Chapter XIV: Those Left Behind 303 (9)

One crisis after another indeed followed throughout her imprisonment,—the arrest of the Twenty-two; her own release and rearrest; the pursuit of Buzot; her friends and Roland’s declared suspect, imprisoned, driven from Paris, sometimes even guillotined because of their relations to her; the trial in October of the members of the Gironde; her summons to the trial as a witness, but the failure to call her,—a call which she had awaited, “as a soul in pain awaits its liberator,” she said, so did she desire to have the chance to render one last service to these friends, in whom she believed so strongly, whom she deemed so trusty; her anxiety for Eudora; the execution in October of the Twenty-one; above all, her despair for her country, for France, which permits the dishonor and murder not of “her children, but of the fathers of her liberty.”

The saddest phase of this dark side of her imprisonment was the growing conviction that she and the patriots had been wrong. At last she saw what she did when in 1791 she spurned the Assembly. She acknowledged now that she would have disdained the members of the National Assembly less, if she could have had an idea of their successors. She had learned to regret Mirabeau, whose death then had seemed to her well both for his glory and for the cause of liberty. “The counterpoise of a man of that force was necessary to oppose the crowd of puppets and to preserve us from the domination of the bandits.” She had learned that men may profess, but when their interests and ideals are in opposition it is the former which wins. She had discovered, at last, that to demand speedy and immediate regeneration of society is to break the laws of the universe; that to take away from men what the ages have given them is simply to restore them to the primitive state of teeth and claws, to let loose the passions the centuries have tamed. She saw that in politics, in society, in individual relations, the ideal is the inspiration; the realization, the laborious effort of centuries. She acknowledged that in Plutarch she glided over the storms of the Republic, “forgot the death of Socrates, the exile of Aristides, the condemnation of Phocion.” She was willing at last to say with Sully, “C’est très difficile de faire le bien de son pays”; to confess that “if it is permitted to politics to do good through the wicked, or to profit by their excesses, it is infinitely dangerous to give them the honor of the one, or not to punish them for the other.”

Under the pressure of all these woes she sometimes felt her resolution weaken. What wonder that when she heard, in October, that Buzot and his friends, now escaped to the Gascogne, were being tracked so closely that their arrest was sure, she determined to kill herself? “You know the malady the English call _heart-break_,” she wrote; “I am attacked hopelessly by it and I have no desire to delay its effects.” It seemed to her now that it was weak to await the blow of her tyrants—their _coup de grâce_ she called it—when she could give it to herself. Why should she allow them to see how bravely she could die—they who were incapable of understanding her courage? Three months ago a noble public death might have served for something. To-day it was pure loss. All this she wrote to Bosc. She consented, however, to accept his decision as to whether she ought or not to take her own life, charging him to weigh the question as if it were impersonal.

This letter to Bosc bears the date of October 25th. On October 31st, the condemned Girondins were beheaded. On November 1st, Madame Roland, who because of Bosc’s arguments had abandoned her resolution to suicide, was conveyed to the Conciergerie, a prison which in those days was but a transfer to the cart which led to the guillotine.

But could she not have been saved? She had friends who would have gladly dared death for her. All Paris knew of her imprisonment—was there no lover of justice to intercede? Her friends had tried to save her. Buzot and Roland both contrived many plans; she repulsed them all. They were too foolhardy to succeed; they might implicate those who would interest themselves in carrying them out, or perhaps ruin guardians who had been kind to her—of these she would hear nothing. Her old friend, Henriette Cannet, then a widow, came from Amiens, succeeded in reaching her in prison, insisted on changing garments with her and on remaining in her place. She would not consent; she would rather “suffer a thousand deaths” than run the risk of causing that of a friend. And then what did release mean? Merely the taking on of her old chains. “Nothing would stop me if I braved dangers only to rejoin you,” she wrote Buzot; “but to expose my friends and to leave the irons with which the wicked honor me, in order to take on others that no one sees—there is no hurry for that.”

Madame Roland, throughout her imprisonment, had hoped for a popular uprising, a revolt against tyranny, coming from Paris or the departments, which would release her and her friends. She never got thoroughly over her illusion that the people, as a mass, were the ones that were to reconstruct France; never realized fully how the people are simply a passive unit, asking only to be let alone, to be allowed to live as they can without interference; that they have no initiative, that when they act it is because they have been aroused by leaders working on them systematically, appealing to their wants, their desires, their reason sometimes, but more often inflaming their passions. She never appreciated, save dimly, the fact that throughout the Revolution, so far, the revolt of the people had been prepared by agitators,—prepared as she and her friends wished to make the 20th of July, did make the 10th of August. The people know she is imprisoned; if they reflect at all, they know that probably it is unjust, but they are cautious. They have seen, ever since the Revolution commenced, that he who tries to prevent outrage is sure to be the first to be punished. They have concluded wisely that the only safe plan is to let the belligerents fight it out, to follow as well as they can their usual occupations, and to say nothing. The mass of the Parisians go on as usual. The Terror has become a part of daily discussion, a part of the city’s spectacles,—that is all. People buy and sell as usual, the theatres do not close, not even the Sunday promenade is omitted. They even take advantage of events to give a livelier interest to their amusements. The theatres, the fairs, the _cafés chantants_, the maker of songs and engravings, draw their subjects from the quarrels of the Assembly, the persecutions of the Commune, the events of the prisons and of the guillotine. They even use it to advertise their wares: The real estate agents announce, “in the new state of Kentucky, and the ancient state of Virginia, lands in a country free from despotism and anarchy.” The potter improves the chance, and turns out plates and cups and saucers by the thousands, suitable for all the varying tastes and shades of opinion; there is elegant Sèvres with a _bonnet rouge_ for the rich patriot; there is a _vive le roi_, with a sceptre, for the monarchist; there is a guillotine for the bloodthirsty; there is a coarse and vulgar joke for the ribald. The cloth-maker prints patriotic scenes on his curtain stuff; the handkerchief-maker decorates with transcriptions of the _droits des hommes_; the hat-maker turns out idealized _bonnets rouges_ suitable for the street or opera; the fan-maker illuminates with king or _sans-culottes_, according to taste; the very manufacturer of playing-cards takes off the time-honored king and queen and knave, and replaces them with heroes, philosophers, and Revolutionary emblems. Cabinet-maker, jeweller, shoemaker, weaver, all turn the Revolution to account. For whether justice reign or fall, the world must go on, and while the few wrestle with the pains of progress, of achievement, of aspiration, the mass looks on and calculates what effect the struggle will have on the price of bread.

