Madame Roland, Makers of History Part 4

And now the conflict for power arose between those of the Republicans who were _more_ and those who were _less_ radical in their plans of reform. The most moderate party, consisting of those who would sustain the throne, but limit its powers by a free const.i.tution, retaining many of the inst.i.tutions and customs which antiquity had rendered venerable, was called the _Girondist party_. It was so called because their most prominent leaders were from the department of the Gironde.

They would deprive the king of many of his prerogatives, but not of his crown. They would take from him his despotic power, but not his life. They would raise the ma.s.s of the people to the enjoyment of liberty, but to liberty controlled by vigorous law. Opposed to them were the Jacobins--far more radical in their views of reform. They would overthrow both throne and altar, break down all privileged orders, confiscate the property of the n.o.bles, and place prince and beggar on the footing of equality. These were the two great parties into which revolutionary France was divided and the conflict between them was the most fierce and implacable earth has ever witnessed.

M. Roland and wife, occupying a residence in Paris, which was a convenient place of rendezvous, by their attractions gathered around them every evening many of the most influential members of the a.s.sembly. They attached themselves, with all their zeal and energy, to the Girondists. Four evenings of every week, the leaders of this party met in the saloon of Madame Roland, to deliberate respecting their measures. Among them there was a young lawyer from the country, with a stupid expression of countenance, sallow complexion, and ungainly gestures, who had made himself excessively unpopular by the prosy speeches with which he was ever wearying the a.s.sembly. He had often been floored by argument and coughed down by contempt, but he seemed alike insensible to sarcasm and to insult. Alone in the a.s.sembly, without a friend, he attacked all parties alike, and was by all disregarded. But he possessed an indomitable energy, and unwavering fixedness of purpose, a profound contempt for luxury and wealth, and a stoical indifference to reputation and to personal indulgence, which secured to him more and more of an ascendency, until, at the name of Robespierre, all France trembled. This young man, silent and moody, appeared with others in the saloon of Madame Roland. She was struck with his singularity, and impressed with an instinctive consciousness of his peculiar genius. He was captivated by those charms of conversation in which Madame Roland was unrivaled. Silently--for he had no conversational powers--he lingered around her chair, treasured up her spontaneous tropes and metaphors, and absorbed her sentiments.

He had a clear perception of the state of the times, was perhaps a sincere patriot, and had no ties of friends.h.i.+p, no scruples of conscience, no instincts of mercy, to turn him aside from any measures of blood or woe which might accomplish his plans.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROBESPIERRE.]

Though the Girondists and the Jacobins were the two great parties now contending in the tumultuous arena of French revolution, there still remained the enfeebled and broken remains of the court party, with their insulted and humiliated king at their head, and also numerous cliques and minor divisions of those struggling for power. At the political evening reunions in the saloon of Madame Roland, she was invariably present, not as a prominent actor in the scenes, taking a conspicuous part in the social debates, but as a quiet and modest lady, of well-known intellectual supremacy, whose active mind took the liveliest interest in the agitations of the hour. The influence she exerted was the polished, refined, attractive influence of an accomplished woman, who moved in her own appropriate sphere. She made no Amazonian speeches. She mingled not with men in the clamor of debate. With an invisible hand she gently and winningly touched the springs of action in other hearts. With feminine conversational eloquence, she threw out sagacious suggestions, which others eagerly adopted, and advocated, and carried into vigorous execution. She did no violence to that delicacy of perception which is woman's tower and strength. She moved not from that sphere where woman reigns so resistlessly, and dreamed not of laying aside the graceful and polished weapons of her own s.e.x, to grasp the heavier and coa.r.s.er armor of man, which no woman can wield. By such an endeavor, one does but excite the repugnance of all except the unfortunate few, who can see no peculiar sacredness in woman's person, mind, or heart.

As the gentlemen a.s.sembled in the retired parlor, or rather library and study, appropriated to these confidential interviews, Madame Roland took her seat at a little work-table, aside from the circle where her husband and his friends were discussing their political measures. Busy with her needle or with her pen, she listened to every word that was uttered, and often bit her lips to check the almost irrepressible desire to speak out in condemnation of some feeble proposal or to urge some bolder action. At the close of the evening, when frank and social converse ensued, her voice was heard in low, but sweet and winning tones, as one after another of the members were attracted to her side. Robespierre, at such times silent and thoughtful, was ever bending over her chair. He studied Madame Roland with even more of stoical apathy than another man would study a book which he admires. The next day his companions would smile at the effrontery with which Robespierre would give utterance, in the a.s.sembly, not only to the sentiments, but even to the very words and phrases which he had so carefully garnered from the exuberant diction of his eloquent instructress. Occasionally, every eye would be riveted upon him, and every ear attentive, as he gave utterance to some lofty sentiment, in impa.s.sioned language, which had been heard before, in sweeter tones, from more persuasive lips.

