Chapter I: Preface

The history of Madame Roland embraces the most interesting events of the French Revolution, that most instructive tragedy which time has yet enacted. There is, perhaps, contained in the memoirs of no other woman so much to invigorate the mind with the desire for high intellectual culture, and so much to animate the spirit heroically to meet all the ills of this eventful life. Notwithstanding her experience of the heaviest temporal calamities, she found, in the opulence of her own intellectual treasures, an unfailing resource. These inward joys peopled her solitude with society, and dispelled even from the dungeon its gloom. I know not where to look for a career more full of suggestive thought.

CONTENTS.

Chapter Page

I. CHILDHOOD 13

II. YOUTH 33

III. MAIDENHOOD 57

IV. MARRIAGE 80

V. THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 105

VI. THE MINISTRY OF M. ROLAND 130

VII. MADAME ROLAND AND THE JACOBINS 155

VIII. LAST STRUGGLE OF THE GIRONDISTS 178

IX. ARREST OF MADAME ROLAND 201

X. FATE OF THE GIRONDISTS 224

XI. PRISON LIFE 252

XII. TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF MADAME ROLAND 277

ENGRAVINGS.

Page

MADAME ROLAND _Frontispiece._

THE VISIT 40

LA PLATIÈRE 97

ROBESPIERRE 116

THE LIBRARY 145

EXECUTION OF THE GIRONDISTS 247

MADAME ROLAND IN PRISON 259

EXECUTION OF MADAME ROLAND 301

MADAME ROLAND