MADAME ROLAND. BY MATHILDE BLIND. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. i8o8. Copyright, 1886, By Roberts Brothers. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. CONTENTS. Chapter Page I. Childhood i II. Sophie 15 III. Two Queens 31 IV. Mother and Daughter 40 V. Manon's Suitors 49 VI. Flight to the Convent, and Marriage . 72 VII. The Clos de la Platiere. — Journeys to England and Switzerland 94 VIII. France before the Revolution .... 113 IX. The Rights of Man 134 X. Madame Roland reveals Herself. ... 147 XI. The Roland Administration 173 XII. Dies Ir,e 191 XIII. The Republic 205 XIV. Madame Roland at the Bar of the Con- vention 216 XV. Struggle between Mountain and Gironde 224 XVI. Fling us into the Abyss 235 XVII. Love in a Prison 249 XVIII. In Outlawry 278 XIX. Ave Libertas Morituri te salutant. . . 298 LIST OF AUTHORITIES. Memoires de Madame Roland, revues et completes sur les MS. autographes et accompagnees de notes et pieces inddites, par M. P. Faugere. 1864. Lettres en partie inedites de Madame Roland (Mademoiselle Phlipon) aux Demoiselles Cannet, etc., par C. A. Dauban. 1867. Lettres de Madame Roland A Bancal des Issarts, publides par Henriette des Issarts, et prece'ddes d'une introduction par M. Sainte-Beuve. 1835. £tude sur Madame Roland et son temps, suivie des lettres a Buzot, par C. A. Dauban. 1864. Memoires de Buzot, publiees par M. Gaudet. 1883. Memoires de Jean Pierre Brissot de Warville. Quelques Notices pour l'Histoire et le Recit de mes Perils, depuis le 31 Mai, par Jean Baptiste Louvet. Memoires du Comte Beugnot, Ancien Ministre (1783- 181 5), publiees par le Comte Albert Beugnot son petit fils. Deuxieme Edition, 1868. Les Femmes C£lebres de 1789-95, et leur influ- ence dans la Revolution, par E. Lairtullier. Portraits de Femmes, par Sainte-Beuve. 1876. Histoire de Girondins, par Alphonse de Lamartine. 1847 viii LIST OF AUTHORITIES. Histoire de la Revolution Francaise, par Jules Michelet. 9 torn. 1877-83. The French Revolution : a History in 3 vols., by Thomas Carlyle. 1837. Histoire de la Revolution Francaise, par M. Louis Blanc. 10 torn. 1847-62. Arthur Young: Travels during the years 1787- 89. 1793- DlCTIONNAIRE BlOGRAPHIQUE ET HlSTORIQUE DES HOMMES MARQUANS DE LA FIN DU DlX-HUITIEME Siecle. Rddigd par une Socie'te' de gens des lettres. 1800. Du Contrat Social, par Jean Jacques Rousseau. Les Confessions, par Jean Jacques Rousseau. Critical Miscellanies, by John Morley. Second se- ries, 1877. Deux Femmes Celebres, par Victor Lamy. 1884. MADAME ROLAND. CHAPTER I. CHILDHOOD. Marie-Jeanne Phlipon, renowned as Madame Roland, was born in Paris, March 17, 1754, in a house on the Quai de l'Horloge, near the Pont Neuf. She was thus just the same age as Louis XVI., and about a year older than Marie Antoin- ette. It would be difficult to find more common- place surroundings than those amid which one of the greatest of Frenchwomen was ushered into the world. That a daughter of shepherds and rustics should have become the savior of her country is not sur- prising. For the primitive simplicity of those occupations seems the proper nursery of heroism. But it is surprising that in the Paris of Louis XV., from the unimaginative class of small shop- keepers, there should suddenly spring a child, in soul the heiress of the great men of antiquity. l 2: \ MADAaJJL, ROLAND. But the actual parents were far from suspecting the native land of the little traveller that was born to them. They had probably never heard of Aristides the Just and Brutus the Tyrannicide. Gatien Phlipon, a chaser and worker in enamel, carried on a pretty thriving business ; for this was the time when elaborately engraved watches, snuff-boxes, and shoe-buckles were so much sought after, the designs often being works of art in their way. M. Phlipon employed several apprentices, and was successful as long as he ap- plied himself steadily to his calling. A restless wish to make money and rise in the world was, however, attended with the opposite results. Constantly engaged in speculation, — such as buying diamonds to resell at a profit, — he neg- lected his business only to lose money in that as also in his other ventures. He was tall and good-looking, proud of his personal advantages, and in every way a gay, vain, quick-witted, and pleasure-loving Parisian. Marguerite Bimont, his wife, in most respects his exact opposite, was a woman of the highest rectitude, and of an almost saintly purity of life. Firm yet gentle, of reserved and dignified man- ners, her retiring habits formed a strong contrast to those of her neighbors. She rarely received visitors, and never stirred from home except to visit her aged mother or her husband's relatives, CHILDHOOD. 3 or to go to church. No doubt that her example exercised a powerful influence on her daughter's character. Marie-Jeanne — or Manon, as she was famil- iarly called — was the second of seven children, of whom all but herself died in infancy. Ac- cording to French custom she was put out to nurse, and the first two years of her life were passed in the neighborhood of Arpajon, in the care of a buxom, kindly young country-woman, who conceived the greatest affection for her charge, and never lost sight of her in after life. At the age of two Manon was taken home by her parents, a thorough little rustic brimming over with health and spirits. She was never taught to read, but had mastered that accomplishment at the mature age of four, when, according to her, the chief business of her education might be re- garded as finished, so assiduously did she thence- forth devote herself to study. Let her only have books and flowers, and she wanted nothing else. She was a thoughtful, affectionate child, lively without being boisterous, and easily amenable to reason ; but, however tractable, violence or threats made her proportionately obstinate. The sever- est punishment her mother ever found it neces- sary to inflict was to address her as " Mademoi- selle," accompanying the word by a certain look and tone of voice. Not so her father. A man 4 MADAME ROLAND. of hasty and violent temper, he sometimes had recourse to physical chastisement, which never failed to raise a spirit of intense resistance in his daughter. One such scene made an indelible impression on the future Madame Roland. She was then six years old, and happened to be suffering from some childish ailment. Her mother had poured out the prescribed dose of physic, and was hold- ing it to her lips. Disgusted by the smell, the child involuntarily drew back, but, at the mother's gentle remonstrance, made ineffectual efforts to swallow the unsavory draught. In the mean while the father had come in ; and taking Manon's aversion for obstinacy, he got very angry, seized hold of the whip, and began beat- ing her. from that moment she lost all desire to obey, and declared that she would not take the medicine. Her father administered whip- ping the second ; uttering loud screams, she now tried to upset the glass. A movement betraying this intention enraged her father completely, and he threatened to whip her for the third time. From that moment a sudden and violent revul- sion of feeling took place in Manon. Her sobs ceased, she dried her tears, all her faculties became concentrated in an intense effort of will. She rose from her bed, turned to the wall, and nerved herself to receive the blows in silence. CHILDHOOD. 5 " They might have killed me on the spot," she says in her famous Memoirs, penned in a prison within a stone's-throw of the scaffold, "without my uttering so much as a sigh ; nor will it cost me more to-day to ascend the guillotine than it did then to yield to a barbarous treatment which might have killed but not conquered me." This was her father's last effort at education. Not that he was habitually unkind or cruel in his treatment of his only child ; on the contrary, he idolized his daughter, especially in her early girl- hood, when his susceptible vanity was flattered by the attention she attracted. His method of dealing with her must be laid to the charge of the manners of the times, severe and harsh to children, where not modified by exceptional refinement of nature. However, as we have said, M. Phlipon henceforth wisely avoided pitting his will against his daughter's, and entirely left her guidance to the wise and loving hands of his wife. But he was very proud of the child's pre- cocious intelligence, and for her station and years she had an array of masters which goes far to prove that her parents must have consid- ered hers a very exceptional nature. At seven years of age Manon was sent every Sunday to attend catechism, as it was called, in order to prepare her for confirmation. This examination was commonly held in a church or 6 MADAME ROLAND. chapel, where a few benches were placed in a corner, and was principally held for children of the poorer classes ; but as her uncle the Abbe* Bimont, an amiable, kind-hearted priest, was at that time in charge of this class, her mother judged it well for her to attend, especially as she felt sure that her daughter's memory would always secure her the first place. On one of these occasions the rector put in an appearance ; and in order to show off his superior theological learning, he asked Manon, with ill- concealed triumph, how many orders of spirits there were in the celestial hierarchy. And the terrible child answered, nothing daunted, that there were nine, — as might be learned from the preface to the Missal, — as angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, etc. She was already deeply versed in the Bible as well as in the Psalter, the only books to be found at her grandmother's house. This old lady, whom her mother took her to see every Sunday after vespers, was in her dotage, to the poor child's bewilderment. She invariably sat in the same chair, — by the window in summer, and in winter near the fire-place, — and gave no signs of animation except such as might emanate from a vindictive old fairy. For instance, when her grandchild, in high spirits, skipped about the room, she invariably burst into tears ; but no sooner did CHILDHOOD. 7 she have a fall or knock herself, than the palsied dame showed her merriment by a hoarse, chuck- ling laugh. Such conduct was naturally calcu- lated to hurt Manon's feelings ; but her mother eventually made her understand that these visits were a duty not to be dispensed with. Manon's love of reading and thirst for knowl- edge used to hurry her out .of bed at five in the morning. Barefooted, she would steal to her mother's room where her books lay on a table, and do her lessons with such eagerness that her progress took her masters by surprise. Among these we hear of an anomalous sort of personage who had successively figured as chorister-boy, soldier, deserter, capuchin, and discharged clerk, and had come up penniless from the country with a wife and three children. This Jack-of-all- trades, who rejoiced in a fine falsetto voice, was employed to teach her singing, freely borrowing money of her parents the while, and finally dis- appearing in Russia. Her dancing-master, a Savoyard, was wizened, snub-nosed, frightfully ugly, and with a wen on his cheek which showed to advantage as with his chin he nipped his pocket viol. Fourthly, there was a gigantic Spaniard, with hairy hands like Esau, who gave her lessons on the guitar ; ' and, finally, a timid man of fifty, with rubicund face, who taught her to play on the violoncello. As the latter only 8 MADAME ROLAND. instructed her for a short time, a Reverend Father Colomb enters on the scene, who, to con- sole her, occasionally used to send over his vio- loncello to accompany her guitar. Besides all this, her uncle used to teach her some Latin ; while her father, to complete the curriculum, made her learn drawing and the use of the graving tool. But the real business of education, as before mentioned, consisted not so much in these les- sons as in her insatiable reading of all the books she could find, consisting chiefly of standard works, few in number but of excellent quality. After having devoured all those belonging to her parents, she came one day, while ferreting about the house, on a fresh store, which lasted her for a long while. This happy find belonged to one of her father's apprentices named Courson, who in the course of time became tutor to the pages at Versailles. This studious young man always kept a certain number of volumes in a little hiding-place of his own in her father's atelier. Now, this atelier adjoined a good-sized room, resplendent with looking-glasses and pictures, where Manon was in the habit of having her lessons. A recess on one side of the mantel- piece admitted of a closet being fenced off from the main room, furnished with bedstead, table, chair, and a few shelves, which till within a year CHILDHOOD. 