XIII
DEATH ON THE GUILLOTINE

The inmates of the Conciergerie were still shivering under the horror of the death of the twenty-one Girondins when Madame Roland appeared among them. Her coming was an event which awakened the liveliest interest. For eight months she had been the most influential woman in France. She was the recognized inspiration of the party which had wrecked the monarchy and established the Republic, which had been conquered by the force it had called to life. To the majority she was but a name. They all knew that her death was a foregone conclusion. They felt that she, too, knew it, and they watched, many of them with curiosity—for numbers of the inmates were of constitutional and royalist sympathies—for signs of revolt and of weakness. Never, however, had she been calmer, never more serene.

The prisons of Paris were at that time terribly overcrowded and poorly cared for. It was the custom to confine people together without any regard to their character or lives. “On the same straw, and behind the same bars,” writes an inmate, “the Duchesse de Grammont and a handkerchief thief, Madame Roland and a wretch of the streets, a sister and a habitué of Salpétrière. The quarrelling and the obscenity were often terrible. But from the time of her arrival the chamber of Madame Roland became an asylum of peace in the bosom of this hell. If she descended into the court, her simple presence restored good order, and the unhappy women, on whom no known power had longer any influence, were restrained by the fear of displeasing her. She gave money to the most needy, and to all counsel, consolation, and hope.”

Over many of the prisoners she exercised a kind of spell. “I experienced every day a new charm in listening to her,” says Comte Beugnot, a fellow-prisoner who, rare thing, escaped to write his memoirs; “less from what she said than from the magic of her manner.” “We were all attentive about her in a kind of stupefied admiration,” declares Rioffe.

The next day after her arrival she was questioned for the first time; two days later she underwent a second examination. She had gone into the tribunal in her usual serene way. She came back deeply moved, her eyes wet. The interrogation was indeed most trying. The questions were so couched that in answering them honestly she condemned herself. Did she not entertain Brissot, Barbaroux, Buzot, Pétion, in conference? She must admit it, and explain the “conference” as she would, the Revolutionary tribunal used her admission as a confession of a criminal relation. A letter written to a person, whom she knew but slightly, and who had tried to secure a reading of her letters to the Convention, was used as evidence against her. It was useless to declare that she simply tried through this correspondent to reach the ear of the authorities and to obtain news of her friends. Her friends have been guillotined as traitors to the country, or are in open rebellion at this moment, conspiring for the destruction of the Republic. This person, if he were a patriot, would not have been in communication with them. If she were loyal, she would not want news of them. Let her try to explain and they accuse her of evasion. Roland’s office for creating public opinion was brought up. Was she not the directress of this pretended Bureau of Public Opinion, whose end was evidently to attack the doctrines in their purest source and to bring about the destruction of the Republic by sowing disorder? It was useless to explain the tame and harmless nature of this department of Roland’s work—a department established by public decree; for they accused her of outraging truth when she did, and told her that everybody knew that the correspondence carried on by the perfidious minister had for its principal object to bring the departments to Paris and to spread calumnies against the faithful representatives of the people. They asked her the whereabouts of Roland, and when she refused to tell they informed her that she was in rebellion against the law.

It was evident, indeed, that whatever she might say was useless. She was the friend of the Gironde, and the last of the race must be exterminated just as royalist and _émigré_ had been. The world was being made over, and all who objected to the transformation and wished to fight for another order must be put out of the way. There was not room enough in France any longer for people of different ways of looking at things.

The night after her second interrogation, Madame Roland wrote a defence to read before the tribunal, in which she indignantly denied the accusations against her friends, and declared herself honored to perish for her fidelity to them. The defence was in her haughtiest, most uncompromising style, and showed her at the very end as resolute, as proud, as triumphant, as ever. But this defence was written in the heat of indignation at her examination, and for the hearing of the judges she despised. Away from her persecutors, many times during the days which followed, her strength failed and her fellow-prisoners remarked, almost with awe, that she had been weeping. The woman who served her told them: “Before you she collects all her strength, but in her chamber she remains often hours at a time, leaning against the window, weeping.”

On the 7th of November, the witnesses against Madame Roland appeared. There were three of them;—her faithful _bonne_, for thirteen years in her service, and who during her imprisonment had dared every danger to be useful to her, a governess of Eudora’s, and a domestic. The weight of their testimony was simply that the Girondins had frequented the house.

That night Madame Roland’s lawyer, a courageous young man, Chauveau-Lagarde by name, who was ambitious to defend her, came to consult with her. She listened calmly to him and discussed several points of her defence. When he rose to go she drew a ring from her finger and, without a word, gave it to him. The young man divined the farewell. “Madame,” he cried, “we shall see each other to-morrow after the sentence.”

