THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.
1791-1792
Portentous mutterings.--Welcomed as blessings.--Enthusiasm of Madame
Roland.--Louis XVI.--Maria Antoinette.--Character of Maria
Antoinette.--Character of Louis.--M. Roland elected to the
Assembly.--Ardor of his wife.--Popularity of the Rolands.--They
go to Paris.--Reception of the Rolands at Paris.--Sittings of
the Assembly.--Tastes and principles.--Conflict for power.--The
Girondists.--The Jacobins.--Meetings at Madame Roland's.--Appearance
of Robespierre.--His character.--Remains of the court party.--Influence
of Madame Roland.--Madame Roland's mode of action.--Her
delicacy.--Robespierre at Madame Roland's.--Horrors of the
Revolution.--Fears of the Girondists.--Violence of the
Jacobins.--Resolution of the Girondists.--Warning of Madame
Roland.--Danger of Robespierre.--He is concealed by Madame
Roland.--Baseness of Robespierre.--The Assembly dissolved.--The
Rolands again at La Platière.--They return to Paris.--Plots
and counterplots.--Political maneuvering.--Massacres and
conflagrations.--The king insulted and a prisoner.--The king
surrenders.--M. Roland Minister of the Interior.--Madame Roland in
a palace.--M. Roland's first appearance at court.--Horror of the
courtiers.--M. Roland's opinion of the king.--Madame Roland's
advice.--Her opinion of kings and courtiers.
Madame Roland was thus living at La Platière, in the enjoyment of all
that this world can give of peace and happiness, when the first
portentous mutterings of that terrible moral tempest, the French
Revolution, fell upon her ears. She eagerly caught the sounds, and,
believing them the precursor of the most signal political and social
blessings, rejoiced in the assurance that the hour was approaching
when long-oppressed humanity would reassert its rights and achieve its
triumph. Little did she dream of the woes which in surging billows
were to roll over her country, and which were to ingulf her, and all
whom she loved, in their resistless tide. She dreamed--a very
pardonable dream for a philanthropic lady--that an ignorant and
enslaved people could be led from Egyptian bondage to the promised
land without the weary sufferings of the wilderness and the desert.
Her faith in the regenerative capabilities of human nature was so
strong, that she could foresee no obstacles and no dangers in the way
of immediate and universal disfranchisement from every custom, and
from all laws and usages which her judgment disapproved. Her whole
soul was aroused, and she devoted all her affections and every energy
of her mind to the welfare of the human race. It is hardly to be
supposed, human nature being such as it is, but that the
mortifications she met in early life from the arrogance of those above
her, and the difficulties she encountered in obtaining letters-patent
of nobility, exerted some influence in animating her zeal. Her
enthusiastic devotion stimulated the ardor of her less excitable
spouse; and all her friends, by her fascinating powers of eloquence
both of voice and pen, were gradually inspired by the same intense
emotions which had absorbed her whole being.
Louis XVI. and Maria Antoinette had but recently inherited the throne
of the Bourbons. Louis was benevolent, but destitute of the decision
of character requisite to hold the reins of government in so stormy a
period. Maria Antoinette had neither culture of mind nor knowledge of
the world. She was an amiable but spoiled child, with great native
nobleness of character, but with those defects which are the natural
and inevitable consequence of the frivolous education she had
received. She thought never of duty and responsibility; always and
only of pleasure. It was her misfortune rather than her fault, that
the idea never entered her mind that kings and queens had aught else
to do than to indulge in luxury. It would be hardly possible to
conceive of two characters less qualified to occupy the throne in
stormy times than were Louis and Maria. The people were slowly, but
with resistless power, rising against the abuses, enormous and hoary
with age, of the aristocracy and the monarchy. Louis, a man of
unblemished kindness, integrity, and purity, was made the scape-goat
for the sins of haughty, oppressive, profligate princes, who for
centuries had trodden, with iron hoofs, upon the necks of their
subjects. The accumulated hate of ages was poured upon his devoted
head. The irresolute monarch had no conception of his position.
The king, in pursuance of his system of conciliation, as the clamors
of discontent swelled louder and longer from all parts of France,
convened the National Assembly. This body consisted of the nobility,
the higher clergy, and representatives, chosen by the people from all
parts of France. M. Roland, who was quite an idol with the populace of
Lyons and its vicinity, and who now was beginning to lose caste with
the aristocracy, was chosen, by a very strong vote, as the
representative to the Assembly from the city of Lyons. In that busy
city the revolutionary movement had commenced with great power, and
the name of Roland was the rallying point of the people now struggling
to escape from ages of oppression. M. Roland spent some time in his
city residence, drawn thither by the intense interest of the times,
and in the saloon of Madame Roland meetings were every evening held by
the most influential gentlemen of the revolutionary party. Her ardor
stimulated their zeal, and her well-stored mind and fascinating
conversational eloquence guided their councils. The impetuous young
men of the city gathered around this impassioned woman, from whose
lips words of liberty fell so enchantingly upon their ears, and with
chivalric devotion surrendered themselves to the guidance of her mind.