9 of her marriage served her at once for bedroom and study. From this nook, as a mouse from its hole, the child would noiselessly sally forth when work was at a stand-still, and, seizing one of the precious books, would quickly dart back to her retreat. Here, elbow on table and cheek resting on her left hand, what wonderful voyages of dis- covery did she not make into far lands and backward centuries ! Descriptions of travel were her delight, pathetic stories deeply touched her ; but one day there fell into her hands a book that kindled in her a new life. This book was Plutarch. The humble little closet on the Quai de l'Horloge was changed into a temple where the best and bravest of men again became incarnate in the shaping imagina- tion of a visionary child. Who can precisely explain or define that strong historic grasp, which is almost like a sixth sense, and seems inborn with some children ? Give to such a one a history of Rome, and it comes with a power and a passion and a haunting reality as of mem- ories called up from an obliterated past. Plu- tarch became a landmark in the life of Manon Phlipon. She carried the volume about with her everywhere ; she absorbed its contents ; she took it to church with her. This was in Lent, 1763, when she was barely nine. Without know- ing it she had become a Republican, and would IO MADAME ROLAND. often weep at not being a native of Sparta or of Rome. Henceforth Manon was ripe for the Revolution. By-and-by she became absorbed in " Telema- chus " and in Tasso's " Jerusalem Delivered." She used to put herself in the place of the fictitious heroines ; and while fancying herself Eucharis or Erminia, her heart used to beat and her voice to falter with emotion. Sometimes her mother would request her to read from one or other of these books ; but there were certain passages which she felt so acutely that no entreaties would have prevailed on her to utter them aloud. Having on one occasion observed her mother reading one of the identical works which she had previously perused with considerable inward misgivings, she now went more openly to work in her studies, and the obliging young appren- tice seemed to buy books on purpose for her to read. Voltaire followed next in order; and on one occasion the little girl was discovered by a stout, forbidding old lady, who had come to call on her mother, deeply engrossed in " Candide " ! Solemn remonstrances being addressed by this officious visitor to Madame Phlipon, the child was ordered to put the book back in its place. In spite of this momentary prohibition, her parents never in any way interfered with her CHILDHOOD. 1 1 reading, unless the mother kept Rousseau out of her reach, — which Madame Roland thought possible, as, with the former's deep knowledge of her daughter, she would apprehend no really bad influence from the writings of Voltaire, while dreading that of Rousseau on her susceptible temperament. Whether from design or accident, Manon only became acquainted with the latter's works after her mother's death ; and they made as great an epoch in her life at one-and-twenty as Plutarch had done at nine. These grave studies were occasionally varied by a walk in the Tuileries Gardens on Sunday afternoons. Her mother loved to dress her as if she had been a doll. Though herself very simply attired, she spared no expense in the little girl's bravery, and would deck her out in a fashionable silk corps-de-robe, fitting tightly and displaying the figure to advantage, while made full below the waist and sweeping in a long train behind. These gala days were anything but fes- tive to the studious Manon ; for she used to shrink from the hair-dressing operations which often forced tears from her eyes. On such occa- sions her dark abundant locks would be pulled about and put into curl-papers, and frizzed and burned with hot irons according to the custom of the day. These silken splendors and hair- crimpings were only displayed on Sundays, 12 MADAME ROLAND. holidays, and birthdays ; on ordinary occasions Manon wore a plain linen frock, in which she frequently accompanied her mother to market, or was even sent across the way to buy a little salad or parsley. And the future heroine of the Gironde would infuse so much courtesy and dig- nity into her manner of making these purchases, that the astonished fruiterer always served her before his other customers. She was also at times called into the kitchen, where her mother taught her to make omelettes and other dishes, — an acquirement which proved useful afterwards, when her husband's delicate digestion frequently induced her to prepare with her own hands the food he took. Madame Phlipon, who was pious without being a bigot, had unobtrusively instilled her religious principles into her daughter's mind. Although Manon's infant reason had been trou- bled by the idea that God should have permitted the transformation of the Devil into a serpent, her feelings were gradually touched by the moral beauty of Christianity ; and after her first con- firmation, the teachings of the New Testament took deep and deeper hold of her. She now began to meditate on the mysteries of faith and eternal salvation, and felt that she was but ill- prepared for her first communion. Thereupon she became convinced that she ought to enter a CHILDHOOD. 13 convent, where her devotion would be entirely untrammelled ; and while daily studying the folio " Lives of the Saints," she deplored those happy days of martyrdom when persecuted Christians triumphantly proclaimed their creed in the very fangs of death. Alas ! the child's wish was granted to the woman : to her was indeed given the martyr's death and the martyr's crown. Nor did she, in the fulness of time, falter in her new faith beneath the knife of the guillotine. In this solemn state of mind she at last, one evening, took courage to proffer her request to her parents. " I fell at their feet," she says, " shedding at the same time a torrent of tears which almost deprived me of speech. Troubled and surprised, they asked me the reason of my strange excitement. ' I am going to beg of you,' I said, sobbing, ' to do something which grieves me sorely, but which conscience demands. Send me to a nunnery.' They raised me from the ground. My good mother was much moved. While it was pointed out to me that I never had been refused any reasonable request, they asked me what had put me into this frame of mind. I replied that I wished to prepare for my first communion in the deepest possible seclusion." As her parents expressed themselves ready to comply with her desire, she was presently placed in the Sisterhood of the Congregation, in the Rue 14 MADAME ROLAND. Neuve St. fitienne, Faubourg St. Marceau. This happened on the 7th of May, 1765, when she was eleven years old. By a curious coincidence, the convent where she then passed one of the happiest years of childhood was touching the prison where she came to be confined in her prime. CHAPTER II. SOPHIE. Shut in by high walls, the hushed green convent garden lay, amid the stir and noise of ever rest- less Paris, like a little oasis of peace and prayer and ecstatic absorption in God. Here, noiselessly moving along ancient avenues, now touched with the living green of spring, walked the sober nuns, standing out in mournful relief against the flowering glory of May. The impression of this secluded spot, of the regulated contemplative life, of the religious services, where the full organ- tones mingled with the soaring voices of the nuns as they chanted their anthems, filled the young devotee with rapture. In spite of her in- tense affection for her mother, Manon dreamed of taking the veil, though well aware that as an only child she would meet with the strongest opposition from her parents. In the mean while she assiduously applied herself to devotional ex- ercises, and became a favorite with the nuns. They soon felt how such a pupil would redound to their credit, and lavished praises and caresses on her. Within a few months of her entrance, \6 MADAME ROLAND. by the unanimous consent of the superiors and the director, she was allowed to receive her first communion. This year spent by Manon at the convent was marked by the beginning of an intimacy which never knew break or interruption for thirteen years ; and to the correspondence which it eli- cited we owe the knowledge of Madame Roland's daily thoughts, habits, and surroundings while she still lived in the peaceful obscurity of pri- vate life. In the summer months of 1765 some new boarders, young ladies from Amiens, were ex- pected at the convent : great excitement in con- sequence among the pupils pending their arrival ! At last the strangers made their appearance, and happened at supper to be seated at the same table with Manon Phlipon. They were Henri- ette and Sophie Can net. The eldest was a well-grown girl of eighteen, whose countenance indicated a mixture of sensitiveness, pride, and discontent. The fact being, that, as she was of a very joyous and lively disposition, she did not relish being sent back to convent life in order to mitigate her sister's grief at leaving home. Sophie seemed of a much more equable temper, though her charming countenance was just then stained with tears. She was a gentle, demure, affectionate young damsel of fourteen, with a SOPHIE. 17 prematurely reflective turn of mind. Manon was taken at first sight by her young neighbor, though she could see her but indistinctly, her face being covered by a veil of white gauze. They soon became inseparable. They worked, read, walked together, and being both in a deeply religious frame of mind, enjoyed the closest com- munity of sentiment. In the fresh delight of uttering their thoughts for the first time, they often sauntered arm-in-arm down the fragrant avenues of old lime-trees, and the year which they thus passed together remained one of the most pleasant memories of their lives. There was another inmate of the convent who contracted a genuine and lifelong attachment for Manon. This was Angelique Boufflers, who, being dowerless, had perforce taken vows at seventeen. She was one of the lay sisters, under the name of Sister Agathe. Although the most menial tasks devolved on her, she performed them all with zeal and cheerfulness, while in mind and heart she was far superior to most of the ladies of the choir. With quick penetration she singled out the little Phlipon as her pet boarder, and never lost an opportunity of antici- pating her wishes, even secretly giving her a key to her cell, that in her absence she might pore over the poems and writings of the Mystics — to the shrill singing of her canary bird. This 2 18 MADAME ROLAND. good soul, whose repressed affection seems to have been concentrated on the extraordinary child that for a while gladdened her monotonous existence, never quite lost sight of Madame Roland. And years later, when convents were abolished, poor Sister Agathe, living penuriously in a garret near her ancient haunts, forgot the vicissitudes of her own lot in lamenting those of her " daughter," as she was wont to call her darling Manon. But these days lay unsuspected in the future. We are as yet only in the summer of 1766, when Manon, having passed her appointed time at the convent, was taken to spend a year with her pa- ternal grandmother. Her father, having been appointed to some parochial office, was taken much from home, and the supervision of the apprentices devolved to a great extent on her mother, who might thus not have been able to devote herself so much to her daughter as she would have wished. So it was judged better to place her under her grandmother's care. Old Madame Phlipon, who lived with a maiden sis- ter in a decent apartment in the quiet lie Saint Louis, was a portly good-humored little woman,, whose winning laugh, agreeable manners, and roguish twinkle showed her at sixty-six not in- different to her appearance. Left a widow after one year's marriage, she seems to have lived in SOPHIE. 