MARRIAGE.
1776-1785
Sophia Cannet.--Roland de la Platière.--M. Roland.--His personal
appearance.--Character of M. Roland.--First impressions.--Jane's
appreciation of M. Roland.--Minds and hearts.--Journal of M.
Roland.--His notes on Italy.--The light in which Jane and M. Roland
regard each other.--M. Roland professes his attachment.--Feelings
of Jane.--M. Roland writes to Jane's father.--Insulting letter of
M. Phlippon.--Jane retires to a convent.--Her mode of life
there.--Correspondence with M. Roland.--He returns to Paris.--M.
Roland renews his offers to Jane.--They are married.--First year
of married life.--Madame Roland's devotion to her husband.--Birth
of a daughter.--Literary pursuits.--Application for letters-patent
of nobility.--Visit to England.--Removal to Lyons.--La Platière
and its inmates.--Death of M. Roland's mother.--Situation of La
Platière.--Description of La Platière.--Surrounding scenery.--Years
of happiness.--Mode of life.--Eudora.--Domestic duties.--Literary
employments.--Pleasant rambles.--Distinguished guests.--Rural
pleasures.--Knowledge of medicine.--Kindness to the
peasantry.--Gratitude of the peasantry.--Popular rights.
When Jane was in the convent, she became acquainted with a young lady
from Amiens, Sophia Cannet. They formed for each other a strong
attachment, and commenced a correspondence which continued for many
years. There was a gentleman in Amiens by the name of Roland de la
Platière, born of an opulent family, and holding the quite important
office of inspector of manufactures. His time was mainly occupied in
traveling and study. Being deeply interested in all subjects relating
to political economy, he had devoted much attention to that noble
science, and had written several treatises upon commerce, mechanics,
and agriculture, which had given him, in the literary and scientific
world, no little celebrity. He frequently visited the father of
Sophia. She often spoke to him of her friend Jane, showed him her
portrait, and read to him extracts from her glowing letters. The calm
philosopher became very much interested in the enthusiastic maiden,
and entreated Sophia to give him a letter of introduction to her,
upon one of his annual visits to Paris. Sophia had also often written
to Jane of her father's friend, whom she regarded with so much
reverence.
One day Jane was sitting alone in her desolate home, absorbed in
pensive musings, when M. Roland entered, bearing a letter of
introduction to her from Sophia. "You will receive this letter," her
friend wrote, "by the hand of the philosopher of whom I have so often
written to you. M. Roland is an enlightened man, of antique manners,
without reproach, except for his passion for the ancients, his
contempt for the moderns, and his too high estimation of his own
virtue."
The gentleman thus introduced to her was about forty years old. He was
tall, slender, and well formed, with a little stoop in his gait, and
manifested in his manners that self-possession which is the result of
conscious worth and intellectual power, while, at the same time, he
exhibited that slight and not displeasing awkwardness which one
unavoidably acquires in hours devoted to silence and study. Still,
Madame Roland says, in her description of his person, that he was
courteous and winning; and though his manners did not possess all the
easy elegance of the man of fashion, they united the politeness of the
well-bred man with the unostentatious gravity of the philosopher. He
was thin, with a complexion much tanned. His broad and intellectual
brow, covered with but few hairs, added to the imposing attractiveness
of his features. When listening, his countenance had an expression of
deep thoughtfulness, and almost of sadness; but when excited in
speaking, a smile of great cheerfulness spread over his animated
features. His voice was rich and sonorous; his mode of speech brief
and sententious; his conversation full of information, and rich in
suggestive thought.