“To-morrow I shall not be alive. I know the fate which awaits me. Your counsels are dear to me, but they might be fatal to you. They would ruin you without saving me. Let me never know the sorrow of causing the death of a good man. Do not come to the court, I shall disown you, but accept the only token my gratitude can offer. To-morrow I shall exist no more.”

The next day, November 8th, was her trial. When she came out from her cell to await for her summons to the court, Comte Beugnot joined her. “She was clad carefully in white muslin, trimmed with blonde and fastened by a girdle of black velvet.” He says: “Her face seemed to me more animated than usual. Its color was exquisite and she had a smile on her lips. With one hand she held up the train of her gown; the other she had abandoned to a crowd of prisoners who pressed near to kiss it. Those who understood the fate which awaited her sobbed about her and commended her to God.... Madame responded to all with affectionate kindness. She did not promise to return, she did not say she was going to her death, but her last words to them were touching counsels. She begged them to have peace, courage, hope, to practise those virtues which are fitting for misfortune. An old jailer, called Fontenay, whose good heart had resisted the practice of his cruel trade for thirty years, came to open the gate for her, weeping. I did my errand with her in the passage. She answered me in a few words and in a firm tone. She had commenced a sentence when two jailers from the interior called her to the tribunal. At this cry, terrible for another than her, she stopped and, pressing my hand, said: ‘Good-by, sir, let us make peace, it is time.’ Raising her eyes, she saw that I was struggling violently to keep back my tears. She seemed moved and added but two words, ‘Have courage.’”

The accusation waited her. It was a charge of having “wickedly and designedly participated in a conspiracy against the unity and indivisibility of the Republic, against the liberty and surety of the French people, by collecting at her home the principal leaders of this conspiracy, and carrying on a correspondence with them tending to facilitate their murderous projects.” She was not allowed to read her defence, and the judgment was pronounced at once. She was convicted of being one of the authors, or accomplices, in a “horrible conspiracy against the unity and indivisibility of the Republic, the liberty and surety of the French people,” and was sentenced to be punished by death.

When she came out from the tribunal the cart awaited her in the prison court.

Standing on the Pont au Change and looking down the Seine, is one of those fascinating river views of Paris where a wealth of associations disputes with endless charm the attention of the loiterer. The left of the view is filled by the Norman Towers of the Conciergerie, the façades of the prison, the irregular fronts of the houses facing on the Quai de l’Horloge, and ends in an old house of Henry IV.’s time. It is the house where Manon Phlipon passed her girlhood. When the cart drove across the Pont au Change, Madame Roland had before her the window from which, as a girl, she had leaned at sunset, and “with a heart filled with inexpressible joy, happy to exist, had offered to the Supreme Being a pure and worthy homage.”

She faces death now as she faced life then. The girl and the woman, in spite of the drama between, are unchanged: the same ideals, the same courage, the same faith. Not even this tragic last encounter with the home of her youth moves her calm; for she passed the Pont Neuf, writes one who saw her, “upright and calm,—her eyes shining, her color fresh and brilliant,—a smile on her lips, trying to cheer her companion, a man overwhelmed by the terror of approaching death.”

It was a long and weary jolt in the rough cart from the Pont Neuf, where M. Tissot saw her passing, “erect and calm,” by the Rue Saint Honoré to the Place de la Concorde, then Place de la Guillotine. The hideous, howling crowd followed and cursed her. But nothing earthly could reach the heights whither she had risen. At the foot of the guillotine, so tradition goes, she asked for a pen to write the thoughts which had arisen in this awful journey to death, but it was refused. Sanson, the headsman, in a hurry, pressed her to mount the short ladder which led to the platform; for there was a grim guillotine etiquette which gave her the right to die first, but she asked him to give her place to her cringing companion and spare him the misery of seeing her die. Sanson demurred. It was against his orders. “Can you refuse a lady her last request?” she said, smiling, and he, a little shamefaced, consented.

Then her turn came. As they fastened her to the fatal plank, her eyes fell on a colossal statue of liberty erected to celebrate the first anniversary of the 10th of August. “O liberté,” she cried, “comme on t’a jouée.” Then the axe dropped, the beautiful head fell; Madame Roland was dead.

XIV
THOSE LEFT BEHIND

Madame Roland was dead, but she had left behind the three beings dearest and closest to her,—her husband, her child, and her lover.

Roland fled from Paris, as we have seen, on the night of May 31st. He succeeded in reaching Amiens, where he had lived many years and where he had many friends; but though more than one home was opened to him the surveillance of the Mountain was such that he thought it wise to leave the town. From Amiens he went westward to Rouen, where he easily found shelter. He was here on June 22d, when Madame Roland wrote her first letter to Buzot. The life he led there was miserable in the extreme. He constantly feared to be arrested; he felt that he was jeopardizing the lives of his hosts by his presence; he fretted under the contempt and false accusations which the Mountain continued to rain upon him; and, above all, he was tortured by his inability to do anything to insure the future of his child or to effect the release of his wife.

