company, the lime avenue, where soon little Manon, with her Sophie by the waist, would wander for hours telling their innocent secrets. Sophie was not up to the measure of her friend, but she was capable of friendship; and in this friendship the greater spirit poured itself out for years on every sub-tone of mingled sentiment and pleasantry, kept ject-the highest themes, the most noble thoughts to Sophie's ear. This picture of the pupils of the "Congrégation," and the sketches of the various priests who formed an important part of the society in which Manon moved, are proofs of Madame Roland's superiority to prejudice. They remain in those early records, sunbright and full of the sweetest genial appreciation, notwithstanding her wonderful change of sentiment and opinions. Even her confessors, so excellent a subject for denunciation, are wise and kind and liberal, and rather quench and calm than encourage indiscreet innocences of self-accusation. And when we consider what was brewing in those Paris streets, what elements of misery and wrong, what wild panaceas, what mad theories, and how near the volcano was to bursting, it is incredible to see the gentle calm of ordinary life, the undisturbed existence of the comfortable bourgeoisie, with so little apparent subject of complaint. One modest house after another, in which a friendly little company collects night after night, each little circle serene in its orbit, as if held by everlasting laws and intended to last forever, opens upon us as we go There is much talk, much discussion, but not as yet the faintest whiff of sul phur or tremulous portent of the coming irruption. One or two scenes, indeed, show the impressions made by a first contact with those anomalies of social rank and estimation which are so astonishing to a young visionary on her first entrance into the world. Here is one in particular which, with a very few alterations, might still take place almost anywhere, the most vivid picture of that good-humored insolence by which a great lady meant no harm, but which might well make the blood boil in the veins of a high-spirited girl of low degree. It occurred at the period when Manon was living with her grandmother, the delightful and sprightly old bonne-maman Phlipon, of whom and whose ménage we must first give the following description:

on.

She was a woman full of grace and good temper, whose agreeable manners, good language, gracious smile, and eyes full of lively humor, showed still some pretensions to be

It was as the companion of this charming old lady that little Manon made her first acquaintance with high life. The grandmother, proud of her little descen dant, determined to pay a visit to her former patroness and kinswoman, Madame de Boismorel, whose children she had brought up. Great preparations were made, the best dresses put on, and about noon the little party, Angélique in atten dance, set out.

When we reached the hotel, all the attendants, beginning with the porter, saluted Maeach more anxious than the other to bid her dame Bhlipon affectionately and with respect, welcome. She replied to all in familiar but dignified terms. So far all was well. But when her granddaughter was observed, she could not deny herself the pleasure of telling them about me: the servants (les gens), thus encouraged, paid me various compliments, and I began to be conscious of a sort of annoyance, difficult to explain, which, however, I made out to mean that people of this class might admire me, but that it was not their part to presume to praise. Thus we made our way up-stairs, announced by a tall lackey, and entered the room where Madame de Boismorel, seated with her dog upon a piece of furniture, which in those days was called, not an ottomane, but a canapé, worked at her tapestry with much seriousness. Madame de Boismorel was about

morel playing the part of Mademoiselle Rotis-
set; but the sentiment which leads to that
thought was already in my mind, and the ter-
mination of the visit was a great relief to me.

me, and let your granddaughter choose the
number, do you hear, Mademoiselle Rotisset?
I must have the first of her hand: kiss me
then; and don't, my little love, cast down your
eyes so; they are very well worth seeing, those
eyes, and even your confessor would not forbid
you to open them. Ah, Mademoiselle Rotis-
set, you will have many hats taken off as you
pass, I promise you, and that very soon.
jour, mesdames," and Madame de Boismorel
rings her bell, bids Lafleur go in a day or two
for a lottery-ticket to Mademoiselle Rotisset's,
silences the barking of her dog, and has already
taken her place again on her sofa before we
have reached the ante-room.