Jane, the enthusiastic, romantic Jane, saw in the serene philosopher
one of the sages of antiquity, and almost literally bowed and
worshiped. All the sentiments of M. Roland were in accordance with the
most cherished emotions which glowed in her own mind. She found what
she had ever been seeking, but had never found before, a truly
sympathetic soul. She thought not of love. She looked up to M. Roland
as to a superior being--to an oracle, by whose decisions she could
judge whether her own opinions were right or wrong. It is true that
M. Roland, cool and unimpassioned in all his mental operations, never
entered those airy realms of beauty and those visionary regions of
romance where Jane loved, at times, to revel. And perhaps Jane
venerated him still more for his more stern and unimaginative
philosophy. But his meditative wisdom, his abstraction from the
frivolous pursuits of life, his high ambition, his elevated pleasures,
his consciousness of superiority over the mass of his fellow-men, and
his sleepless desire to be a benefactor of humanity, were all traits
of character which resistlessly attracted the admiration of Jane. She
adored him as a disciple adores his master. She listened eagerly to
all his words, and loved communion with his thoughts. M. Roland was by
no means insensible to this homage, and though he looked upon her with
none of the emotions of a lover, he was charmed with her society
because she was so delighted with his own conversation. By the faculty
of attentively listening to what others had to say, Madame Roland
affirms that she made more friends than by any remarks she ever made
of her own. The two _minds_, not _hearts_, were at once united; but
this platonic union soon led to one more tender.
M. Roland had recently been traveling in Germany, and had written a
copious journal of his tour. As he was about to depart from Paris for
Italy, he left this journal, with other manuscripts, in the hands of
Jane. "These manuscripts," she writes, "made me better acquainted with
him, during the eighteen months he passed in Italy, than frequent
visits could have done. They consisted of travels, reflections, plans
of literary works, and personal anecdotes. A strong mind, strict
principles, and personal taste, were evident in every page." He also
introduced Jane to his brother, a Benedictine monk. During the
eighteen months of his absence from Paris, he was traveling in Italy,
Switzerland, Sicily, and Malta, and writing notes upon those
countries, which he afterward published. These notes he communicated
to his brother the monk, and he transmitted them to Jane. She read
them with intense interest. At length he returned again to Paris, and
their acquaintance was renewed. M. Roland submitted to her his
literary projects, and was much gratified in finding that she approved
of all that he did and all that he contemplated. She found in him an
invaluable friend. His gravity, his intellectual life, his almost
stoical philosophy impressed her imagination and captivated her
understanding. Two or three years passed away ere either of them
seemed to have thought of the other in the light of a lover. She
regarded him as a guide and friend. There was no ardor of youthful
love warming her heart. There were no impassioned affections glowing
in her bosom and impelling her to his side. Intellectual enthusiasm
alone animated her in welcoming an intellectual union with a noble
mind. M. Roland, on the other hand, looked with placid and paternal
admiration upon the brilliant girl. He was captivated by her genius
and the charms of her conversation, and, above all, by her profound
admiration of himself. They were mutually happy in each other's
society, and were glad to meet and loth to part. They conversed upon
literary projects, upon political reforms, upon speculations in
philosophy and science. M. Roland was naturally self-confident,
opinionated, and domineering. Jane regarded him with so much reverence
that she received his opinions for law. Thus he was flattered and she
was happy.
M. Roland returned to his official post at Amiens, and engaged in
preparing his work on Italy for the press. They carried on a
voluminous and regular correspondence. He forwarded to her, in
manuscript, all the sheets of his proposed publication, and she
returned them with the accompanying thoughts which their perusal
elicited. Now and then an expression of decorous endearment would
escape from each pen in the midst of philosophic discussions and
political speculations. It was several years after their acquaintance
commenced before M. Roland made an avowal of his attachment. Jane knew
very well the pride of the Roland family, and that her worldly
circumstances were such that, in their estimation, the connection
would not seem an advantageous one. She also was too proud to enter
into a family who might feel dishonored by the alliance. She therefore
frankly told him that she felt much honored by his addresses, and that
she esteemed him more highly than any other man she had ever met. She
assured him that she should be most happy to make him a full return
for his affection, but that her father was a ruined man, and that, by
his increasing debts and his errors of character, still deeper
disgrace might be entailed upon all connected with him; and she
therefore could not think of allowing M. Roland to make his generosity
to her a source of future mortification to himself.
This was not the spirit most likely to repel the philosophic lover.