This anxiety had not grown less with time. The events of the summer and the fall of 1793 only increased day by day his misery and apprehension. The news of the death of the twenty-one Girondins in October seemed to turn to bitterness the last drop of his hope. A heavier blow awaited him. That happened which must have seemed to his simple soul the impossible,—his wife was guillotined. When the fatal word reached him, she had been dead for several days. As the news was given him he fell, stricken with a blessed unconsciousness. When he recovered himself, his distress was so great that he resolved to put an end to his days. In vain did the friends who had sheltered and cared for him all these months urge him to give up his resolution. He would not listen to them, but with perfect serenity laid before them two plans which he felt he might follow. The first savored strongly of Madame Roland’s influence: it was to go _incognito_ to Paris, appear in the Convention, make an unexpected speech in which he should tell them the truths he felt they ought to hear, and then ask them to kill him on the guillotine where his wife had lost her life. The second was to kill himself.

ROLAND DE LA PLATIÈRE.

From a drawing by Gabriel.
]

One consideration alone deterred him from carrying out his first plan. The property of persons guillotined was confiscated by the State. If he should die in this manner, Eudora would be left penniless, and Roland abandoned the idea. There remained nothing for him but suicide. On the evening of November 15th, he bade his friends good-by, and left Rouen by the route to Paris. About four leagues from Rouen, in the hamlet of Baudoin, he left the highway, entered the roadway leading to a private house, seated himself on the ground on the edge of the avenue, and deliberately ran a cane-sword into his breast. His death must have been immediate; for passers-by, next morning, seeing him there leaning against a tree, thought he was sleeping. When the truth was discovered, a deputy from the Convention, who happened to be at Rouen, went at once to the spot and took possession of the papers on his person. The only one of importance was a note which ran:

“Whoever finds me lying here, let him respect my remains. They are those of a man who died as he lived, virtuous and honest.

“The day is not far distant when you will have to bear a terrible judgment; await that day; you will act then in full knowledge of causes, and you will understand the meaning of this advice.

“May my country soon abhor these crimes and return to humanity and kindliness.”

On another fold of the paper was written:

“_Not fear, but Indignation._

“I left my refuge as soon as I heard that my wife had been murdered. I desire to remain no longer in a world covered with crime.”

Eudora Roland, born October 7, 1781, was twelve years old at the time of her mother’s death. Separated the night of the arrest, the two never saw each other again. Happily, there were warm and faithful friends ready to take care of her as soon as her serious situation was known. Bosc, who throughout Madame Roland’s imprisonment showed himself of the most fearless and tender devotion, went to the apartment in the Rue de la Harpe soon after the arrest, and took the little girl to the home of a member of the Convention, Creuzé-la-Touche. Here she remained until a few days before her mother’s death. Then it became evident that, in sheltering Eudora, Madame Creuzé-la-Touche was compromising the safety of her family, and she was compelled to place her charge in a _pension_. She was not received there, even, until her name had been changed. All this was a great grief to Madame Roland in her last days. She understood only too well now that her child was in danger of suffering her own fate. She wrote an anxious letter to “the person charged with the care of my daughter,” and to Eudora herself she wrote a courageous adieu:

“I do not know, my little girl,” she wrote, “that I shall ever see or write to you again. REMEMBER YOUR MOTHER, that is the best thing I can say to you. You have seen me happy in doing my duty and in serving those who were suffering. There is no better life.

“You have seen me tranquil in misfortune and captivity. I could be so because I had no remorse, and only pleasant memories of the good I had done. Nothing else can sustain one in the sorrows of life. Perhaps you will never experience trials like mine, but you must prepare for others. A busy, active life is the best safeguard against danger, and necessity, as well as wisdom, will compel you to work seriously.

“Be worthy of your parents. They leave you a noble example. If you follow them, you will not live in vain.

“Farewell, dear child. I nursed you at my breast. I would inspire you with my aspirations. The day will come when you will understand the effort I am making to be strong as I think of your sweet face.

“Would that I could fold you to my breast!

“Adieu, my Eudora.”

It was Madame Roland’s last letter to her child. Bosc, who had been allowed to visit her twice a week throughout the fall, was now forbidden to see her. Letters had to be smuggled in and out of the prison, and she soon ceased to have any trustworthy news of her loved ones. Six days after the above letter, she wrote to Bosc:

“My poor little one! Where is she? Tell me, I beg of you. Give me some details that I may picture her to myself in her new surroundings.”

It was too late. In less than a week after this letter she was in the Conciergerie.

After the death of M. and Madame Roland, Eudora was taken in charge by Bosc, who, in 1795, published the first edition of Madame Roland’s Memoirs, to help in her support. Legend has it that Bosc even wanted to marry the child. Later a marriage was arranged for her with a brother of Champagneux of Lyons, the old friend of the Rolands.

After the Revolution, Madame Champagneux recovered her father’s property, and Le Clos, the family estate, near Villefranche, came into her possession. This property is still in the family, being owned by one of Madame Champagneux’s granddaughters, Madame Cécile Marillier of Paris.

All of the papers of Madame Roland, which had been confided to Bosc, were given by him to Eudora, and she seems to have experienced a certain resentment towards her mother when she found that she had told posterity so frankly that her only child lacked in depth of sentiment and keenness of intellect. This feeling only intensified her admiration for her father, and when Lamartine’s _History of the Girondins_ appeared, she was deeply indignant at the way in which he belittled M. Roland in order to make the figure of Madame Roland more brilliant. It was with the hope that Lamartine’s influence could be counteracted, that she urged a friend, a grand-nephew of Bosc, M. P. Faugère by name, to take possession of all the family papers, and prepare a work which would justify the memory of Roland. M. Faugère was already busy with a new edition of the Memoirs, but he promised Madame Champagneux to do the work on M. Roland as soon as that was finished. The Memoirs he completed, and his edition is by far the best published; but though he began the study of Roland he died before finishing it. The family papers remained in the possession of Madame Faugère, who, in 1888, turned over the most important of them to the Bibliothèque Nationale.