19 the character of help and governess in the family of some rich and distant relatives, but was now taking her ease on a little legacy, reverentially waited on by her maiden sister Angelique, with pale face, poked-out chin, and spectacles on nose. The jovial Madame Phlipon was very fond of young people, and initiated her grandchild in the mysteries of fine needle-work and sentimental conversation, not unenlivened by wit. Manon Phlipon, now in her teens, returned once more to her parents and to her small closet, narrower than any nun's cell. "My father's house had not," she writes, "the solitary tran- quillity of that of my grandmother ; still, plenty of air and a wide space on the roof overlooking the Pont Neuf were before my dreamy and ro- mantic imagination. How many times from my window, which looked northward, have I contem- plated with emotion the vast desert of heaven, from the blue dawn of morning behind the Pont du Change until the golden sunset, when the glo- rious purple faded away behind the trees of the Champs Elysees and the houses of Chaillot ! I rarely failed to employ thus some moments of a fine day ; and quiet tears frequently stole deli- ciously from my eyes, while my heart, throbbing with an inexpressible sentiment, happy thus to beat, and grateful to exist, offered to the Being of beings a homage pure and worthy of Him." 20 MADAME ROLAND. Her father, seeing her remarkable aptitude for almost every pursuit, had not given up the idea of making her, to some extent, his assistant, and again induced her to handle the graving tool. He would set her to engrave the edge of a watch- case or to ornament a box ; and in order to give her an interest in this work, he induced her to keep an account book, and divided the profits of these little jobs between them. But the pleasure of purchasing a ribbon or girlish trinket did not compensate her for the time lost to serious study, and she presently put away the graver and never touched it again. Her life in those days was of unvarying regu- larity. Every morning she and her mother went to Mass, and then to do a little shopping. Les- sons from some of the masters already mentioned filled up the rest of the forenoon. In the retire- ment of her closet she would afterwards study until evening, when her mother read some in- structive book to her, she being engaged the while in needle-work. Outwardly, no existence could be more monoto- nous than was Manon Phlipon's at this time ; but what a glow of feeling, what a moving panorama of ever fresh images, what an eager reaching out after self-improvement filled the inward life with a stir of passionate activity ! To this power of mental concentration she joined a plenitude SOPHIE. 21 of sensations that even in youth it is given to but few to feel ; for she had a magnificent physique, and her highly-strung sensitive nerves did not impair a vigor that would not have dis- graced an Amazon. This accounts for her being able to study till far into the night, and yet re- awaken with something of the joyous feeling of a bird. Every morning, indeed, was like the spring of the day to her. This varied intellectual life was poured forth in long letters to Sophie, now returned to Amiens. In those letters, often carried on from day to day, and sent once or twice a week, one almost seems to hear her thinking aloud. In them she hits off every occurrence of the day, giving an analysis of every book she had read, and discussing the religious meditations and philosophical ponderings that succeeded them. The published correspon- dence opens in the year 1771. The precocious habits of thought and fluency of style of this girl of seventeen are most surprising, especially when one bears her surroundings in mind. Of course we meet with the sententiousness of the eigh- teenth century, with its high-sounding phrases and idyllic sentimentality ; but when we remem- ber that the people who wrote so complacently about the abstract virtues were, in the fulness of time, ready to sacrifice everything to their con- victions, we must acknowledge that what now 22 MADAME ROLAND. sounds affected to us, once had the fulness of reality. In one of the earliest letters we meet with this striking passage : — " The knowledge of ourselves is no doubt the most use- ful of the sciences. Everything tends to turn towards that object the desire to know which is born with us, a desire we try to satisfy by acquainting ourselves with the histories of all past nations. This is by no means a useless habit, if we know how to avail ourselves of it. My views on reading are already very different from those I entertained a few years ago ; for I am less anxious to know facts than men ; in the history of nations and empires I look for the human heart, and I think that I discover it too. Man is the epitome of the universe ; the revolutions in the world without are an image of those which take place in his own soul." The girl thinker, lost in meditation in her little cell, while outside the din and roar of the mighty- city were lulled for awhile, actually hit upon one of those truths which we are wont to consider as the mature fruit and last result of Goethe's phi- losophy of life. It is not knowledge or power or literary fame that this child of the Seine asks for (though they were all within reach of her) ; no, what she would learn is the art to live, — that most difficult of all the arts, according to the au- thor of Faust For in 1772 we hear the humble enameller's daughter writing : " Let us endeavor to know ourselves ; let us not be that factitious SOPHIE. 23 thing which can only exist by the help of others. Let us be ourselves. Soyons nous" Here we have the note of the highest originality, — of genius. Instead of a slavish following of cus- tom, instead of trying to digest the old dough of superannuated ideas, which has spoiled the digestion of so many generations, let us dare to solve the problems of life in our own way and day ; let us try and see for ourselves, not take it for granted that all our thinking has been done for us by our ancestors. If in these thoughts of the young student there is something of the lofty calm of the sage, there is likewise a tone of prac- tical sagacity and daring, indicative of a nature eminently fitted for mixing in and controlling affairs. How far Sophie Cannet herself may have been able to enter into her friend's abstract reasonings we have but little means of ascertaining ; but from many allusions in these letters we infer that she was of a serious turn of mind, and fond of keeping pace with the studies of Manon, who in the course of a year or two outsped her, how- ever, so completely that she gave up the attempt. Sophie, moreover, was not free to follow her studi- ous bent. Placed in a provincial capital and a higher social sphere, she was expected to go into society with its trivial round of visitings, balls, and whist parties. It is amusing to note how 24 MADAME ROLAND. often Marie Phlipon compassionates her for this drudgery of pleasure, and how vehemently she inveighs against dancing, — when a man's mind, she says, is in his legs, and a woman's head turned by insipid compliments. "Ah!" she ex- claims, "you give me a very amusing description of those young ladies drawn up under arms in the prescribed uniform, that their judges may review them. A comic picture which may enter- tain ; but I am shocked at that servitude forged by the chains of opinion, of which they make themselves the willing slaves. How foolish wo- men are ! They would exercise a genuine em- pire over men if their reason reinforced that of their charms, and if they would persist in retain- ing the right of disposing of their hearts in favor of merit sanctioned by duty." But Manon could not entirely steel herself to the pleasing sensations of vanity. She was now in the early bloom of youth, — a rich exuberant bloom in no wise dimmed by her midnight studies. She was tall and well proportioned, with a wo- manly fulness of contour. The ample develop- ment of her figure partook more of the robustness of the people than of the delicately-reared ladies, who pay for their delicacy with vapeurs in one age and neuralgia in another. Languor and weariness never came near her. In her erect carriage and light easy walk the elasticity of SOPHIE. 25 her nature showed itself. She had soft, dark, abundant hair ; eyes of almost transparent dark- ness, where the white is so pure as to appear almost blue ; and a brilliant complexion, midway between fair and brunette, the quick blood com- ing in flushes with every passing emotion. In spite of her philosophy, Manon sometimes criti- cally surveyed her nose in the glass, and heaved an involuntary sigh at its tip being too clumsy. Her mouth also, like that of all born speakers, was large for the strict rules of beauty, but showed fair white teeth when she talked or smiled. The strength and energy of her character revealed it- self in the bold turn of her prominent chin ; while her richly modulated voice, changing with every variation of feeling, resembled one of those subtly- stringed instruments whose vibrations are capable of expressing all moods, from the faintest sugges- tions of tenderness to the most fervid accents of indignation or daring. Such being her appearance, she could not walk abroad with impunity, — certainly not in the streets of Paris, where, from the ouvrier in his blouse to the flaneur on the Boulevards, every man looks upon a handsome woman as fair game for his flat- tering comments. Of course, in French fashion, Manon never went out unaccompanied. But when on a Sunday her father took her to the Tuileries Gardens, or to the picture gaileries, which he 26 MADAME ROLAND. delighted to frequent with her, there would often come about her the buzz of admiring remarks not altogether unpleasant in her ears. But these very harmless diversions were not without their after-effects. They left behind them a certain elation of vanity and an increased desire to please. On the other hand, these mundane thoughts but ill accorded with her philosophical tenets and religious principles. These and other promptings of an " unregenerate " heart began to trouble her considerably ; shocked at certain un- accountable stirrings in her nature, she used to leap out of bed in the middle of winter, stand with naked feet on the tiled floor of her bed- room, and, by way of penance, sprinkle her head with ashes, — a frame of mind probably induced by her reading " The Lives of the Saints." In going to confession at this time, she once accused herself of " having had emotions contrary to the chastity of a Christian ; " but the Abbe Morel not finding very much to say, she concluded that she was not so criminal as she had supposed. This phase of mind belonged to her fifteenth year, for in the course of a few years she began to inquire more deeply into her religious principles ; and the first shock her belief sustained had its origin in her revolting from the idea of a " Creator who de- votes to eternal torments those innumerable be- ings, the frail works of His hands, cast on the earth SOPHIE. 