The more she manifested this elevation of soul, in which Jane was
perfectly sincere, the more earnestly did M. Roland persist in his
plea. At last Jane, influenced by his entreaties, consented that he
should make proposals to her father. He wrote to M. Phlippon. In
reply, he received an insulting letter, containing a blunt refusal. M.
Phlippon declared that he had no idea of having for a son-in-law a man
of such rigid principles, who would ever be reproaching him for all
his little errors. He also told his daughter that she would find in a
man of such austere virtue, not a companion and an equal, but a censor
and a tyrant. Jane laid this refusal of her father deeply to heart,
and, resolving that if she could not marry the man of her choice, she
would marry no one else, she wrote to M. Roland, requesting him to
abandon his design, and not to expose himself to any further affronts.
She then requested permission of her father to retire to a convent.
Her reception at the convent, where she was already held in such high
esteem, was cordial in the extreme. The scanty income she had saved
from her mother's property rendered it necessary for her to live with
the utmost frugality. She determined to regulate her expenses in
accordance with this small sum. Potatoes, rice, and beans, with a
little salt, and occasionally the luxury of a little butter, were her
only food. She allowed herself to leave the convent but twice a week:
once, to call, for an hour, upon a relative, and once to visit her
father, and look over his linen. She had a little room under the roof,
in the attic, where the pattering of the rain upon the tiles soothed
to pensive thought, and lulled her to sleep by night. She carefully
secluded herself from association with the other inmates of the
convent, receiving only a visit of an hour each evening from the
much-loved Sister Agatha. Her time she devoted, with unremitting
diligence, to those literary avocations in which she found so much
delight. The quiet and seclusion of this life had many charms for
Jane. Indeed, a person with such resources for enjoyment within
herself could never be very weary. The votaries of fashion and gayety
are they to whom existence grows languid and life a burden. Several
months thus glided away in tranquillity. She occasionally walked in
the garden, at hours when no one else was there. The spirit of
resignation, which she had so long cultivated; the peaceful
conscience she enjoyed, in view of duty performed; the elevation of
spirit, which enabled her to rise superior to misfortune; the
methodical arrangement of time, which assigned to each hour its
appropriate duty; the habit of close application, which riveted her
attention to her studies; the highly-cultivated taste and
buoyantly-winged imagination, which opened before her all the fairy
realms of fancy, were treasures which gilded her cell and enriched her
heart. She passed, it is true, some melancholy hours; but even that
melancholy had its charms, and was more rich in enjoyment than the
most mirthful moments through which the unreflecting flutter. M.
Roland continued a very constant and kind correspondence with Jane,
but she was not a little wounded by the philosophic resignation with
which he submitted to her father's stern refusal. In the course of
five or six months he again visited Paris, and called at the convent
to see Jane. He saw her pale and pensive face behind a grating, and
the sight of one who had suffered so much from her faithful love for
him, and the sound of her voice, which ever possessed a peculiar
charm, revived in his mind those impressions which had been somewhat
fading away. He again renewed his offer, and entreated her to allow
the marriage ceremony at once to be performed by his brother the
prior. Jane was in much perplexity. She did not feel that her father
was in a situation longer to control her, and she was a little
mortified by the want of ardor which her philosophical lover had
displayed. The illusion of romantic love was entirely dispelled from
her mind, and, at the same time, she felt flattered by his
perseverance, by the evidence that his most mature judgment approved
of his choice, and by his readiness to encounter all the unpleasant
circumstances in which he might be involved by his alliance with her.
Jane, without much delay, yielded to his appeals. They were married in
the winter of 1780. Jane was then twenty-five years of age. Her
husband was twenty years her senior.