Bon

the same age, height, and corpulence as my grandmother, but her dress was less tasteful than pretentious, and her countenance, far from expressing the desire to be agreeable, announced her determination to be much con-"Ah! don't forget to take a lottery ticket for sidered, and her sense of meriting consideration. A piece of rich lace crumpled into a little cap with pointed ends like the ears of a hare, placed upon the summit of her head, showed locks which perhaps were borrowed, arranged with that caution which is necessary after sixty; and a double coat of rouge gave to her insignificant eyes more hardness than was necessary to make me lower mine. "Eh! bon jour, Mlle. Rotisset," she cried, with a voice cold and high, rising at our approach. (Mademoiselle? what? my grandmother is here Mademoiselle!) "I am delighted to see you. And this fine child, is she your granddaughter? She will be very pretty one day. Come here, my love; sit down beside me. She is shy. How old is your granddaughter, Mademoiselle Rotisset? She is a little brown, but her complexion is excellent, and that will clear off. She is quite formed already! You ought to be lucky, my little friend: have you ever tried in the lottery?" "Never, madame: I dislike all games of chance." "Ah, very likely; at your age one imagines the game is in one's own hands. What a pretty voice! It is so Are you not a little saint (un peu dévote) ?" "I know my duties, and I try to fulfil them." "Better and better! You wish to be a nun, don't you?" "I do not know yet what my destination may be. I don't attempt to decide it." "How sententious she This little girl of yours reads, Mademoiselle Rotisset?' "Reading is her greatest pleasure: she spends a great part of every day among her books." Ah, I can see that; but take care that she does not become a bluestocking; that would be a great pity.'

sweet and full.

is !

""

The conversation then took another course upon the family and society of the house, and my grandmother asked after uncle and cousin, daughter-in-law and friend, the Abbé Langlois, the Marquise de Lévi, the Counsellor Brion, and the Curé Parent. The talk flowed upon their health, their alliances, and their defects, as, for example, Madame Roudé, who, in spite of her age, still considered herself to have a fine bust, and uncovered her shoulders, except at the moment of getting out or into her carriage, when she wrapped herself in a.great handkerchief, which she kept for that purpose, because, as she said, all that was not made to be exhibited to lackeys. During this dialogue, Madame de Boismorel made various stitches in her canvas, petted her dog occasionally, but most frequently kept her eyes fixed on me. took care as much as possible to avoid this gaze, which displeased me mightily, by examining the room, the decoration of which was more pleasant to look at than the lady who inhabited it: my blood circulated faster than usual, I felt my cheeks burn, my heart beat. I did not yet ask myself why my grandmother was not upon the sofa, and Madame de Bois

This lively scene, with all the inevitable comments of the sententious little maiden, stiffening as of old in instinctive resistance, with a prim, small splendor of visionary superiority about her, and a whole revolution beginning to boil in her little bosom, will recall similar scenes to does not see the humor in it, nor laugh, as many a reader. But Madame Roland we should do, at the indignation of the little heroine, who, by the way, is as haughtily conscious that her baby charms were not made to be admired of lackeys as the finest lady of the Faubourg. She rushes into her books when she gets home, to escape from the odious recollection of this insupportable patronage, much disconcerting bonne-maman, who makes little apologetic reflections upon the singularities of the great lady, her egotism, and the carelessness which was natural to her rank. M. de Boismorel, however, who returns the call, is very different from his mother. He is enlightened, respectful, full of literature and knowledge, and remains the friend of the young Manon as long as he lives. But his graceful and fine figure, and the curious intimacy, without any shadow of other tendency, which arises between this thoughtful and culti vated aristocrat and the wonderful girl, whom no one sees without coming more or less under her influence, would require more space than we can give to unfold it. Other little circumstances deepen the effect upon Manon's mind of Madame de Boismorel's contemptuous compli. ments. A certain Mademoiselle d'Han

naches, grande haquenée sechée et jaune, who is the housekeeper of her cousin the vicar of St. Barthélemy, with whom Manon's uncle lives, gives her further cause for reflection. This strident personage