But the Revolution, like a spirit of destruction, was now careering onward with resistless power. Liberty was becoming lawlessness. Mobs rioted through the streets, burned chateaux, demolished convents, hunted, even to death, priests and n.o.bles, sacked the palaces of the king, and defiled the altars of religion. The Girondists, ill.u.s.trious, eloquent, patriotic men, sincerely desirous of breaking the arm of despotism and of introducing a well-regulated liberty, now began to tremble. They saw that a spirit was evoked which might trample every thing sacred in the dust. Their opponents, the Jacobins, rallying the populace around them with the cry, "Kill, burn, destroy," were for rus.h.i.+ng onward in this career of demolition, till every vestige of gradations of rank and every restraint of religion should be swept from the land. The Girondists paused in deep embarra.s.sment. They could not retrace their steps and try to re-establish the throne. The endeavor would not only be utterly unavailing, but would, with certainty, involve them in speedy and retrieveless ruin. They could not unite with the Jacobins in their reckless onset upon every thing which time had rendered venerable, and subst.i.tute for decency, and law, and order, the capricious volitions of an insolent, ignorant, and degraded mob. The only hope that remained for them was to struggle to continue firm in the position which they had already a.s.sumed. It was the only hope for France. The restoration of the monarchy was impossible. The triumph of the Jacobins was ruin. Which of these two parties in the a.s.sembly shall array around its banners the millions of the populace of France, now aroused to the full consciousness of their power? Which can bid highest for the popular vote? Which can pander most successfully to the popular palate? The Girondists had talent, and integrity, and incorruptible patriotism. They foresaw their peril, but they resolved to meet it, and, if they must perish, to perish with their armor on. No one discerned this danger at an earlier period than Madame Roland. She warned her friends of its approach, even before they were conscious of the gulf to which they were tending. She urged the adoption of precautionary measures, by which a retreat might be effected when their post should be no longer tenable. "I once thought," said Madame Roland, "that there were no evils worse than regal despotism. I now see that there are other calamities vastly more to be dreaded."

Robespierre, who had a.s.sociated with the Girondists with rather a sullen and Ishmaelitish spirit, holding himself in readiness to go here or there, as events might indicate to be politic, began now to incline toward the more popular party, of which he subsequently became the inspiring demon. Though he was daily attracting more attention, he had not yet risen to popularity. On one occasion, being accused of advocating some unpopular measure, the clamors of the mult.i.tude were raised against him, and vows of vengeance were uttered, loud and deep, through the streets of Paris. His enemies in the a.s.sembly took advantage of this to bring an act of accusation against him, which would relieve them of his presence by the decisive energy of the ax of the guillotine. Robespierre's danger was most imminent, and he was obliged to conceal himself. Madame Roland, inspired by those courageous impulses which ever enn.o.bled her, went at midnight, accompanied by her husband, to his retreat, to invite him to a more secure asylum in their own house. Madame Roland then hastened to a very influential friend, M. Busot, allowing no weariness to interrupt her philanthropy, and entreated him to hasten immediately and endeavor to exculpate Robespierre, before an act of accusation should be issued against him. M. Busot hesitated, but, unable to resist the earnest appeal of Madame Roland, replied, "I will do all in my power to save this unfortunate young man, although I am far from partaking the opinion of many respecting him. He thinks too much of himself to love liberty; but he serves it, and that is enough for me. I will defend him." Thus was the life of Robespierre saved. He lived to reward his benefactors by consigning them all to prison and to death. Says Lamartine sublimely, "Beneath the dungeons of the Conciergerie, Madame Roland remembered that night with satisfaction. If Robespierre recalled it in his power, this memory must have fallen colder upon his heart than the ax of the headsman."

The powerful influence which Madame Roland was thus exerting could not be concealed. Her husband became more ill.u.s.trious through that brilliance she was ever anxious to reflect upon him. She appeared to have no ambition for personal renown. She sought only to elevate the position and expand the celebrity of her companion. It was whispered from ear to ear, and now and then openly a.s.serted in the a.s.sembly, that the bold and decisive measures of the Girondists received their impulse from the youthful and lovely wife of M. Roland.