Madame Champagneux lived to be nearly seventy-seven years old, dying in Paris July 19, 1858. The last years of her life were clouded by the death of one of her daughters, a loss from which she is said never fully to have recovered.

Of the three left behind, the fate of Buzot was saddest. At the moment that he escaped to Evreux, the northwest departments felt that the Convention had been coerced into the decree against the Gironde and there was a general revolt against the tyranny of Paris. Buzot and his friends who had escaped decided, on sounding this feeling, that it was sufficiently wide-spread and profound to justify them in undertaking a campaign against the Convention and in favor of federalism. Buzot began by speaking in the cathedral at Evreux and here he was joined by Pétion, Barbaroux, and Louvet. The agitators were not long unmolested. The Convention turned its fiercest anathemas against the “traitors,” as it called them, and the Revolutionary authorities of the northwest were ordered to crush them. At first they fled into Brittany, evidently hoping to find a vessel there for America, but disappointed in this, they made their way to Gascogne, where one of their number had friends.

While Buzot was escaping, the patriotic saviours of their country were exhausting themselves in fantastic efforts to show their hatred of his “treason.” His house was demolished amid civic rejoicings. His effigy was burned and riddled with bullets in the process. On the walls near his residence could be still read a few years ago an inscription written in the excitement.

“Buzot le scélérat trahit la liberté;
Pour ce crime infâme, il sera decapité.”

This effectual and dignified way of dealing with a political opponent reached its climax on December 30, 1793, when Evreux held a fête of rejoicing over the recapture of Toulon. The cathedral in which, six months before, Buzot had spoken had become a “temple of reason and philosophy.” On the altars were the busts of Marat, Lepelletier, and Brutus, where once were the forms of Virgin and Child and peaceable saint. The latter had been transferred to the Place de la Fédération, where, together with effigies of Buzot and other local celebrities who had refused to believe and vote as the authorities desired, they were burned.

In the mean time Buzot had escaped to Saint Émilion, where, for some three months, he and his friends were concealed. They busied themselves, when their places of hiding permitted it, with writing their memoirs. Buzot discussed his political career and made a violent, often vindictive, attack on his opponents. There is no direct avowal, in his work, of his love for Madame Roland, but one feels throughout the despairing, passionate passages the struggling of a great emotion, stifled, but not dead. It is said that when the news of Madame Roland’s death reached Buzot, his friends thought he had gone mad, and it was many days before the violence of his grief was calmed.

At the beginning of 1794 the refugees were obliged to change asylums, and went to the house of a hair-dresser in Saint Émilion, where they stayed until June of that year. At that time, however, the Revolutionary authorities of Bordeaux decided that they were not doing their whole duty in saving the country, and began a house-to-house search throughout the department. Buzot, with his friends, Pétion and Barbaroux, were forced to fly. After days of fatigue and fear and hunger, the end came. Barbaroux, thinking he was discovered, attempted to shoot himself, but succeeded only in wounding himself, and was captured.

Just how death came to Buzot no one knows; for when his body was found it lay beside that of Pétion in a wheat-field, half-eaten by wolves.

In unconscious irony the peasants have since called the field the _champ des émigrés_.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Appel à l’impartiale postérité. Par la citoyenne Roland, femme du
ministre de l’intérieur. 1795.

Œuvres de J. M. Ph. Roland, femme de l’ex-ministre de l’intérieur.
1800. 3 vols.

Mémoires de Madame Roland, avec une notice sur sa vie. Par MM.
Berville et Barrière. 1820. 2 vols.

Mémoires de Madame Roland. Par Ravenel. 1840. 2 vols.

Lettres inédites de Mademoiselle Phlipon. Adressées aux demoiselles
Cannet. Par M. Auguste Breuil. 1841.

Mémoires particuliers de Madame Roland. Par M. François Barrière.
1855. 1 vol.

Mémoires de Madame Roland, écrits durant sa captivité. Par M. P.
Faugère. 1864. 2 vols.

Mémoires de Madame Roland. Par C. A. Dauban.

Lettres de Madame Roland (Mademoiselle Phlipon) aux demoiselles
Cannet. Par C. A. Dauban. 1867. 2 vols.

Étude sur Madame Roland et son temps, suivie des lettres de Madame
Roland à Buzot. Par C. A. Dauban. 1864.

Lettres autographes adressées à Bancal des Issarts. Publiées par
Henriette des Issarts et précédées d’une introduction par
Sainte-Beuve. 1836.

Papiers de M. et Madame Roland, Nouvelles acquisitions françaises,
Bibliothèque Nationale. 4 vols. In this collection are over 250
unpublished letters of Madame Roland, a large number by Roland, a
voluminous academic and political correspondence, many
communications to the academies, the documents for establishing
the genealogy of the Roland family, and many other papers.

Manuscript contributed to the Academy of Lyons by Roland. Now in the
library of the Academy at Lyons.

Published Reports of the Academy of Lyons. 1785–1790.

Lettres écrites de Suisse, d’Italie, de Sicile, et de Malte. Par M. ...
à Mademoiselle ... à Paris, en 1776, 1777 et 1778. 1782. 6 vols.

Dictionnaires des Manufactures des Arts et des Métiers in the
Encyclopédie Méthodique. 4 vols. By Roland.

Madame Roland. By Mathilde Blind. 1886.

Four Frenchwomen. By Henry Austin Dobson. 1890.

Tableau de Paris. Par Mercier. 1783–1789.

Le Nouveau Paris. Par Mercier. 6 vols. 1795.