The first year of their marriage life they passed in Paris. It was to
Madame Roland a year of great enjoyment. Her husband was publishing a
work upon the arts, and she, with all the energy of her enthusiastic
mind, entered into all his literary enterprises. With great care and
accuracy, she prepared his manuscripts for the press, and corrected
the proofs. She lived in the study with him, became the companion of
all his thoughts, and his assistant in all his labors. The only
recreations in which she indulged, during the winter, were to attend a
course of lectures upon natural history and botany. M. Roland had
hired ready-furnished lodgings. She, well instructed by her mother in
domestic duties, observing that all kinds of cooking did not agree
with him, took pleasure in preparing his food with her own hands. Her
husband engrossed her whole time, and, being naturally rather austere
and imperious, he wished so to seclude her from the society of others
as to monopolize all her capabilities of friendly feeling. She
submitted to the exaction without a murmur, though there were hours in
which she felt that she had made, indeed, a serious sacrifice of her
youthful and buoyant affections. Madame Roland devoted herself so
entirely to the studies in which her husband was engaged that her
health was seriously impaired. Accustomed as she was to share in all
his pursuits, he began to think that he could not do without her at
any time or on any occasion.
At the close of the year M. Roland returned to Amiens with his wife.
She soon gave birth to a daughter, her only child, whom she nurtured
with the most assiduous care. Her literary labors were, however,
unremitted, and, though a mother and a nurse, she still lived in the
study with her books and her pen. M. Roland was writing several
articles for an encyclopedia. She aided most efficiently in collecting
the materials and arranging the matter. Indeed, she wielded a far more
vigorous pen than he did. Her copiousness of language, her facility of
expression, and the play of her fancy, gave her the command of a very
fascinating style; and M. Roland obtained the credit for many passages
rich in diction and beautiful in imagery for which he was indebted to
the glowing imagination of his wife. Frequent sickness of her husband
alarmed her for his life. The tenderness with which she watched over
him strengthened the tie which united them. He could not but love a
young and beautiful wife so devoted to him. She could not but love one
upon whom she was conferring such rich blessings. They remained in
Amiens for four years. Their little daughter Eudora was a source of
great delight to the fond parents, and Madame Roland took the deepest
interest in the developments of her infantile mind. The office of M.
Roland was highly lucrative, and his literary projects successful;
and their position in society was that of an opulent family of
illustrious descent--for the ancestors of M. Roland had been nobles.
He now, with his accumulated wealth, was desirous of being reinstated
in that ancestral rank which the family had lost with the loss of
fortune. Neither must we blame our republican heroine too much that,
under this change of circumstances, she was not unwilling that he
should resume that exalted social position to which she believed him
to be so richly entitled. It could hardly be unpleasant to her to be
addressed as _Lady_ Roland. It is the infirmity of our frail nature
that it is more agreeable to ascend to the heights of those who are
above us, than to aid those below to reach the level we have attained.
Encountering some embarrassments in their application for
letters-patent of nobility, the subject was set aside for the time,
and was never after renewed. The attempt, however, subsequently
exposed them to great ridicule from their democratic opponents.
About this time they visited England. They were received with much
attention, and Madame Roland admired exceedingly the comparatively
free institutions of that country. She felt that the English, as a
nation, were immeasurably superior to the French, and returned to her
own home more than ever dissatisfied with the despotic monarchy by
which the people of France were oppressed.
From Amiens, M. Roland removed to the city of Lyons, his native place,
in which wider sphere he continued the duties of his office as
Inspector General of Commerce and Manufactures. In the winter they
resided in the city. During the summer they retired to M. Roland's
paternal estate, La Platière, a very beautiful rural retreat but a few
miles from Lyons. The mother of M. Roland and an elder brother resided
on the same estate. They constituted the ingredient of bitterness in
their cup of joy. It seems that in this life it must ever be that each
pleasure shall have its pain. No happiness can come unalloyed. La
Platière possessed for Madame Roland all the essentials of an earthly
paradise; but those trials which are the unvarying lot of fallen
humanity obtained entrance there. Her mother-in-law was proud,
imperious, ignorant, petulant, and disagreeable in every development
of character. There are few greater annoyances of life than an
irritable woman, rendered doubly morose by the infirmities of years.