27 in the midst of so many perils, and lost in a night of ignorance, from which they have already had so much to suffer." In the warmth of her heart she would have re-echoed Diderot's resounding cry, " Enlarge your God." With fearless truthfulness, Manon's first impulse on becoming conscious of her nascent doubts was to confide them to her confessor, — a little man not wanting in sense, and of unimpeachable conduct. Anxious to re- establish her shaken faith, he lent her a number of works by the champions of Christianity. The curious part of this transaction was, that, on learn- ing the names of the authors attacked in these controversial writings, she took care to procure them also, and thus came to read Diderot, D'Alem- bert, Raynal's " Systeme de la Nature," — passing in course of time through many intellectual stages, in which she was in turn Jansenist, Stoic, Scep- tic, Atheist, and Deist. She finally landed in a frame of mind much resembling that of the mod- ern Agnostic ; content to admit that there is an Unknowable, and that there " are many things in heaven and earth " insoluble by the best patented philosophies, whether material or otherwise. For the rest, she says that at one time, while intent on the study of Descartes and Malebranche, she used curiously to watch her kitten, considering it as a piece of mechanism going through its evolu- tions. But it seemed to her that in separating 28 MADAME ROLAND. feeling from its manifestations she was dissecting the world and robbing it of all its charms ; and she would sooner have adopted Spinoza's view, and ascribed a soul to everything, rather than go without the belief in one. But on the whole, whenever her feelings were deeply moved she willingly recurred to the belief in a beneficent Creator and the immortality of the soul. While these thoughts were agitating her inwardly, she was fearful of communicating them to Sophie, for fear of exposing her to like mental disturbances. But what was her surprise on learning from her friend's letter that, without any prompting from without, she had been passing through a similar crisis ! In her delight at this news, she writes in May, 1772 : — " By what strange coincidence of mutual similarity do you always trace my story in writing your own ? Or rather, why does the openness with which you show me your heart reproach me for having hidden from you what was passing in mine ? Without wishing to excuse my silence, you shall know its reason." Superfluous to enter into her explanation. She confesses that a high self-esteem is her besetting sin, ingenuously exclaiming, " I am evidently so conceited that this same self-esteem hinders me from seeing the many faults which must of course be mine." But in reality she was not so far wrong, and had hit her one cardinal failing : for her physi- SOPHIE. 29 cal, moral, and intellectual attributes were so finely- balanced as to make her an exceptionally complete human being; nor was she so much mistaken in her estimate of Sophie. Her instinctive hesitation in disturbing her friend's convictions shows a fine insight into character; for this young lady, cut adrift from her old moorings, tossed violently from opinion to opinion, and after much mental pertur- bation lapsed again into Catholicism. Manon's epistolary tone during these mental distresses is gentle, as towards a sick child. With much phil- osophy, she is equally ready to utter her thoughts as frankly as heretofore, or to hold her tongue, whichever may best suit her friend's mood. But outspoken sincerity or tolerant silence were alike intolerable to Sophie. Nothing would content her but that her friend should retrace her steps and re-enter the fold. This being impossible, the old effusiveness at times suffered some constraint, which, however, disappeared when the Cannets paid an occasional visit to Paris. Manon's natural bias became gradually more manifest, and preoccupations with man's social well-being engaged her in preference to theologi- cal and metaphysical subjects. During her mother's lifetime she must also have observed a certain re- serve as regards some topics, for she dreaded nothing more than hurting her feelings. Deeply as she loved her mother, a subtle reticence had 30 MADAME ROLAND. sprung up between them, especially since Manon had emerged from childhood. Madame Phlipon's deep but undemonstrative feelings did not call forth that full flow of confidence which the daughter, with some encouragement, would have been pre- pared to indulge in. In order to know what was passing in Manon's mind, the copious epistles to Sophie were usually left unsealed on the table for a while ; and, without any explicit understanding, Madame Phlipon could make herself acquainted with their contents. Outwardly Manon not only conformed to her mother's religious practices dur- ing the latter's lifetime, but she held that a woman was bound to do so, whatever her opinions, for the sake of those "weaker brethren" whose conduct would be modelled on her own. So that after her mother's death she still continued attending divine service for the sake of their trusty old domestic Mignonne, whose highest wish was to die in the service of her young mistress. CHAPTER III. TWO QUEENS. The announcement of Louis XV.'s mortal illness found an echo even in the secluded life of the humble engraver's family. Writing to her friend at Amiens on the 9th May, 1774, Manon remarks : " Although the obscurity of my birth, name, and position seem to preclude me from taking any interest in the Govern- ment, yet I feel that the common weal touches me in spite of it. My country is something to me, and the love I bear it is most unquestionable. How could it be otherwise, since nothing in the world is indifferent to me ? I am something of a cosmopolitan, and a love of humanity unites me to everything that breathes. A Caribbean interests me ; the fate of a Kaffir goes to my heart. Alexander wished for more worlds to conquer ; I could wish for others to love." Magnificent humanitarian cry to have burst from the lips of this lovely recluse of twenty ! And while a young girl on the Quai de l'Hor- loge felt the deep stirrings of a woman's heart for a people whose suffering condition she had not apprehended as yet, another girl — also in her first bewitching bloom — ascended the throne of France, and was hailed by Burke, as "just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated 32 MADAME ROLAND. sphere she just began to move in, glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendor and joy." It is curious to remember that these two women, born in such opposite ranks, — the one on a throne, the other in a workshop, — destined one day to play such opposite parts in the approaching politi- cal tragedy, both destined to perish amid the clash of warring social forces, were for a short time at this the spring-time of their lives lodged in the same palace, where Marie Antoinette reigned in the lustre of royalty, while Marie Jeanne looked on critically from the back-stairs. It gives one some food for reflection to compare these two natures, and to observe that the daughter of a long line of sovereigns was a mere giddy, frivo- lous, -thoughtless school-girl, while the daughter of the enameller had matured her mind by long hours of study and meditation, and even at this early age showed an irrepressible interest in pub- lic affairs whenever they came within her ken. If faculty demand function, surely one of these two girls was by nature anointed Queen of France, — and that one was not Marie Antoinette. But from the round men stuck into three-cornered holes, and three-cornered men jammed into round holes, springs half the mischief of the world. Marie Jeanne might have made an incomparable ruler ; Marie Antoinette's cravings for pleasure might TWO QUEENS. 33 have remained the harmless vagaries of a beautiful woman. But these vagaries, in the position to which circumstances had condemned her, assumed the proportions of a crime. So far from any yearn- ing of compassion for Kaffirs or Caribbeans, what cared Marie Antoinette for the French people, who, ground down by a system of infamous taxa- tion, toiled and moiled in semi-starvation that Court and nobles might enjoy the greater luxury ? What cared she for the peasants who, sooner than cultivate the fruitful champaigns, chose to uproot their vines because of the exorbitant dues which made hard work as useless as idleness ? She could care nothing for these things, since she knew noth- ing whatever of the condition of the people whose Queen she was. Her peep at this royal show must have been not a little suggestive to Marie Phlipon, when taken by her mother to pass a week at Versailles in the autumn of 1774. Accompanied by the Abbe Bimont and his housekeeper, they were lodged in the attics, one of the female servants of the palace being a friend of theirs. The sumptuous repasts, receptions, plays, balls, card- parties, and what not, passing in succession be- fore the eyes of Plutarch's disciple, shocked her sense of justice and hurt her pride. While she stood there among the crowd, she must often from a distance have seen the radiant young 34 MADAME ROLAND. queen, brightly blazing amid her favorite attend- ants, and recognized Louis XVI. *s bluff, un- gainly bearing amid the obsequious swarm of elegant courtiers. And as the dazzling pictures of court-life were passing before her, did she foresee that presently, as in a play, the scene would be shifted, and that this same brilliant Court would quake to the tramp of an infuriated mob of women, — menacing, haggard, dishevelled, half-starved, — till under the very walls of the Palace of Versailles, with its daintily-fed inmates, rang out the terrible cry for bread ? And that, again, presently King and Queen, courtiers and all, would be swept in the revolutionary tornado from the very face of the earth ? No, these things were as yet only darkly brewing in the future; but Manon, disgusted with the Court, and impatiently awaiting the moment of depar- ture, took more pleasure in looking at the statues in the gardens than at the personages in the palace. To her mother's inquiry if she were pleased with her visit, she answered, " Provided it is soon over ; otherwise I shall detest these people so heartily that I shall not know what to do with my hatred." And to the question of what harm they had done, she replied, " To make me feel injustice and see absurdity." "A benev- olent monarch," she wrote afterwards to Sophie, u appears to me almost adorable ; but if, before TWO QUEENS. 