In September, 1791, the a.s.sembly was dissolved, and M. and Madame Roland returned to the rural quiet of La Platiere. But in pruning the vines, and feeding the poultry, and cultivating the flowers which so peacefully bloomed in their garden, they could not forget the exciting scenes through which they had pa.s.sed, and the still more exciting scenes which they foresaw were to come. She kept up a constant correspondence with Robespierre and Busot, and furnished many very able articles for a widely-circulated journal, established by the Girondists for the advocacy of their political views. The question now arose between herself and her husband whether they should relinquish the agitations and the perils of a political life in these stormy times, and cloister themselves in rural seclusion, in the calm luxury of literary and scientific enterprise, or launch forth again upon the storm-swept ocean of revolution and anarchy. Few who understand the human heart will doubt of the decision to which they came. The chickens were left in the yard, the rabbits in the warren, and the flowers were abandoned to bloom in solitude; and before the snows of December had whitened the hills, they were again installed in tumultuous Paris. A new a.s.sembly had just been convened, from which all the members of the one but recently dissolved were by law excluded. Their friends were rapidly a.s.sembling in Paris from their summer retreats, and influential men, from all parts of the empire, were gathering in the metropolis, to watch the progress of affairs.

Clubs were formed to discuss the great questions of the day, to mold public opinion, and to overawe the a.s.sembly. It was a period of darkness and of gloom; but there is something so intoxicating in the draughts of homage and power, that those who have once quaffed them find all milder stimulants stale and insipid. No sooner were M. and Madame Roland established in their city residence, than they were involved in all the plots and the counterplots of the Revolution. M.

Roland was grave, taciturn, oracular. He had no brilliance of talent to excite envy. He displayed no ostentation in dress, or equipage, or manners, to provoke the desire in others to humble him. His reputation for stoical virtue gave a wide sweep to his influence. His very silence invested him with a mysterious wisdom. Consequently, no one feared him as a rival, and he was freely thrust forward as the un.o.bjectionable head of a party by all who hoped through him to promote their own interests. He was what we call in America an _available_ candidate. Madame Roland, on the contrary, was animated and brilliant. Her genius was universally admired. Her bold suggestions, her shrewd counsel, her lively repartee, her capability of cutting sarcasm, rarely exercised, her deep and impa.s.sioned benevolence, her unvarying cheerfulness, the sincerity and enthusiasm of her philanthropy, and the unrivaled brilliance of her conversational powers, made her the center of a system around which the brightest intellects were revolving. Vergniaud, Petion, Brissot, and others, whose names were then comparatively unknown, but whose fame has since resounded through the civilized world, loved to do her homage.

The spirit of the Revolution was still advancing with gigantic strides, and the already shattered throne was reeling beneath the redoubled blows of the insurgent people. Ma.s.sacres were rife all over the kingdom. The sky was nightly illumined by conflagrations. The n.o.bles were abandoning their estates, and escaping from perils and death to take refuge in the bosom of the little army of emigrants at Coblentz. The king, insulted and a prisoner, reigned but in name.

Under these circ.u.mstances, Louis was compelled to dismiss his ministry and to call in another more acceptable to the people. The king hoped, by the appointment of a Republican ministry, to pacify the democratic spirit. There was no other resource left him but abdication. It was a bitter cup for him to drink. His proud and spirited queen declared that she would rather die than throw herself into the arms of _Republicans_ for protection. He yielded to the pressure, dismissed his ministers, and surrendered himself to the Girondists for the appointment of a new ministry. The Girondists called upon M. Roland to take the important post of Minister of the Interior. It was a perilous position to fill, but what danger will not ambition face? In the present posture of affairs, the Minister of the Interior was the monarch of France. M. Roland, whose quiet and hidden ambition had been feeding upon its success, smiled nervously at the power which, thus unsolicited, was pa.s.sing into his hands. Madame Roland, whose all-absorbing pa.s.sion it now was to elevate her husband to the highest summits of greatness, was gratified in view of the honor and agitated in view of the peril; but, to her exalted spirit, the greater the danger, the more heroic the act. "The burden is heavy," she said; "but Roland has a great consciousness of his own powers, and would derive fresh strength from the feeling of being useful to liberty and his country."

In March, 1792, he entered upon his arduous and exalted office. The palace formerly occupied by the Controller General of Finance, most gorgeously furnished by Madame Necker in the days of her glory, was appropriated to their use. Madame Roland entered this splendid establishment, and, elevated in social eminence above the most exalted n.o.bles of France, fulfilled all the complicated duties of her station with a grace and dignity which have never been surpa.s.sed. Thus had Jane risen from that humble position in which the daughter of the engraver, in solitude, communed with her books, to be the mistress of a palace of aristocratic grandeur, and the a.s.sociate of statesmen and princes.