The brother was coarse and arrogant, without any delicacy of feeling
himself, and apparently unconscious that others could be troubled by
any such sensitiveness. The disciplined spirit of Madame Roland
triumphed over even these annoyances, and she gradually infused
through the discordant household, by her own cheerful spirit, a great
improvement in harmony and peace. It is not, however, possible that
Madame Roland should have shed many tears when, on one bright autumnal
day, this hasty tongue and turbulent spirit were hushed in that repose
from which there is no awaking. Immediately after this event,
attracted by the quiet of this secluded retreat, they took up their
abode there for both summer and winter.
[Illustration: LA PLATIÈRE.]
La Platière, the paternal inheritance of M. Roland, was an estate
situated at the base of the mountains of Beaujolais, in the valley of
the Saône. It is a region solitary and wild, with rivulets, meandering
down from the mountains, fringed with willows and poplars, and
threading their way through narrow, yet smooth and fertile meadows,
luxuriant with vineyards. A large, square stone house, with regular
windows, and a roof, nearly flat, of red tiles, constituted the
comfortable, spacious, and substantial mansion. The eaves projected
quite a distance beyond the walls, to protect the windows from the
summer's sun and the winter's rain and snow. The external walls,
straight, and entirely unornamented, were covered with white plaster,
which, in many places, the storms of years had cracked and peeled off.
The house stood elevated from the ground, and the front door was
entered by ascending five massive stone steps, which were surmounted
by a rusty iron balustrade. Barns, wine-presses, dove-cotes and
sheep-pens were clustered about, so that the farm-house, with its
out-buildings, almost presented the aspect of a little village. A
vegetable garden; a flower garden, with serpentine walks and arbors
embowered in odoriferous and flowering shrubs; an orchard, casting the
shade of a great variety of fruit-trees over the closely-mown
greensward, and a vineyard, with long lines of low-trimmed grape
vines, gave a finish to this most rural and attractive picture. In the
distance was seen the rugged range of the mountains of Beaujolais,
while still further in the distance rose towering above them the
snow-capped summits of the Alps. Here, in this social solitude, in
this harmony of silence, in this wide expanse of nature, Madame
Roland passed five of the happiest years of her life--five such years
as few mortals enjoy on earth. She, whose spirit had been so often
exhilarated by the view of the tree tops and the few square yards of
blue sky which were visible from the window of her city home, was
enchanted with the exuberance of the prospect of mountain and meadow,
water and sky, so lavishly spread out before her. The expanse,
apparently so limitless, open to her view, invited her fancy to a
range equally boundless. Nature and imagination were her friends, and
in their realms she found her home. Enjoying an ample income, engaged
constantly in the most ennobling literary pursuits, rejoicing in the
society of her husband and her little Eudora, and superintending her
domestic concerns with an ease and skill which made that
superintendence a pleasure, time flew upon its swiftest wings.
Her mode of life during these five calm and sunny years which
intervened between the cloudy morning and the tempestuous evening of
her days, must have been exceedingly attractive. She rose with the
sun, devoted sundry attentions to her husband and child, and
personally superintended the arrangements for breakfast, taking an
affectionate pleasure in preparing very nicely her husband's frugal
food with her own hands. That social meal, ever, in a loving family,
the most joyous interview of the day, being passed, M. Roland entered
the library for his intellectual toil, taking with him, for his silent
companion, the idolized little Eudora. She amused herself with her
pencil, or reading, or other studies, which her father and mother
superintended. Madame Roland, in the mean time, devoted herself, with
most systematic energy, to her domestic concerns. She was a perfect
housekeeper, and each morning all the interests of her family, from
the cellar to the garret, passed under her eye. She superintended the
preservation of the fruit, the storage of the wine, the sorting of the
linen, and those other details of domestic life which engross the
attention of a good housewife. The systematic division of time, which
seemed to be an instinctive principle of her nature, enabled her to
accomplish all this in two hours. She had faithful and devoted
servants to do the work. The superintendence was all that was
required. This genius to superintend and be the head, while others
contribute the hands, is not the most common of human endowments.