35 my birth, I had been given the choice of a Gov- ernment, I would have declared in favor of a Republic." Once at home, Manon turned with renewed zest to her books. She became so interested in the study of geometry, that, being too poor to buy a certain treatise which had been lent her, she actually copied the whole of it. Presently a fresh disturbance from without was not without exercising a permanent influence on her mind. One day she was startled from her studies by the tramping of an excited crowd hurrying to the Place de la Greve (the place of execution), where two young parricides were condemned to .suffer death by the wheel and the stake. People had crowded to the very roofs of houses to wit- ness this appalling punishment. However much the girl shrank from the abominable sight, she could not shut out the shrieks of the wretches nor the smell of the burning fagots ! Their cries were heard from her mother's bed, for one of the criminals lived for twelve hours on the wheel. All night this hideous occurrence racked her. However shocked at the crime, she was even more so at people who could find pleasure in such a sight She writes : — " In truth, human nature is not at all estimable con- sidered en masse. I cannot conceive what can thus excite the curiosity of thousands to see two of their fellow- 36 MADAME ROLAND. creatures die. The popularity of the gladiatorial fights in Rome no longer surprises me. A kind of ferocity, a cer- tain taste for blood, must be latent in the human heart. But, no! that I cannot believe. I imagine that we all of us love strong impressions, because they give us a lively sense of existence ; and the same taste which takes the educated people to the theatres carries the populace to the Place de la Greve. Yes, the pitiless mob applauded the tor- tures of the criminal as if at a play. Of course his crime was horrible ; but at such instants one forgets the criminal and his crime, only to feel the agony of a fellow- being, and suffering nature makes herself one with pain. I confess that I feel contempt for men, as well as love ; they are so bad or so mad that it is impossible not to despise them. On the other hand, they are so wretched that it is just as impossible to help pitying and loving them. Ah ! I was not prepared for these strange and violent impressions which have come to trouble my ideas, and to modify my whole being in quite a new manner." Here, then, we have the first heart-throb of pity and yearning over the suffering multitudes, which was never to cease till her own heart ceased to beat. Descending from the serene heights of placid philosophical meditations, she looked at -the world she lived in, and what she saw filled her soul with a shuddering awe. Louis Blanc is surely mistaken when he avers, in one passage of his " History of the French Revolution," that Madame Roland, unlike Rousseau, had no feel- ing for the common people. On the contrary, she felt the strongest love and commiseration TWO QUEENS. 37 for them. The reasons on which he bases this assertion are, her speaking rather contemptuously of shop-keepers, and her aversion to taking a hus- band from that class in marriage. The reasons which she herself gives for her dislike show that it arose from a strong democratic feeling, as will be seen in a subsequent chapter. Certain it is that henceforth she begins to be more and more preoccupied with the social condition of men, for, in one of her letters to Sophie, she says that in her eyes the first and most beautiful of all the virtues is the care for the common weal, the love of the unfortunate, and the desire to help them. And already there were many signs and por- tents of the coming events. Like that little cloud which, no bigger than a man's hand in a seem- ingly windless sky, is seen weirdly flying across the heavens, and known by mariners to forebode the gathering of the hurricane, there were sudden outbreaks and bread-riots, from which those who can read signs augured the brewing tempest. In 1775 Marie alludes to a popular agitation which breaks out, now in one spot and now in another, owing to the scarcity of provisions. In the May of that year, she wrote that, in spite of certain edicts of the Ministry with regard to im- portation of grain from abroad, high prices have ruled in the markets ; and that the people, spurred 38 MADAME ROLAND. on by want, have raised loud outcries, in some instances forcing the shop-keepers to sell their provisions at a lower price, or else plundering their premises. Crowd after crowd assembled before the bakers' shops, and the wisest closed their shutters and threw the loaves out of win- dow. She draws a most moving picture of these famished wretches, cadaverous with hunger, beat- ing a devil's tattoo on the shutters, jostling and pressing each other in their need, and with greedy eyes watching the loaves, as they stumble over each other in their hot haste to catch them ! This disturbance was at last allayed by a reduc- tion of the price of bread to a loaf of two sous, and Manon dilates on the singular appearance of the crowd, now appeased, if only for the present. " Some of the people," she writes, " caper about with loaves hugged in their arms, carrying them in triumph, and manifesting the pleasure of satis- fied hunger by the most energetic gestures. In many quarters," she continues, " the disturbance would hardly have been perceived had it not been for the pusillanimity of the shop-keepers, who all closed their shutters." She herself was a witness of one of these panics. On entering a church to hear Mass, three or four children came running in to seek shelter from a mob that was making for a neighboring baker. Great alarm on the part of the beadles and the female chair-hirers, TWO QUEENS. 39 who, violently shutting the doors, would naturally have led the otherwise unsuspecting congregation to think that enraged ravishers were coming to violate the most sacred of shrines. "The poor people only wanted bread, and thought not of altars," she says ; adding significantly, " the sight of these things gives one quite a new kind of feeling, and awakens a host of thoughts." CHAPTER IV. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. Manon's life was not always darkened by images of fearful punishments and famished crowds, nor did she perpetually pore over the Greek classics and modern encyclopaedists. She sometimes went to Christmas and birthday gatherings, given by one or other of her many relatives, and would draw a half ironical picture of herself to her friend as gliding along a room in floating pink draperies trimmed with roses. But her gravity did not re- sist the infection of pleasure when at a ball, and she seems to have footed it on " the light fantastic toe" with the merriest madcap of them all. At other times, although but rarely, she and her mother would attend what we should now call " Musical At-Homes." At the house of a certain Madame Lcpine, Manon got a glimpse of some of the lesser litterateurs of Paris, who, she says, used to meet in a dingy room up three flights of stairs, and, lit up by tallow candles in dirty brass candle- sticks, would recite their verses or play their com- positions. But this glimpse of literary society — third-rate it is true — had no attraction for Marie, MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 4 1 who, although born and bred in Paris, always pre- ferred a country to a town life. To live on your own plot of ground, to grow your own fruits and vegetables, to taste the living sweetness of the air, seemed to her the most exquisite lot ; and when- ever there was any question as to where the family should go for their Sunday excursion, she pleaded for Meudon. One of the most charming passages in her Memoirs is the description of such a trip : " We went often to Meudon, it was my favorite walk ; I preferred its wild woods, its solitary ponds, its avenues of pines, its towering trees, to the crowded paths and monoto- nous groves of the Bois de Boulogne, to the ornamental gardens of Bellevue, or the clipped alleys of St. Cloud. 1 Where shall we go to-morrow ? ' quoth my father, on the Saturday evenings during summer-time ; ' the fountains are to play ; there will be a world of company.' ' Oh, Papa ! If you would only go to Meudon, I should like it so much better.' At five o'clock on a Sunday morning everybody was astir. A fresh simple muslin frock, a few flowers and a gauze veil, showed the plans of the day. The Odes of Rousseau, a play by Corneille, or some other author, formed my only baggage. Then the three of us set off and embarked at the Pont Royal (which I could see from my window) on board a little boat, which carried us with delightful rapidity to the shores of Bellevue, not far from the glassworks, the dense black smoke of which is seen from a great distance. Thence by a steep ascent we proceeded to the avenue of Meudon, about the middle of which we had noticed a little house on the right, which be- came one of our halting places. . . . 42 MADAME ROLAND. " One day, after having rambled about for a long time In an unfrequented part of the wood, we reached an open and solitary spot, at the end of an avenue of tall trees, where promenaders were but rarely seen ; a few more trees, scattered on a charming lawn, seemed to screen a prettily- built cottage, two stories high. Ah ! what have we here ? Two pretty children were playing before the door. They had neither a town-bred air, nor those signs of misery so common to the country ; on drawing nearer we noticed a kitchen-garden, where an old man was at work. To walk in and enter into conversation with him was the affair of an instant. We learned that the place was called Ville Bonne ; that its inhabitant was the water-bailiff of the Moulin-Rouge, whose office it was to see that the canals conveying water to the different parts of the park were kept in repair ; that the slender salary of this place helped to support a young couple, the parents of the children we had seen, and of whom the old man was the grand- father; that the wife was engaged in the cares of the household, while the old man cultivated the garden, the produce of which his son in leisure moments went to sell in town. This garden was a long square, divided into four parts, round each of which was a good-sized walk ; a pond in the centre facilitated irrigation; and at the farther end an arbor of yews, with a large stone seat, afforded rest and shelter. Flowers, intermixed with vegetables, gave the garden a gay and agreeable appearance ; while the robust and contented gardener reminded me of the old man on the banks of the Galesus, whom Virgil has sung. We in- quired whether they were not in the habit of receiving strangers. ' Few come this way,' replied the old man ; i the place is little known ; but if by chance any come, we never refuse such fare as our farm-yard and kitchen-garden afford.' We begged something for dinner, and were pres- MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 43 ently served with new-laid eggs, vegetables, and salads, in a delicious arbor of honeysuckle behind the house. I never made so agreeable a meal ; my heart expanded in the innocent enjoyment of this charming situation. I fon- dled the little children and showed my veneration for the old man. The young woman seemed pleased to have given us accommodation ; there was some talk of two rooms which might be let to persons desirous of taking them for three months ; and we had an idea of doing so. This de- lightful intention was never destined to be realized ; nor have I ever again revisited Ville Bonne." About this time Madame Phlipon's health be- gan gradually to decline. She grew more serious and taciturn, and stirred less from home than for- merly. Grief and anxiety may also have helped the ravages of disease ; for her husband had insensi- bly begun to neglect his business, to go frequently abroad, and to have fits of irritability and ill-tem- per, which his wife bore with invariable patience and good-humor. If they happened to differ on any subject, although she was his superior in every respect, she gave up her own opinion with the greatest willingness for the sake of domestic peace. So that her daughter never suspected till she was grown up that her mother's life might not possibly be as smooth as