When M. Roland made his first appearance at court as the minister of his royal master, instead of arraying himself in the court-dress which the customs of the times required, he affected, in his costume, the simplicity of his principles. He wished to appear in his exalted station still the man of the people. He had not forgotten the impression produced in France by Franklin, as in the most republican simplicity of dress he moved among the glittering throng at Versailles. He accordingly presented himself at the Tuileries in a plain black coat, with a round hat, and dusty shoes fastened with ribbons instead of buckles. The courtiers were indignant. The king was highly displeased at what he considered an act of disrespect. The master of ceremonies was in consternation, and exclaimed with a look of horror to General Damuriez, "My dear sir, he has not even buckles in his shoes!" "Mercy upon us!" exclaimed the old general, with the most laughable expression of affected gravity, "we shall then all go to ruin together!"

The king, however, soon forgot the neglect of etiquette in the momentous questions which were pressing upon his attention. He felt the importance of securing the confidence and good will of his ministers, and he approached them with the utmost affability and conciliation. M. Roland returned from his first interview with the monarch quite enchanted with his excellent disposition and his patriotic spirit. He a.s.sured his wife that the community had formed a totally erroneous estimate of the king; that he was sincerely a friend to the reforms which were taking place, and was a hearty supporter of the Const.i.tution which had been apparently forced upon him. The prompt reply of Madame Roland displayed even more than her characteristic sagacity. "If Louis is sincerely a friend of the Const.i.tution, he must be virtuous beyond the common race of mortals. Mistrust your own virtue, M. Roland. You are only an honest countryman wandering amid a crowd of courtiers--virtue in danger amid a myriad of vices. They speak our language; we do not know theirs. No! Louis _can not_ love the chains that fetter him. He may feign to caress them. He thinks only of how he can spurn them. Fallen greatness loves not its decadence. No man likes his humiliation. Trust in human nature; that never deceives. Distrust courts. Your virtue is too elevated to see the snares which courtiers spread beneath your feet."

CHAPTER VI.

THE MINISTRY OF M. ROLAND.

1792

Parlor of Madame Roland.--Vacillation of Louis.--Measures of the Girondists.--Their perilous position.--Rumors of invasion.--The rabble.--Danger of the Girondists.--Their demand of the king.--Letter to the king.--Its character.--Refusal of the king.--Dismissal of M.

Roland.--The letter read to the a.s.sembly.--Its celebrity.--Increasing influence of the Rolands.--Barbaroux.--Project of a republic.--Seconded by Madame Roland.--Barbaroux's opinion of the Rolands.--The Girondists desert the king.--Madame Roland's influence over the Girondists.--Buzot adores her.--Madame Roland's opinion of Buzot.--Effect of her death.--Danton at Madame Roland's.--New scenes of violence.--Outrages of the mob.--Recall of M. Roland.--Perilous situation of M. Roland.--His wife's mode of living.--Library of Madame Roland.--Meetings there.--Striking contrast.--Labors of Madame Roland.--French artists at Rome.--Letter to the pope.--Anecdote.--Reverses of fortune.--Increasing anarchy.--Baseness of the Jacobins.--The throne demolished.--Cry for a republic.--The Republic.--Waning of M. Roland's power.--Madame Roland's disgust at the horrors of the Revolution.

From all the s.p.a.cious apartments of the magnificent mansion allotted as the residence of the Minister of the Interior, Madame Roland selected a small and retired parlor, which she had furnished with every attraction as a library and a study. This was her much-loved retreat, and here M. Roland, in the presence of his wife, was accustomed to see his friends in all their confidential intercourse.

Thus she was not only made acquainted with all the important occurrences of the times, but she formed an intimate personal acquaintance with the leading actors in these eventful movements.

Louis, adopting a vacillating policy, in his endeavors to conciliate each party was losing the confidence and the support of all. The Girondists, foreseeing the danger which threatened the king and all the inst.i.tutions of government, were anxious that he should be persuaded to abandon these mistaken measures, and firmly and openly advocate the reforms which had already taken place. They felt that if he would energetically take his stand in the position which the Girondists had a.s.sumed, there was still safety for himself and the nation. The Girondists, at this time, wished to sustain the throne, but they wished to limit its power and surround it by the inst.i.tutions of republican liberty. The king, animated by his far more strong-minded, energetic, and ambitious queen, was slowly and reluctantly surrendering point by point as the pressure of the mult.i.tude compelled, while he was continually hoping that some change in affairs would enable him to regain his lost power.

The position of the Girondists began to be more and more perilous. The army of emigrant n.o.bles at Coblentz, within the dominions of the King of Prussia, was rapidly increasing in numbers. Frederic was threatening, in alliance with all the most powerful crowns of Europe, to march with a resistless army to Paris, reinstate the king in his lost authority, and take signal vengeance upon the leaders of the Revolution. There were hundreds of thousands in France, the most ill.u.s.trious in rank and opulence, who would join such an army. The Roman Catholic priesthood, to a man, would lend to it the influence of all its spiritual authority. Paris was every hour agitated by rumors of the approach of the armies of invasion. The people all believed that Louis wished to escape from Paris and head that army.