Paris tel qu’il était avant la Révolution. Par M. Thiéry. An IV.

État ou Tableau de la ville de Paris. Par de Jéze. 1761.

Dictionnaire historique de la ville de Paris et de ses environs. Par
Hurtant et Magry. 1779.

Tableaux des Mœurs. 1600–1880. Par Paul Lacombe. 1887.

L’an 1789. Par Hippolyte Gautier. 1888.

Paris en 1789. Par Albert Babeau. 1890.

La vie privée d’autrefois. Par A. Franklin. 17 vols. 1887–1895.

Mémoires inédits de M^{me} de Genlis. 1825. 10 vols.

Mémoires de M^{me} d’Épinay.

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Études sur la littérature contemporaine. Par Edmond Scherer.

Extrait du journal de mes voyages. 1776. 2 vols. Par Pahin de la
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Nouvelles de la République des lettres et des arts. 8 vols. 1779–1787.
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Émile—Les Confessions—La Nouvelle Héloïse—Contrat social. Par J. J.
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Histoire Parlementaire. Par Buchez et Roux. 32 vols.

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Almanach National de France.

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Letters written in France. H. M. Williams. 1796.

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L’eloquence parlementaire pendant la Révolution française. Par F. A.
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Catalogue d’une collection d’ouvrages historiques sur la Révolution
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Considérations sur les principaux événements de la Révolution
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Letters and Speeches of Thomas Paine during the French Revolution.

Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris. 1888. 2 vols.

Mémoires et correspondance (de Mallet du Pan) pour servir à l’histoire
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Histoire de la société française pendant la Révolution. Par Edmond et
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Englishmen in the French Revolution, 1789–1795. By John G. Alger.
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Glimpses of the French Revolution. By John G. Alger. 1894.

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Études et leçons sur la Révolution française. Par F. A. Aulard.

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Histoire de la faction de la Gironde. Par Camille Desmoulins.

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et leur mort. Joseph Guadet. 2 vols. 1861.

Recherches historiques sur les Girondins. Par Charles Vatel. 2 vols.

Histoire des Girondins et des Massacres de Septembre. A. de Granier de
Cassagnac. 1860. 2 vols.

Protestation contre le livre intitulé Histoire des Girondins et des
Massacres de Septembre. Par Joseph Guadet. 1860.

La Légende des Girondins. Par E. Biré. 1881.

Histoire des Girondins. Par A. de Lamartine. 1847. 8 vols.

La Grande Encyclopédie. Vol. 18. Les Girondins. Par H. Monin.

Les ministres de la République Française. Roland et Madame Roland. Par
le Baron de Girardot. 1860.

Histoire de Lyon et des anciennes provinces du Lyonnais. Par Eug.
Fabrier. 1846. 2 vols.

Almanach de la ville de Lyon et des provinces du Lyonnais. Par Forez
et Beaujolais. 1784–86.

Histoire de Villefranche. Par Hippolyte Laplatte.

Bibliographie Historique de la ville de Lyon. Par Gonon. 1845.

Histoire de Lyon. Par Ballydier.

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Histoire de la ville de Lyon pendant la Révolution. Par l’Abbe Guillou
de Montléon.

Les premières années de la Révolution à Lyon. Par Maurice Wahl. 1894.

NEWSPAPERS

Courrier de Lyon.

Le Patriote Français.

Moniteur Universel.

Le Gardien de la Constitution.

L’Ami du Peuple.

Journal de la République Française.

La Sentinelle.

Mercure de France.

Le Père Duchèsne.

POLITICAL PAMPHLETS

Correspondance du ministre de l’intérieur Roland avec le Général
Lafayette.

Lettre au Roi.

Lettre de Junius à Roland.

Lettre à M. Roland.

Lettres sur le ministère de Roland.

Rapport relatif au 20 Juin.

Adresse au peuple français.

Ni Marat ni Roland. Opinion d’Anarcharsis Cloots. 1792.

Réponses au Prussien Cloots par Roland, Kersaint, Guadet, et Brissot.

L’ex-ministre de l’intérieur au président de la Convention Nationale.

Observations de l’ex-ministre Roland sur le rapport fait contre lui
par le député Brival.

Lettres et pièces intéressantes pour servir à l’histoire des ministres
de Roland, de Servan et de Clavière.

Conversations et correspondance de M. Champy avec M. Roland.

À M. Roland de la Platière sur sa “Lettre au Roi,” 17 Juillet, 1792.

Almanach des Bizarreries Humaines. Par J. C. Bailleul. 1889.

INDEX

Abbaye, Madame Roland imprisoned in the, 261 _et seq._

Antoine, 145.

Assembly, National, see National Assembly.

Barbaroux, and the Rolands, their plans, 202–205, 206;
his fate, 309–311.

Beaumarchais, his _Figaro_ first given, 85;
quoted, 121.

Beugnot, Comte, his words concerning Madame Roland in prison, 296, 299.

Buzot, François-Nicolas-Léonard, at the home of the Rolands, 145;
Madame Roland’s passion for, 224, 225;
his early career, 226, 227;
attracts Madame Roland, 227;
his nature, 228;
correspondence with Madame Roland, 228, 230;
his wife not his equal, 227, 230;
his personal attractions, 231, 232;
his love for Madame Roland, 230, 234, 242–244;
his relations toward M. Roland, 244;
his struggle against the Mountain party, 247–249;
his opinion of Danton and Robespierre, 247, 249;
in harmony with M. Roland, 249;
his efforts to prove his patriotism, 250;
could not approve the Terrorists, 250, 251;
his relations with the Rolands well understood, 251;
characterized by Marat as _frère tranquille_, 251;
his words on the Republic, 255–257;
flees from Paris to Evreux, 262, 263;
Madame Roland’s letters to, from prison, 274–280;
his last days and death, 309–311.