it appeared on the surface. When she was older, she often noticed her father's weak points in these conjugal argu- ments, and, availing herself of the ascendancy she at this time had over him, always took her 44 MADAME ROLAND. mother's part, and not inaptly called herself her watch-dog. Madame Phlipon, no doubt, felt that her strength was failing, and her experience must have warned her of some of the trials that were in store for her daughter when she should be no more. Her eyes used to follow the girl about everywhere with a wistful tenderness, and she seemed, as it were, to envelop her with the brooding intensity of mater- nal love, — a love that yearned to see her child sheltered in some home of her own before death snatched from her a mother's care. Without ex- actly daring to utter all she thought and feared, she would often urge Manon to accept one of the many suitors who sought her in marriage. At first she did not particularly press the matter, but when Manon was twenty-one she entreated her earnestly to accept a certain respectable jeweller who had proposed to her. She represented to her daughter that here was a man in a comfortable position, honest, upright, and of good reputation, who had the highest regard for her, and was quite willing to follow her lead. The following dia- logue, given in the Memoirs brings the situation vividly before one. Quoth Manon : — " But, Mamma, I don't want a husband whom I am to guide : he would be too big a child for me." 11 Do you know that you are a very whimsical girl, for you would certainly not like a master ? " MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 45 " Let us understand each other, dear Mamma ; I should not like a husband to order me about, he would only teach me to resist him ; but neither do I wish to rule my husband. Either I am much mistaken, or those creatures six feet high, with beards on their chins, seldom fail to make us feel they are the stronger ; now, if the good man should suddenly bethink himself to remind me of his strength, he would pro- voke me, and if he submitted to me I should be ashamed of my own power." " I see ; you would like a man to think himself the master while obeying you in everything." Thus the pair argued without any decisive re- sult ; till Madame Phlipon, hinting at the possi- bility of being taken from her daughter, pointed out that, more than twenty as she was, suitors would no longer be as plentiful as during the last five years, and begged her therefore not to reject a man who if he were not her equal in intellect and taste would at least love her, and with whom she might be happy. " Yes, Mamma," cried she, with a deep sigh, "happy as you have been!" Her mother was disconcerted, and made no reply ; nor from that moment did she open her lips again on that or any other match, at least in a pressing manner. The exclamation had escaped the daugh- ter without premeditation ; its effect convinced her she had touched a sore spot. In the spring of 1775 Madame Phlipon's health had grown so much worse that they resolved on trying a short stay at Meudon during the Whitsun 46 MADAME ROLAND. holidays, and by it she was much benefited. Returned to Paris, her daughter left her for a few hours, fairly well as it seemed, to pay a visit to Sister Agathe ; but no sooner had she reached the convent than an unaccountable anxiety hur- ried her home again. Madame Roland says that these presentiments of a coming trouble were never by her laid to the account of superstition, but that, loving her mother above everything on earth, she had, without know- ing it, noticed certain slight changes in manner and appearance which served vaguely to disturb her. On this particular occasion she felt such a sinking of the heart that she impatiently hurried home, to find the street-door standing wide open, while a young neighbor exclaimed on seeing her, " Oh ! Miss, your Mamma is very ill ; she has sent for. my mother, who is up in the bed-room with her." To utter an inarticulate cry, to fly up the stairs, hurry into the room, and find her mother lying back in her easy-chair, with arms helplessly hanging over it, wildly-rolling eyes, mouth wide open, was the affair of an instant. At the sight of Manon some animation returned to her face ; she made ineffectual efforts to speak, tried to lift her arms, and with a supreme effort of will raised her hand, and gently stroking the girl's cheeks as if to calm her, wiped the streaming tears from her face. With that last upflickering MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 47 of love, her limbs grew rigid ; she would fain have smiled, have spoken some parting words of con- solation, but it was in vain. Her daughter seemed to multiply herself to assist in saving her dying mother. She sent for the doctor, for her father ; she flew to the apothe- cary and back ; she administered an emetic ; she helped her mother to bed ; but nothing availed. Her eyes closed, her head fell forward on her breast, her breathing became increasingly painful, and at ten o'clock in the evening, as in a dream, Manon heard the doctor and her father sending for a priest to administer extreme unction. Stand- ing at the foot of the bed, mechanically holding a candle in her hand while the priest was praying, with eyes fixed on her mother, she never stirred, till suddenly the light dropped from her grasp and she fell senseless on the floor. When she came back to consciousness her mother was no more. The sighs and tears of those around, her father's livid face, the whispers and muffled inqui- ries, the efforts of the bystanders to withhold her entrance into the room, whence she had been carried, served but too clearly to tell the tale. Presently she managed to escape unperceived, and rushing back to her mother flung herself on the bed in a transport of grief, and pressing her mouth to the cold, livid lips, tried to inhale death and perish with her. 48 MADAME ROLAND. With that mother ended the careless, sweet, happy spring-time of Manon's life. It was she who had shielded her from all rough contact with the world, down to those trivial interruptions of domestic life which eat out the heart of time ; it was she who had created around her an atmos- phere of exquisite peace and purity, interposing as a shield between her and the tainted manners of the time ; and now that the young tree had grown tall and lusty, the fencing shelter was removed, and adverse winds were presently to try what it was made of. CHAPTER V. manon's suitors. After her mother's death, Manon passed a fort- night in a very precarious state between convul- sive fits and hours of mute prostration, unrelieved by tears. To divert her thoughts from constantly brooding on her loss, an abb6, who sometimes came to see her, bethought him of lending her the " Nouvelle Heloi'se." This book was an era in Madame Roland's life. If Plutarch had in- spired her with a love of republican institutions, the "Nouvelle HeloYse" showed her the ideal of domestic life, and she now eagerly read and re-read Rousseau's works : he became her breviary. Like other devout worshippers of this oracle of the eighteenth century, she burned to tender her homage to The Master, as Boswell and as Gib- bon and hundreds of others had done, — among whom the redoubtable Robespierre is said to have been one. Chance seemed to favor Ma- non's wishes ; for among her acquaintances there happened to be a Swiss gentleman, to whom, as was her habit with friends, she had given a nick- 4 50 MADAME ROLAND. name, labelling him the " Philosophical Repub- lican." This abstraction of a man — human enough, however, to be presently much in love with the fair Manon — was sufficiently obliging to make over to her a commission he had been entrusted with, — that of proposing to the im- pecunious Rousseau the composition of some musical airs. Marie Phlipon, delighted at this opportunity of seeing Rousseau, immediately in- dited an elegant epistle, setting forth its object, adding that she would do herself the honor of fetching the answer in person at the stated time. Behold her then sallying forth in com- pany with the faithful Mignonne, in a flutter of trepidation, hurrying through the streets of Paris, and arriving at last in the Rue Platriere, where Rousseau then lived. With the reverence with which one enters a temple she knocked at the humble door, and thus she afterwards described her sensations to Sophie : — " It was opened by a woman of at least fifty, in a round cap, a clean and simple morning gown and a large apron. She looked severe and even a little hard. "'Madame, may I ask, does not M. Rousseau live here ? » " ' Certainly, Mademoiselle.' " ' Could I see him ?' " * What is it you want of him ?' " ' I came for an answer to a letter which I wrote him a few days ago.' MANON'S SUITORS. 5 1 " * Mademoiselle, he admits no one; but you can tell the people who have dictated your letter — for, of course, you never wrote such a letter as that — ' " ' Excuse me,' I interrupted. " ' The handwriting alone shows it to be by a man.' " ' Would you like to see me write ? ' I asked, laughing. " She shook her head, adding : ' All that I am empow- ered to tell you is that my husband has absolutely given u$ doing things of that sort ; he would wish nothing better than to be of service, but he is of an age to take some rest.' " ' I know it, but I would have felt flattered to have had my answer from his own lips ; and I will, at least, seize this occasion to express my veneration for the man whom I es- teem the most in all the world. Pray accept it, Madame.' " She thanked me by keeping her hand on the lock as I went downstairs." And so while everywhere young hearts were yearning to do him homage, Rousseau himself, shrinking from contact with his kind, was gnawed, cankered, by that worst disease of the mind, — the dreadful horror of imagining an enemy in every one who sought to approach him. Perhaps, while outside the ardent girl waited eagerly to tell the author of the " Nouvelle Hcloi'se " what an unpayable debt she owed him, the man, whose burning thoughts were now alive within her, hid himself like some dumb, wounded animal. He did not know, alas ! that at his door, vainly knock- ing for admittance, stood his very own daughter (for we are not only born in the flesh but in the 52 MADAME ROLAND. spirit) ; that there, young and strong, beautiful and impassioned with thought, there waited one ready to render back to him in his old age the spiritual glow he had once emitted — he did not know — and, with only a wall between, they crossed each other unseen, never to meet on earth. But while the poor, time-battered body of the man was dragging out the last few years of abject wretchedness, his spirit had gone forth from him, swaying thousands of minds, as the vivifying west wind stirs the boughs of a vernal forest. Like Jubal — the inventor of the lyre — in George Eliot's fine conception, who dies broken- hearted by the wayside while the people pass on triumphantly chanting his praises, Rousseau too was miserably perishing, even while his thought was becoming a living force which " Set the world in flame, Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more." In 1776 and also in 1777, the year preced- ing that of both Voltaire's and Rousseau's death, Madame Roland was intently studying the latter's works, and continually alluding to him in her cor- respondence, especially to the "Discours " and the " Contrat Social," — "a book to be studied, not read," she remarked, " because, although very clearly written, it is too full of matter for the connection of the whole to be seized without effort." MANON'S SUITORS. 