In this rising conflict between plebeian and patrician, between
democrat and aristocrat, the position in which M. Roland and wife were
placed, as most conspicuous and influential members of the
revolutionary party, arrayed against them, with daily increasing
animosity, all the aristocratic community of Lyons. Each day their
names were pronounced by the advocates of reform with more enthusiasm,
and by their opponents with deepening hostility. The applause and the
censure alike invigorated Madame Roland, and her whole soul became
absorbed in the one idea of popular liberty. This object became her
passion, and she devoted herself to it with the concentration of every
energy of mind and heart.
On the 20th of February, 1791, Madame Roland accompanied her husband
to Paris, as he took his seat, with a name already prominent, in the
National Assembly. Five years before, she had left the metropolis in
obscurity and depression. She now returned with wealth, with elevated
rank, with brilliant reputation, and exulting in conscious power. Her
persuasive influence was dictating those measures which were driving
the ancient nobility of France from their chateaux, and her vigorous
mind was guiding those blows before which the throne of the Bourbons
trembled. The unblemished and incorruptible integrity of M. Roland,
his simplicity of manners and acknowledged ability, invested him
immediately with much authority among his associates. The brilliance
of his wife, and her most fascinating colloquial powers, also
reflected much luster upon his name. Madame Roland, with her glowing
zeal, had just written a pamphlet upon the new order of things, in
language so powerful and impressive that more than sixty thousand
copies had been sold--an enormous number, considering the comparative
fewness of readers at that time. She, of course, was received with the
most flattering attention, and great deference was paid to her
opinions. She attended daily the sittings of the Assembly, and
listened with the deepest interest to the debates. The king and queen
had already been torn from their palaces at Versailles, and were
virtually prisoners in the Tuileries. Many of the nobles had fled from
the perils which seemed to be gathering around them, and had joined
the army of emigrants at Coblentz. A few, however, of the nobility,
and many of the higher clergy, remained heroically at their posts,
and, as members of the Assembly, made valiant but unavailing efforts
to defend the ancient prerogatives of the crown and of the Church.
Madame Roland witnessed with mortification, which she could neither
repress nor conceal, the decided superiority of the court party in
dignity, and polish of manners, and in general intellectual culture,
over those of plebeian origin, who were struggling, with the energy of
an infant Hercules, for the overthrow of despotic power. All her
_tastes_ were with the ancient nobility and their defenders. All her
_principles_ were with the people. And as she contrasted the unrefined
exterior and clumsy speech of the democratic leaders with the courtly
bearing and elegant diction of those who rallied around the throne,
she was aroused to a more vehement desire for the social and
intellectual elevation of those with whom she had cast in her lot. The
conflict with the nobles was of short continuance. The energy of
rising democracy soon vanquished them. Violence took the place of law.
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 constitution, retaining
many of the institutions 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 mass 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 nobles, 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
Assembly. 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 Assembly. 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 Assembly,
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 friendship, no scruples of
conscience, no instincts of mercy, to turn him aside from any measures
of blood or woe which might accomplish his plans.
[Illustration: 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 sex, to grasp the heavier and coarser
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 assembled 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
Assembly, 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 impassioned 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 nobles, sacked the palaces of the
king, and defiled the altars of religion. The Girondists, illustrious,
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
rushing 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 embarrassment. 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 substitute 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 assumed. 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 Assembly 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 associated 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 multitude were
raised against him, and vows of vengeance were uttered, loud and deep,
through the streets of Paris. His enemies in the Assembly 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 ennobled 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 illustrious 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 asserted in the Assembly,
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 Assembly was dissolved, and M. and Madame
Roland returned to the rural quiet of La Platière. 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 passed, 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 Assembly had just been convened, from which
all the members of the one but recently dissolved were by law
excluded. Their friends were rapidly assembling 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 Assembly. 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
unobjectionable 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 impassioned
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, Pétion, 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. Massacres were rife all over
the kingdom. The sky was nightly illumined by conflagrations. The
nobles 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 circumstances, 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 passing into his hands. Madame Roland, whose
all-absorbing passion 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
nobles of France, fulfilled all the complicated duties of her station
with a grace and dignity which have never been surpassed. 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 associate 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 assured 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 Constitution 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 Constitution, 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."