The king was spiritless, undecided, and ever vacillating in his plans.

Maria Antoinette would have gone through fire and blood to have rallied those hosts around her banner. Such was the position of the Girondists in reference to the Royalists. They were ready to adopt the most energetic measures to repel the interference of this armed confederacy.

On the other hand, they saw another party, noisy, turbulent, sanguinary, rising beneath them, and threatening with destruction all connected in any way with the execrated throne. This new party, now emerging from the lowest strata of society, upheaving all its superinc.u.mbent ma.s.ses, consisted of the wan, the starving, the haggard, the reckless. All of the abandoned and the dissolute rallied beneath its banners. They called themselves the people. Amazonian fish-women; overgrown boys, with the faces and the hearts of demons; men and girls, who had no homes but the kennels of Paris, in countless thousands swelled its demonstrations of power, whenever it pleased its leaders to call them out. This was the Jacobin party.

The Girondists trembled before this mysterious apparition now looming up before them, and clamoring for the overthrow of all human distinctions. The crown had been struck from the head of the king, and was s.n.a.t.c.hed at by the most menial and degraded of his subjects. The Girondists, through Madame Roland, urged the Minister of the Interior that he should demand of the king an immediate proclamation of war against the emigrants and their supporters, and that he should also issue a decree against the Catholic clergy who would not support the measures of the Revolution. It was, indeed, a bitter draught for the king to drink. Louis declared that he would rather die than sign such a decree. The pressure of the populace was so tremendous, displayed in mobs, and conflagrations, and ma.s.sacres, that these decisive measures seemed absolutely indispensable for the preservation of the Girondist party and the safety of the king. M. Roland was urged to present to the throne a most earnest letter of expostulation and advice. Madame Roland sat down at her desk and wrote the letter for her husband. It was expressed in that glowing and impa.s.sioned style so eminently at her command. Its fervid eloquence was inspired by the foresight she had of impending perils. M. Roland, impressed by its eloquence, yet almost trembling in view of its boldness and its truths, presented the letter to the king. Its last paragraphs will give one some idea of its character.

"Love, serve the Revolution, and the people will love it and serve it in you. Deposed priests agitate the provinces. Ratify the measures to extirpate their fanaticism. Paris trembles in view of its danger. Surround its walls with an army of defense. Delay longer, and you will be deemed a conspirator and an accomplice.

Just Heaven! hast thou stricken kings with blindness? I know that truth is rarely welcomed at the foot of thrones. I know, too, that the withholding of truth from kings renders revolutions so often necessary. As a citizen, a minister, I owe truth to the king, and nothing shall prevent me from making it reach his ear."

The advice contained in this letter was most unpalatable to the enfeebled monarch. The adoption of the course it recommended was apparently his only chance of refuge from certain destruction. We must respect the magnanimity of the king in refusing to sign the decree against the firmest friends of his throne, and we must also respect those who were struggling against despotic power for the establishment of civil and religious freedom. When we think of the king and his suffering family, our sympathies are so enlisted in behalf of their woes that we condemn the letter as harsh and unfeeling. When we think for how many ages the people of France had been crushed into poverty and debas.e.m.e.nt, we rejoice to hear stern and uncompromising truth fall upon the ear of royalty. And yet Madame Roland's letter rather excites our admiration for her wonderful abilities than allures us to her by developments of female loveliness. This celebrated letter was presented to the king on the 11th of June, 1792. On the same day M.

Roland received a letter from the king informing him that he was dismissed from office. It is impossible to refrain from applauding the king for this manifestation of spirit and self-respect. Had he exhibited more of this energy, he might at least have had the honor of dying more gloriously; but, as the intrepid wife of the minister dictated the letter to the king, we can not doubt that it was the imperious wife of the king who dictated the dismissal in reply. Maria Antoinette and Madame Roland met as Greek meets Greek.

"Here am I, dismissed from office," was M. Roland's exclamation to his wife on his return home.

"Present your letter to the a.s.sembly, that the nation may see for what counsel you have been dismissed," replied the undaunted wife.