53 The whole of Rousseau's works were given her by the " Republican Philosopher," who had fallen in love with her. In touching on this Chapter of Suitors, we must retrace our steps and begin with those who had appeared on the scene before the mother's death. For Manon did not belong to that class of shabbily treated young women who can at most boast of but one or two strings to their bow, being in that, as in some other respects, so favored by nature as to be be- set by a legion of wooers. These importunate creatures became the plague of her life, and she at last dreaded the addresses of a new aspirant as much as some young ladies rejoice in receiving them. It is curious enough to mark how these pretenders to Mademoiselle Phlipon's hand rise in the social scale in proportion as her personality gradually triumphs over her surroundings. The reader may remember that Spanish Colossus who taught her the guitar, and who in turn conceived the wild idea of asking this girl of fourteen or fifteen in marriage of her father. In his foot- steps followed another of her teachers, the wiz- ened little dancing-master, who, for the second time a widower, had had his huge wen operated upon before proceeding to the more delicate oper- ation of proposing for her in marriage. M. Phlipon, who prided himself not a little on his personal appearance, enjoyed the joke heartily, 54 MADAME ROLAND. and without precisely telling his daughter of these curious wooers, threw out so many sly hints, that she could not help knowing all about it. As has been said, Manon used to go shopping with her mother, or occasionally with the maid, and in her dealings with a neighboring butcher was al- ways particularly well served. To her surprise, this identical butcher, whom she used to see on week-days cutting up joints, was always meeting them on their Sunday walks in a handsome suit of black and lace ruffles. Moreover, when she fell ill once, he sent round every morning to in- quire after her health, enforcing the message with the choicest titbits of his shop. Thereat her father smiled, joked, rubbed his hands, and one day gravely introduced her to a certain Made- moiselle Michon, who had come ceremoniously in the butcher's name (a rich widower) to ask her hand. Her father having maliciously let her in for this interview, she found means to evade giv- ing an offensive refusal, by saying that she was so fond of her present way of life as to be resolved not to change her state for years to come. This reply did not precisely suit the views of her father, who exclaimed, " Why, here is an answer, forsooth, to frighten away all future lovers ! " Presently, however, there came an offer from a man her parents deemed not at all unsuited to her. This was in 1771, when she was seventeen ; MANON'S SUITORS. 55 and it is curious to note how, before she had really thought much about marriage, she mechanically viewed it after the conventional French fashion. This man — a jeweller, who had already lost two wives, and who had a good business, an excellent reputation, and an amiable disposition — seems chiefly to have desired the connection because Manon's unusually serious turn of mind led him to think she would make a capital housewife and accountant. She herself seemed quite without illusions ! In writing to Sophie she reveals her inmost thoughts, and one can see that at this youthful age she felt almost as much bound to abide by her parents' choice as did Portia by the fateful caskets. Begging her friend's assistance on this " terrible occasion," she says she has had one interview with the gentleman, without being able to recall precisely " whether he was dark or fair," though it seems to her that "he was of a sal- low complexion, with a long thin face, much pitted with the small-pox ; hesitating of speech, and with, nothing in his manners to attract or repel." This affair, to her infinite relief, came to noth- ing; but one suit had no sooner been refused than a fresh wooer straightway started up, chiefly recruited from the tradesmen of "the quarter." These were by no means love-suits, in our Eng- lish sense, but business-like proposals, made by the relatives of would-be husbands to the lady's 56 MADAME ROLAND. relatives, who first of all went to work in a round- about way, inquiring into the respective fortunes, character, disposition of the pair. To be so per- sistently sought after for years, not only shows that Marie Phlipon must have been considered the beauty of her quarter, but that her character and manners inspired the highest regard ; not to forget that, being an only child, she was supposed to be an heiress in her small way. Another batch of suitors having been sent about their business, Gatien Phlipon began to show signs of restiveness. He could sympathize with his daughter's aversion to ally herself with a pastry-cook ; but when it came to her refusing a thriving woollen-draper or goldsmith, he lost all patience. He began to rate her soundly for her dislike to shop-keepers ; and Louis Blanc, as we have before hinted, seems inclined to accuse her of wanting in love for the people because she scouted the proposed matches. But what are the reasons she gave her father for this dislike ? Why, antipathy for those very bourgeois failings of which this eminent historian accuses her. She will not marry a rich tradesman because, forsooth, she has observed that the only way of making money in trade is by selling dear what has been bought cheap, " by overcharging customers and beating down the poor workman. I should nevei be able to descend to such practices," she told MANON' S SUITORS. $7 Phlipon, " nor to respect a man who made them his daily occupations." The next suitor that presented himself belonged to a different class ; he was a promising young doctor from Provence, ambitious of rising in his profession, and looking out for a wife with some fortune. The preliminaries of this match had literally been all settled before Manon knew a word of the matter. As it is not customary in France for young men to visit at a house where there are young ladies, the girl was one day taken by her parents, as if casually — a shower of rain being the ostensible excuse — to. the house of a certain lady, a distant relative, where they were hospitably entertained. In the mean while Dr. Gardanne also dropped in, as if by acci- dent. "The first impression was not enchant- ing," Manon wrote to her friend. "A man, above middle height, in wig and doctor's gown, dark, coarse-featured, with small eyes, glittering under bushy black eyebrows, and an imperious air. However, he grew animated in conversa- tion, did ample justice to the sweetmeats," which he cracked in talking, and, with a gallantry smack- ing of the school, said to the young lady that he was very fond of sweets, — to which the latter, not without a smile and a blush, replied timidly, " that men were accused of loving sweet things, because in dealing with them one required great 58 MADAME ROLAND. sweetness." The cunning doctor appeared en- chanted with the epigram. Her father would willingly have given them his benediction on the spot. This politeness enraged his daughter. Nothing was definitely settled on that occa- sion ; but Madame Phlipon, tender and pensive, began seriously expatiating on the advantages of this match ; and Manon herself did not see any valid reason for refusal, save for the objection that as she had had no opportunities of knowing, she could not well love, this doctor. This was, of course, not taken into account, and a formal offer being presently made, a second interview took place. Without being prepossessed in his favor, Manon told her friend that there was a good deal to be said in favor of this match. Some of her incidental remarks afford curious glimpses into the manners of the time. " M. Gar- danne," she says, " does not wish for one of those women who in marrying expect a lady's-maid, a second footman, a private sitting-room, — one of those women, in short, who pass the night at parties and the day at cards, as is the custom with doctors' wives." These seem great expecta- tions for the wife of a doctor of but eight years' practice. Dr. Gardanne having already a well- furnished house, it seemed as if the marriage must be concluded instantly ; and mother and daughter went to pass a week in the country, MANON'S SUITORS. 59 during which the necessary formalities were to be arranged. Manon's dowry was to be, on this occasion, eight hundred and eighty-three pounds, — worth treble the amount that it would be now. Mean- while, M. Phlipon, busy, inquisitive, elated, lost no time in making all possible inquiries concern- ing his future son-in-law ; wrote off to the doc- tor's friends in Provence, made nice inquiries of the tradesmen he dealt with, and of his servants, and having discovered that he had quarrelled with an influential person in his province, began lecturing him with the airs of the prospective father-in-law. The choleric doctor, having al- ready heard of some of these proceedings, was so much ruffled in temper as to show his discontent to the relative who had first been instrumental in bringing the parties together. Whereupon this lady, no less fiery, considered her cousin slighted, and the affair was broken off. On the ladies' return from the country, nothing further was said of the suitor ; Manon felt intensely re- lieved, the mother not sorry, and the father too crestfallen to say a word. In fact, he had now given up pressing Manon to get married, and as time went on was less anxious about the matter than his wife. He began enjoying the sense of his importance in having so admired a daughter. He now always 60 MADAME ROLAND. showed her the various written demands for her hand that reached him, and his daughter would dictate the answer, couched in the most judicious terms, in the name of her papa. In the mean while Madame Phlipon had died ; Marie was keeping house for her father, when there called on her a young man, whom she had known some years ago, and who on seeing her asked, much moved, whether some one were ill. " Some one is dead," was her scarce audible reply. She then told what had happened, and read his sympathy in his silent emotion. This young man was a certain Pahin de La- blancherie, who two years later, in 1778, acquired some reputation by starting, in concert with Bris- sot, a " General Correspondence on the Arts and Sciences ; or, News of the Republic of Letters." This ambitious scheme, intended as an interna- tional association of scientific and literary men, looks like a germ of our British Associations and Social Science Congresses ; and the man who planned them must have had some far-reaching ideas and good intentions, if nothing more. Cer- tain it is that he was the first suitor of modern views who crossed Madame Roland's path, and the first who in any way touched her feelings. Pie was also a man of literary proclivities, and in 1776 published a work entitled, " Extracts from a Journal of my Travels ; or, the History MANON'S SUITORS. 