Cannet, Henriette, offers to take Madame Roland’s place in prison, 292.

Cannet, Sophie, Manon Phlipon’s friendship with, 12–15.

Cercle Social, the, patriotic club, 142, 143.

Chalier, sent home to Lyons by Roland “with honors,” 211.

Champagneux, M., starts the _Courrier de Lyon_, 128;
in constant correspondence with the Rolands, 155;
arrested, 284.

Champagneux, brother of above, husband of Eudora Roland, 98, 308.

Champ-de-Mars, the massacre of, 162, 163.

Chauveau-Lagarde, ambitious to defend Madame Roland in her trial, 299.

Clavière, at the home of the Rolands, 145–147.

Commune, the, 208;
and M. Roland, 212, 213;
vigorous action of, 212.

Conciergerie, Madame Roland imprisoned in the, 292, 295, 296.

Condorcet, his pamphlet on “Whether a king is necessary to the
conservation of energy,” 159.

Constitution, the, formed by the Assembly and accepted by Louis XVI.,
168, 169.

Constitutionalist party, the, 174.

Convention, National, see National Assembly.

Conversation, French, character of, 147, 148.

Creuzé-la-Touche, shelters Eudora Roland, 306.

Dames de la Congrégation de Notre Dame, Convent, Manon Phlipon at, 9
_et seq._;
instruction given at, 10.

Danton, at the head of the insurrectionary element, 205, 206, 214;
Madame Roland’s antipathy to, 214–217;
the only mediator between the Gironde and the Mountain parties, 215;
his brutality, 217, 222;
“the one man who could support the Gironde, save the King and his
country,” 223;
his words concerning Madame Roland, 245;
Buzot’s opinion of, 247, 249.

Desmoulins, Camille, his inability to understand the general admiration
for Madame Roland, 151, 152, 206.

Dumas, Mathieu, his words on the publication of Roland’s letter to the
King, 198.

Dumont, his comment on Madame Roland’s persuading her husband to
publish his letter to the King, 198.

Dumouriez, General, Madame Roland’s distrust of, 181, 182;
Roland made overtures to, 223.

_Encyclopédie méthodique_, M. Roland’s contributions to, 76, 77.

Faugère, M. P., and the Roland Memoirs, 308, 309.

Feuillants, the, 176, 189, 201.

Financial errors of the French government, 113–117, 121, 122.

France, financial errors of the government, 113–117, 121, 122.

Garaud, 146.

Garran, 145.

Genlis, Madame de, her lack of knowledge at twelve, 10.

Gironde, the party of the, character and principles of, 171–176;
Madame de Staël’s words concerning, 173;
its attitude toward the Mountain and constitutionalist parties,
174–176;
the Girondin ministry, 178;
join the Jacobins, 205;
struggle between the Mountain party and, 255;
expulsion and trial of twenty-two members of, 259;
twenty-one executed, 290.

Gluck, his _Danaïdes_ first given, 85.

Grandpré, his assistance to Madame Roland in prison, 269, 270.

Grégoire, 146.

Greuze, Manon Phlipon’s visit to, 57, 58.

Guillon de Montléon, Abbé, his words concerning M. Roland, 91;
his words concerning Madame Roland, 150, 151.

Hannaches, Mademoiselle d’, and Manon Phlipon, 19, 20.

Heinsius, his portrait of Madame Roland, 152, 153.

Insurrection, party of the, 205–207.

Jacobins, too conservative for the Rolands, 143;
the Girondins join, 205.

Lafayette, Marquis de, 157, 200.

Lanthenas, and the Rolands, 127, 128, 216, 233, 237.

Le Clos, the country home of M. and Madame Roland, 94 _et seq._;
amusements at, 101;
Madame Roland’s life at, 99–111.

Louis Noailles, 145.

Louise, Madame, sister of Louis XVI., did not know her alphabet at
twelve, 10.

Louis XVI., appears with Marie Antoinette in the National Assembly,
129, 130;
his flight and return, 156–159;
“worse than a stick in a wheel,” 158;
efforts to secure a trial of, 161, 162;
accepts the constitution, 168;
names a cabinet to suit the Girondins, 178;
Madame Roland doubts the good faith of, 183;
hesitates to sign measure to raise army for protection of Paris
against foreign attack, 189;
Roland’s letter to, concerning the public perils, 190–199;
his words to Roland concerning the letter, 197;
the red cap placed on his head in the riot of the 20th of June, 200.

Lyons, M. and Madame Roland at, 91–93;
M. Roland’s manuscripts in the archives of the Academy of, 92, 93;
disorders in, 134–137;
rumors of a Prussian and Austrian invasion, 137;
the Rolands detested in, 138;
its devotion to the aristocracy, 165.

Mandat, murdered, 208.

Marat, joins the Commune, 212;
his character, 218;
and M. Roland, 218, 219;
attacks M. and Madame Roland in his journal, 222, 223;
his words concerning Buzot, 251;
his characterization of Madame Roland, 252.

Marie Antoinette, her appearance in the National Assembly, 129, 130;
her flight, 156.

Mesmer-study, 85.

Mirabeau, Madame Roland’s words concerning, 290.

Morris, Gouverneur, quoted, 163;
his words concerning the attitude of affairs in Paris, 177.