M. Roland did so. He was received as a martyr to patriotism. The letter was read amid the loudest applauses. It was ordered to be printed, and circulated by tens of thousands through the eighty-three departments of the kingdom; and from all those departments there came rolling back upon the metropolis the echo of the most tumultuous indignation and applause. The famous letter was read by all France--nay, more, by all Europe. Roland was a hero. The plaudits of the million fell upon the ear of the defeated minister, while the execrations of the million rose more loudly and ominously around the tottering throne. This blow, struck by Madame Roland, was by far the heaviest the throne of France had yet received. She who so loved to play the part of a heroine was not at all dismayed by defeat, when it came with such an aggrandizement of power. Upon this wave of enthusiastic popularity Madame Roland and her husband retired from the magnificent palace where they had dwelt for so short a time, and, with a little pardonable ostentation, selected for their retreat very humble apartments in an apparently obscure street of the agitated metropolis. It was the retirement of a philosopher proud of the gloom of his garret. But M. Roland and wife were more powerful now than ever before. The famous letter had placed them in the front ranks of the friends of reform, and enshrined them in the hearts of the ever fickle populace. Even the Jacobins were compelled to swell the universal voice of commendation. M. Roland's apartments were ever thronged. All important plans were discussed and shaped by him and his wife before they were presented in the a.s.sembly.

There was a young statesman then in Paris named Barbaroux, of remarkable beauty of person, and of the richest mental endowments. The elegance of his stature and the pensive melancholy of his cla.s.sic features invested him with a peculiar power of fascination. Between him and Madame Roland there existed the most pure, though the strongest friends.h.i.+p. One day he was sitting with M. Roland and wife, in social conference upon the desperate troubles of the times, when the dismissed minister said to him, "What is to be done to save France? There is no army upon which we can rely to resist invasion.

Unless we can circ.u.mvent the plots of the court, all we have gained is lost. In six weeks the Austrians will be at Paris. Have we, then, labored at the most glorious of revolutions for so many years, to see it overthrown in a single day? If liberty dies in France, it is lost forever to mankind. All the hopes of philosophy are deceived.

Prejudice and tyranny will again grasp the world. Let us prevent this misfortune. If the armies of despotism overrun the north of France, let us retire to the southern provinces, and there establish a _republic_ of freemen."

The tears glistened in the eyes of his wife as she listened to this bold proposal, so heroic in its conception, so full of hazard, and demanding such miracles of self-sacrifice and devotion. Madame Roland, who perhaps originally suggested the idea to her husband, urged it with all her impa.s.sioned energy. Barbaroux was just the man to have his whole soul inflamed by an enterprise of such grandeur. He drew a rapid sketch of the resources and hopes of liberty in the south, and, taking a map, traced the limits of the republic, from the Doubs, the Aire, and the Rhone, to La Dordogne; and from the inaccessible mountains of Auvergne, to Durance and the sea. A serene joy pa.s.sed over the features of the three, thus quietly originating a plan which was, with an earthquake's power, to make every throne in Europe totter, and to convulse Christendom to its very center. Barbaroux left them deeply impressed with a sense of the grandeur and the perils of the enterprise, and remarked to a friend, "Of all the men of modern times, Roland seems to me most to resemble Cato; but it must be owned that it is to his wife that his courage and talents are due." Previous to this hour the Girondists had wished to sustain the throne, and merely to surround it with free inst.i.tutions. They had taken the government of England for their model. From this day the Girondists, freed from all obligations to the king, conspired secretly in Madame Roland's chamber, and publicly in the tribune, for the entire overthrow of the monarchy, and the establishment of a republic like that of the United States. They rivaled the Jacobins in the endeavor to see who could strike the heaviest blows against the throne. It was now a struggle between life and death. The triumph of the invading army would be the utter destruction of all connected with the revolutionary movement. And thus did Madame Roland exert an influence more powerful, perhaps, than that of any other one mind in the demolition of the Bourbon despotism.

Her influence over the Girondist party was such as no _man_ ever can exert. Her conduct, frank and open-hearted, was irreproachable, ever above even the slightest suspicion of indiscretion. She could not be insensible to the homage, the admiration of those she gathered around her. Buzot adored Madame Roland as the inspiration of his mind, as the idol of his wors.h.i.+p. She had involuntarily gained that entire ascendency over his whole being which made her the world to him. The secret of this resistless enchantment was concealed until her death; it was then disclosed, and revealed the mystery of a spiritual conflict such as few can comprehend. She writes of Buzot, "Sensible, ardent, melancholy, he seems born to give and share happiness. This man would forget the universe in the sweetness of private virtues.

Capable of sublime impulses and unvarying affections, the vulgar, who like to depreciate what it can not equal, accuse him of being a dreamer. Of sweet countenance, elegant figure, there is always in his attire that care, neatness, and propriety which announce the respect of self as well as of others. While the dregs of the nation elevate the flatterers and corrupters of the people to station--while cut-throats swear, drink, and clothe themselves in rags, in order to fraternize with the populace, Buzot possesses the morality of Socrates, and maintains the decorum of Scipio. So they pull down his house, and banish him as they did Aristides. I am astonished that they have not issued a decree that his name should be forgotten."