Madame Roland, having thus attended to her domestic concerns, laid
aside those cares for the remainder of the day, and entered the study
to join her husband in his labors there. These intellectual
employments ever possessed for her peculiar attractions. The
scientific celebrity of M. Roland, and his political position,
attracted many visitors to La Platière; consequently, they had, almost
invariably, company to dine. At the close of the literary labors of
the morning, Madame Roland dressed for dinner, and, with all that
fascination of mind and manners so peculiarly her own, met her guests
at the dinner-table. The labor of the day was then over. The repast
was prolonged with social converse. After dinner, they walked in the
garden, sauntered through the vineyard, and looked at the innumerable
objects of interest which are ever to be found in the yard of a
spacious farm. Madame Roland frequently retired to the library, to
write letters to her friends, or to superintend the lessons of Eudora.
Occasionally, of a fine day, leaning upon her husband's arm, she would
walk for several miles, calling at the cottages of the peasantry, whom
she greatly endeared to her by her unvarying kindness. In the evening,
after tea, they again resorted to the library. Guests of
distinguished name and influence were frequently with them, and the
hours glided swiftly, cheered by the brilliance of philosophy and
genius. The journals of the day were read, Madame Roland being usually
called upon as reader. When not thus reading, she usually sat at her
work-table, employing her fingers with her needle, while she took a
quiet and unobtrusive part in the conversation. "This kind of life,"
says Madame Roland, "would be very austere, were not my husband a man
of great merit, whom I love with my whole heart. Tender friendship and
unbounded confidence mark every moment of existence, and stamp a value
upon all things, which nothing without them would have. It is the life
most favorable to virtue and happiness. I appreciate its worth. I
congratulate myself on enjoying it; and I exert my best endeavors to
make it last." Again she draws the captivating picture of rural
pleasures. "I am preserving pears, which will be delicious. We are
drying raisins and prunes. We make our breakfast upon wine; overlook
the servants busy in the vineyard; repose in the shady groves, and on
the green meadows; gather walnuts from the trees; and, having
collected our stock of fruit for the winter, spread it in the garret
to dry. After breakfast this morning, we are all going in a body to
gather almonds. Throw off, then, dear friend, your fetters for a
while, and come and join us in our retreat. You will find here true
friendship and real simplicity of heart."
Madame Roland, among her other innumerable accomplishments, had
acquired no little skill in the science of medicine. Situated in a
region where the poor peasants had no access to physicians, she was
not only liberal in distributing among them many little comforts, but,
with the most self-denying assiduity, she visited them in sickness,
and prescribed for their maladies. She was often sent for, to go a
distance of ten or twelve miles to visit the sick. From such appeals
she never turned away. On Sundays, her court-yard was filled with
peasants, who had assembled from all the region round, some as
invalids, to seek relief, and others who came with such little tokens
of their gratitude as their poverty enabled them to bring. Here
appears a little rosy-cheeked boy with a basket of chestnuts; or a
care-worn mother, pale and thin, but with a grateful eye presenting to
her benefactrice a few small, fragrant cheeses, made of goat's milk;
and there is an old man, hobbling upon crutches, with a basket of
apples from his orchard. She was delighted with these indications of
gratitude and sensibility on the part of the unenlightened and lowly
peasantry. Her republican notions, which she had cherished so fondly
in her early years, but from which she had somewhat swerved when
seeking a patent of nobility for her husband, began now to revive in
her bosom with new ardor. She was regarded as peculiarly the friend of
the poor and the humble; and at all the hearth-fires in the cottages
of that retired valley, her name was pronounced in tones almost of
adoration. More and more Madame Roland and her husband began to
identify their interests with those of the poor around them, and to
plead with tongue and pen for popular rights. Her intercourse with the
poor led her to feel more deeply the oppression of laws, framed to
indulge the few in luxury, while the many were consigned to penury and
hopeless ignorance. She acquired boundless faith in the virtue of the
people, and thought that their disenthralment would usher in a
millennium of unalloyed happiness. She now saw the ocean of human
passions reposing in its perfect calm. She afterward saw that same
ocean when lashed by the tempest.