Mountain party, the, its character, 174–176;
M. Roland’s struggle against, 247;
Buzot’s struggle against, 247–249;
struggle of the Gironde party with, 255.

National Assembly, the, 124;
King and Marie Antoinette appear in, 129, 130;
Madame Roland’s dissatisfaction with, 129–131, 138–142;
M. Roland a deputy to, 138;
measure to raise army to protect Paris against attack of foreigners,
voted by, 189;
Roland’s letter to the King presented to the, 197–199;
Madame Roland appears before the Convention, 253;
struggle in, between the Mountain and Gironde parties, 255;
expulsion and trial of members of the Gironde, 259;
Madame Roland’s letter to, from prison, 269, 270.

Noailles, Louis, 145.

Notre Dame des Marais, the Gothic church at Villefranche, 88.

_Nouvelle Héloïse_, Rousseau’s, its influence on Manon Phlipon, 32–35.

Paine, Thomas, at the home of the Rolands, 146;
forms a republican society in Paris, 159.

Paris, gold and silver smiths in the western end of, 1;
measure to guard the city against attack of foreigners, 188 _et
seq._, 201;
life in, during the Revolution, 293, 294.

Pétion, at the home of the Rolands, 145;
a Girondin, 171;
counsels calm, 205, 208;
his fate, 309–311.

Phlipon, Madame, mother of Manon Phlipon, her character, 3;
her control over her daughter, 5;
her death, 31.

Phlipon, Marie-Jeanne, called Manon, afterwards Madame Roland, her
parents, 2–6;
her birth, 5;
her character as a child, 5, 6;
early reading and education, 6 _et seq._;
effect of _Plutarch’s Lives_ on, 7, 8;
her religions zeal, 9;
enters the convent, Dames de la Congrégation de Notre Dame, 9, 10;
her life and work there, 10–14;
her friendship with Sophie Cannet, 12–15;
her piety, 11, 12;
her letters to Sophie Cannet, 14, 15;
her secret resolve to return to convent life, 15;
her dislike for the vanities of life, 16, 17, 20, 21;
her love of nature, 17;
Meudon her favorite spot, 17;
her visit to Madame de Boismorel, 18, 19;
her early contempt for the social conditions, 19–21;
a secretary to Mademoiselle d’Hannaches, 20;
makes an eight-day visit to Versailles, 21;
her description of her impressions there, 22;
her attitude toward the King and government at twenty years of age,
22–24;
prefers a republic, 22, 23;
her reading after leaving the convent, 24–26;
her _cahiers_, 26;
deeply interested in philosophy, 26, 27;
studies Christian dogma severely and rationally, 27, 28;
her mental and spiritual condition, 28–30;
the influence of Rousseau’s _Nouvelle Héloïse_ on, 31–35;
her words concerning Rousseau and his works, 34, 35;
her notions of a future husband, 35–38;
applicants for her hand, 35, 36;
her love affair with Pahin de la Blancherie, 38–44;
her _Loisirs_, 40, 58;
her interest in Sainte-Lettre, 44, 45;
refuses M. de Sévelinges, 46, 47;
her interest in Roland de la Platière, 45, 52, 53;
her interest in M. Pittet, 54;
the dulness of her life, 54;
her visit to Rousseau, 55, 56;
her visit to Greuze, 57, 58;
her relations with her father, 58, 59;
conceals from Sophie Cannet her feeling for Roland de la Platière,
60;
Platonic arrangement with Roland, 61;
correspondence between Roland and, 61–69;
difficulty with her father in her betrothal to M. Roland, 67–69;
leaves her father, and retires to the convent, 69, 70;
marries Roland, 71;
her account in her Memoirs of the courtship and marriage, 71, 72.
See Roland, Madame.

Phlipon, Pierre Gatien, his engraving shop, 2, 3;
his character, 3, 4;
his home life and family, 4, 5;
displeased with Pahin de la Blancherie, 40;
his relations toward his daughter, 58, 59;
grows dissipated, 68;
his attitude toward M. Roland, 68, 69;
death, 140.

Pittet, M., Manon Phlipon’s interest in, 54.

_Plutarch’s Lives_, effect of, on Manon Phlipon, 7, 8.

Rebecqui, 202.

Republic, excitement at the name of, 158–160;
not welcomed by the people, 161.

_Republican_, the, journal, 159, 160.

Robespierre, at home of the Rolands, 145;
his words concerning a Republic, 160, 161;
criminal accuser, 171;
in open rupture with the Girondins, 189;
joins the Commune, 212, 221, 222;
Buzot’s opinion of, 247, 249.

Revolution, the French, the Rolands welcomed, 112 _et seq._;
preliminary outbreaks of, 117–120;
the word _révolution_ long used in private, 118;
call for States-General in 1788, 123;
the fall of the Bastille, 124;
disorders in Lyons, 134–137;
rumors of a Prussian and Russian invasion, 137;
the Revolutionary temper, 149;
the flight and return of the king, 156–159;
the massacre of the Champ-de-Mars, 162, 163;
disorders and riots everywhere, 183, 184;
the riot of the 20th of June, 199, 200;
the insurrectionary element organizing, 206, 207;
the Commune, 208, 212, 213;
the September massacres, 219–222;
the execution of the twenty-one Girondins, 290;
the daily life of Parisians during, 293, 294.

Roland, Eudora, daughter of Madame Roland, born, 75;
her husband Champagneux receives “conscience money,” 98;
her education by her mother, 102;
her life, 305–309;
her resentment toward her mother and admiration for her father, 308.

Roland, the _chanoine_, brother of M. Roland, 89, 140.