These words Madame Roland wrote in her dungeon the night before her execution. Buzot was then an exile, pursued by unrelenting fury, and concealed in the caves of St. Emilion. When the tidings reached him of the death of Madame Roland, he fell to the ground as if struck by lightning. For many days he was in a state of phrensy, and was never again restored to cheerfulness.

Danton now appeared in the saloon of Madame Roland, with his gigantic stature, and s.h.a.ggy hair, and voice of thunder, and crouched at the feet of this mistress of hearts, whom his sagacity perceived was soon again to be the dispenser of power. She comprehended at a glance his herculean abilities, and the important aid he could render the Republican cause. She wished to win his co-operation, and at first tried to conciliate him, "as a woman would pat a lion;" but soon, convinced of his heartlessness and utter want of principle, she spurned him with abhorrence. He subsequently endeavored, again and again, to reinstate himself in her favor, but in vain. Every hour scenes of new violence were being enacted in Paris and throughout all France. Roland was the idol of the nation. The famous letter was the subject of universal admiration. The outcry against his dismission was falling in thunder tones on the ear of the king. This act had fanned to increased intensity those flames of revolutionary phrensy which were now glaring with portentous flashes in every part of France. The people, intoxicated and maddened by the discovery of their power, were now arrayed, with irresistible thirstings for destruction and blood, against the king, the court, and the n.o.bility. The royal family, imprisoned in the Tuileries, were each day drinking of the cup of humiliation to its lowest dregs. Austria and Prussia, united with the emigrants at Coblentz, prepared to march to Paris to reinstate the king upon his throne. Excitement, consternation, phrensy, pervaded all hearts. A vast a.s.semblage of countless thousands of women, and boys, and wan and starving men, gathered in the streets of Paris. Harangues against the king and the aristocrats rendered them delirious with rage. They crowded all the avenues to the Tuileries, burst through the gates and over the walls, dashed down the doors and stove in the windows, and, with obscene ribaldry, rioted through all the apartments sacred to royalty. They thrust the dirty red cap of Jacobinism upon the head of the King. They poured into the ear of the humiliated queen the most revolting and loathsome execrations. There was no hope for Louis but in the recall of M. Roland. The court party could give him no protection. The Jacobins were upon him in locust legions. M. Roland alone could bring the Girondists, as a s.h.i.+eld, between the throne and the mob. He was recalled, and again moved, in calm triumph, from his obscure chambers to the regal palace of the minister. If Madame Roland's letter dismissed him from office, her letter also restored him again with an enormous acc.u.mulation of power.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LIBRARY.]

His situation was not an enviable one. Elevated as it was in dignity and influence, it was full of perplexity, toil, and peril. The spirit of revolution was now rampant, and no earthly power could stay it. It was inevitable that those who would not recklessly ride upon its billows must be overwhelmed by its resistless surges. Madame Roland was far more conscious of the peril than her husband. With intense emotion, but calmly and firmly, she looked upon the gathering storm.

The peculiarity of her character, and her great moral courage, was ill.u.s.trated by the mode of life she vigorously adopted. Raised from obscurity to a position so commanding, with rank and wealth bowing obsequiously around her, she was entirely undazzled, and resolved that, consecrating all her energies to the demands of the tempestuous times, she would waste no time in fas.h.i.+onable parties and heartless visits. "My love of study," she said, "is as great as my detestation of cards, and the society of silly people affords me no amus.e.m.e.nt."

Twice a week she gave a dinner to the members of the ministry, and other influential men in the political world, with whom her husband wished to converse. The palace was furnished to their hands by its former occupants with Oriental luxury. Selecting for her own use, as before, one of the smallest parlors, she furnished it as her library.

Here she lived, engrossed in study, busy with her pen, and taking an unostentatious and unseen, but most active part, in all those measures which were literally agitating the whole civilized world. Her little library was the sanctuary for all confidential conversation upon matters of state. Here her husband met his political friends to mature their measures. The gentlemen gathered, evening after evening, around the table in the center of the room, M. Roland, with his serene, reflective brow, presiding at their head, while Madame Roland, at her work-table by the fireside, employed herself with her needle or her pen. Her mind, however, was absorbed by the conversation which was pa.s.sing. M. Roland, in fact, in giving his own views, was but recapitulating those sentiments with which his mind was imbued from previous conference with his companion.

It is not possible that one endowed with the ardent and glowing imagination of Madame Roland should not, at times, feel inwardly the spirit of exultation in the consciousness of this vast power. From the windows of her palace she looked down upon the shop of the mechanic where her infancy was cradled, and upon those dusty streets where she had walked an obscure child, while proud aristocracy swept by her in splendor--that very aristocracy looking now imploringly to her for a smile. She possessed that peculiar tact, which enabled her often to guide the course of political measures without appearing to do so. She was only anxious to promote the glory of her husband, and was never more happy than when he was receiving plaudits for works which she had performed. She wrote many of his proclamations, his letters, his state papers, and with all the glowing fervor of an enthusiastic woman.

"Without me," she writes, "my husband would have been quite as good a minister, for his knowledge, his activity, his integrity were all his own; but with me he attracted more attention, because I infused into his writings that mixture of spirit and gentleness, of authoritative reason and seducing sentiment, which is, perhaps, only to be found in the language of a woman who has a clear head and a feeling heart."

This frank avowal of just self-appreciation is not vanity. A _vain_ woman could not have won the love and homage of so many of the n.o.blest men of France.

A curious circ.u.mstance occurred at this time, which forcibly and even ludicrously struck Madame Roland's mind, as she reflected upon the wonderful changes of life, and the peculiar position which she now occupied. Some French artists had been imprisoned by the pope at Rome.

The Executive Council of France wished to remonstrate and demand their release. Madame Roland sat down to write the letter, severe and authoritative, to his holiness, threatening him with the severest vengeance if he refused to comply with the request. As in her little library she prepared this communication to the head of the Papal States and of the Catholic Church, she paused, with her pen in her hand, and reflected upon her situation but a few years before as the humble daughter of an engraver. She recalled to mind the emotions of superst.i.tious awe and adoration with which, in the nunnery, she had regarded his holiness as next to the Deity, and almost his equal. She read over some of the imperious pa.s.sages which she had now addressed to the pope in the unaffected dignity of conscious power, and the contrast was so striking, and struck her as so ludicrous, that she burst into an uncontrollable paroxysm of laughter.

When Jane was a diffident maiden of seventeen, she went once with her aunt to the residence of a n.o.bleman of exalted rank and vast wealth, and had there been invited to dine _with the servants_. The proud spirit of Jane was touched to the quick. With a burning brow she sat down in the servants' hall, with stewards, and butlers, and cooks, and footmen, and _valet de chambres_, and ladies' maids of every degree, all dressed in tawdry finery, and a.s.suming the most disgusting airs of self-importance. She went home despising in her heart both lords and menials, and dreaming, with new aspirations, of her Roman republic.

One day, when Madame Roland was in power, she had just pa.s.sed from her splendid dining-room, where she had been entertaining the most distinguished men of the empire, into her drawing-room, when a gray-headed gentleman entered, and bowing profoundly and most obsequiously before her, entreated the honor of an introduction to the Minister of the Interior. This gentleman was M. Haudry, with whose servants she had been invited to dine. This once proud aristocrat, who, in the wreck of the Revolution, had lost both wealth and rank, now saw Madame Roland elevated as far above him as he had formerly been exalted above her. She remembered the many scenes in which her spirit had been humiliated by haughty a.s.sumptions. She could not but feel the triumph to which circ.u.mstances had borne her, though magnanimity restrained its manifestation.

Anarchy now reigned throughout France. The king and the royal family were imprisoned in the Temple. The Girondists in the Legislative a.s.sembly, which had now a.s.sumed the name of the National Convention, and M. Roland at the head of the ministry, were struggling, with herculean exertions, to restore the dominion of law, and, if possible, to save the life of the king. The Jacobins, who, unable to resist the boundless popularity of M. Roland, had, for a time, co-operated with the Girondists, now began to separate themselves again more and more widely from them. They flattered the mob. They encouraged every possible demonstration of lawless violence. They pandered to the pa.s.sions of the mult.i.tude by affecting grossness and vulgarity in person, and language, and manners; by clamoring for the division of property, and for the death of the king. In tones daily increasing in boldness and efficiency, they declared the Girondists to be the friends of the monarch, and the enemies of popular liberty. Upon this tumultuous wave of polluted democracy, now rising with resistless and crested billow, Danton and Robespierre were riding into their terrific power. Humanity shut its eyes in view of the hideous apparition of wan and haggard beggary and crime. The deep mutterings of this rising storm, which no earthly hand might stay, rolled heavily upon the ear of Europe. Christendom looked astounded upon the spectacle of a barbarian invasion bursting forth from the cellars and garrets of Paris. Oppressed and degraded humanity was about to take vengeance for its ages of acc.u.mulated wrongs. The throne was demolished. The insulted royal family, in rags and almost in starvation, were in a dungeon. The universal cry from the ma.s.ses of the people was now for a republic. Jacobins and Girondists united in this cry; but the Jacobins accused the Girondists of being insincere, and of secretly plotting for the restoration of the king.