6l of a Young Man : a Lesson to Fathers and Mothers." There is frequent mention of this book in Manon's correspondence, and an inter- esting review of it by her, written for her friend's behalf. She speaks of it with the impartiality of a critic, though admitting that she is afraid to mention it to others for fear they should suspect her interest in the author. It was a dull, moral- izing work, yet containing shocking descriptions of the licentiousness prevalent in the seminaries and colleges of the time ; and it may have in- spired Manon with some of that recoil from " the innate ferocity" of man which is a noticeable feature in her. Lablancherie had proposed for Manon some years before ; but considering that he was only two-and-twenty, penniless, and studying for the Bar, with no definite prospects of advancement, the father considered such a marriage out of the question, and would not even hear of a correspond- ence, for which L. had begged before returning to Orleans. That Manon regarded his suit with very different eyes from those of her other wooers is very clear from her letters to her confidante Sophie. She could see nothing so wild in the young man's proposition to her father, — to let them marry at once, live in his house for a few years, and, by means of her dowry, assist him to purchase a place in the magistracy, and so 62 MADAME ROLAND. start them for life. She nevertheless acquiesced in M. Phlipon's decision ; and now, after the lapse of a few years, behold ! Lablancherie made his appearance again, at a time when her mother's death had made a sad vacuity in her heart, and when the interesting pallor of her lover seemed to indicate that he had suffered much on her account. There is no doubt that her feelings were touched at last, — that she was in love, even if that love partook more of a fancy than a passion, was more of the head than the heart. If she had not been in love, would she have thought of saying that, though he was not a Rousseau, u his moral senti- ments were beautiful and well expressed"? If she had been more in love, would she have laid stress on his " infinite historical allusions and quotations from authors without end"? At any rate, such as it was, it had some of the effects by which we can tell the highest kind of love, — it kindled a very passion of perfection in her in order to make herself worthy of this exalted being, whom she had fashioned in the image of her ideal ; and whenever she did a generous action (and she did many), she naively laid it to the account of Lablancherie. She did not at this time contemplate marriage. It sufficed her that she was beloved of this " virtuous " young man, that they saw each other occasionally, that they MANOWS SUITORS. 63 could think of each other in absence. This state of affairs by no means suited the father's views. After his wife's death he had considered it in- cumbent on himself to be always present when his daughter saw visitors ; but he very soon grew restive, ill-tempered, finally intimating to Lablancherie to discontinue his visits. Here was a sad complication, a dire perplexity ! Filial obedience in conflict with pity for an un- happy man, dying apparently for love of her ! — duty and affection pulling her heart in contrary directions ! While suffering less on her own ac- count than on that of her lover, she is equally loath to speak and to keep silence; till at last, driven to desperation at the thought of what Lablancherie must endure, she bursts out to her friend, in January, 1776, being then in her twenty- second year : — " Sophie, Sophie, my friend ! I am passing through the most violent crisis ; I am in the most cruel conflict with myself. I have only strength enough left to throw myself into the arms of friendship. In another moment the letter I enclose would have been despatched to its address. Only by a great effort have I restrained myself. I wish to delude myself by sending it to you. My soul longs to unburden itself, — I think it necessary for the life of him I love ; but then prejudice — custom — my father! . . . O God ! howl suffer ! " The letter alluded to in the above lines is one which Manon, after much inward trepidation, had 64 MADAME ROLAND. at last penned to her lover, in which she tells him that, bound by her father's wish, she is obliged to give up her intercourse with him, and that he must henceforth try to forget her. The letter was sent by Sophie, and the result was that Lablancherie discontinued his visits en- tirely. Manon repeatedly expresses admiration for a lover who could thus respect her wishes and act up to the highest principles ; but whether she really liked it, those must decide who understand a woman's heart. Months thus elapsed, and the lovers saw and heard nothing of each other. Preoccupied though Manon was, she used to enjoy walking out on a Sunday afternoon with her father ; and on one such occasion she diverted herself in the Tuile- ries Gardens by inwardly criticising every person they passed, for she was, as she sometimes ac- cused herself, something of a quiz. Among a group of ladies she caught sight of one, however, who struck her as so pretty and charming that she could find no fault with her. Suddenly she saw her father bowing to some one, and, behold ! by the side of this very pretty lady she caught sight of Lablancherie, who, while meeting her smile of surprise, from deep respect cast down his eyes. She was pleased at this unexpected meeting, — or professed herself pleased. But a month afterwards, on walking in the Luxem- MANON'S SUITORS. 65 bourg with a lady friend, she again encountered him ; and this time the grave, philosophic, love- sick Lablancherie was actually seen walking with an ostrich feather in his hat! 1 "My poor heart," she writes to Sophie, "has been greatly perplexed and fatigued of late in consequence of a number of insignificant little events. Imagine that I have met D. L — b — e ; that he wore a feather in his hat. Ah ! you cannot imagine how this cursed little feather has tormented me. I have turned and twisted in every direc- tion to reconcile so futile an ornament with that high phil- osophy, that rigid simplicity of taste, that noble way of thinking, which have endeared him to me. I can only see excuses, and am feeling cruelly what great significance little things acquire when they make us suspect the nature of a beloved object." Was it really the little feather that was in fault, or was it a look, an air, a something that like a flash sometimes reveals unsuspected qualities in an intimately-known person ? At any rate, it proved "the little rift within the lute." Manon learned that day from her companion that La- blancherie had lately proposed to a rich, lovely young lady ; was known to have done so in sev- eral other cases of heiresses, and — oh, horror ! — went by the name of " the lover of the eleven thousand virgins." How much to believe of this gossip the girl hardly knew ; but it shattered the ideal she had formed of him. It had been so 1 Then the height of fashion. 5 66 MADAME ROLAND. much more an ideal she had loved than a man, that she did not suffer very deeply. She had lost faith in Lablancherie, and with her faith all desire to marry him ; but she declared that she would only marry the man who was what Lablancherie appeared to be. The remarkable girl, however, was gradually attracting round her men of literary distinction and high social position, only too proud to come and chat with her. Among these was a Mon- sieur de Sainte Lette, a deputy from the Colony of Pondicherry to the French Court. This gen- tleman, who had travelled over all the world, and who had amassed a vast fund of knowledge and observation, came to the Phlipons with a letter of introduction from a certain Demontchery, a cap- tain of sepoys in India, who before leaving Paris had also unsuccessfully proposed for the fair Manon. On returning to France after some years, he intended renewing his proposal, but learned that the lady had become Roland's wife within the fortnight. The society of Sainte Lette, a man of about sixty, but full of fire and intellect, a friend of Helvetius and an enthusias- tic humanitarian, was a rare intellectual treat to Manon. In his vivacious, glowing manner he satisfied her craving for knowledge by enlarging her ideas of society and government. Some- times, about this time, Manon would preside over MANON'S SUITORS. 67 little dinners given to four or five friends, when the sociable, jovial M. Phlipon, flattered at seeing such distinguished guests at his table, would only show himself from his most amiable side. The conversational powers of the future Madame Roland were now for the first time called into play. Among several highly-cultivated men whose ac- quaintance she made through Sainte Lette, there was a M. de Sevelinges, — a gentleman who had recently lost a beloved wife, and was plunged in grief when first Manon saw him. He was of an ancient family, of restricted means, and lived at Soissons, where he held some financial post, giv- ing the rest of his time to the study of literature. Whereas Sainte Lette's nature seemed "com- pacted of fire and sulphur," his Pylades was of a gentle and melancholy temperament, and of the most refined sensibility. He too, little by little, came under Manon's irresistible charm. After corresponding with her for a considerable time, there crept a something tender and insinuating into his letters ; he seemed to find his solitude irksome, and to feel grieved at her position. He often dilated on the charms of a thoughtful com- panionship, finally writing a letter which, though somewhat ambiguously couched, had every ap- pearance of a proposal of marriage. The idea of marrying M. de Sevelinges was 68 MADAME ROLAND. not repugnant to Manon, and though she was not the least in love with the gentleman, she may possibly have considered herself disillusioned in that respect, while in reality she was very heart- whole, as Sainte Lette had once said to her, — so heart-whole that she now formed a plan, which, however startling, reveals the simplicity and eleva- tion of her nature. No sooner had she received Sevelinges' letter than she grasped the whole sit- uation of affairs. Here was a highly-refined, cul- tivated man, tender-hearted, intellectual, learned, subtle, a man with whom she could have that community of ideas which was to her the sine qud 11011 of married life, — a man who led a lonely, depressed, isolated existence, while she at home felt more and more in her father's way, between whom and herself the breach had been gradually widening. Trouble, discord, ruin, were threaten- ing her domestic horizon, while the pleasing pros- pect of a peaceful home beckoned to her from Soissons. On the other hand, her high sense of justice warned her that M. de Sevelinges' means were extremely limited, his income not exceed- ing four hundred pounds per annum. His means such as they were, partly proceeding from his first wife's fortune, seemed naturally to belong to his sons, — two young men in the army, who would have just cause to complain, she considered, if by the advent of a young family they should be MA NO ATS SUITORS. 69 still further stinted in their expenses. Had she herself possessed a more ample dowry, her way would have been clear enough ; but under the cir- cumstances she could not reconcile such a mar- riage with her conscience. But an idea struck her, and to her faithful confidante Sophie she con- fesses that she thinks De Sevelinges must have been cherishing a similar notion, — that of gain- ing a sister and companion, under a title which the custom of society rendered indispensable. This vision of passing her life by the side of a man to whom she would minister with an abso- lutely unselfish devotion quite enchanted Manon's benevolent heart. In her protestations of being free from all passion, one cannot help feeling the vibrations of a nature that had never yet sounded its own depths, — that was ready to pledge itself to, it knew not what, in the very ecstasy of self- sacrifice. But the girl's dream was not destined to be carried into practice. Either M. de Sevelinges did not understand her, or she did not understand him ; and they both expressed themselves in such very guarded, delicate, and ambiguous terms, that they wrote apparently quite at cross-purposes. For, as these wavering seniors frequently do, he seems to have backed out of the negotiation ; and Manon's last word to Sophie was, that she hardly 70 MADAME ROLAND. knew whether to be offended or not, but ended with a hearty laugh. To enumerate the many other suitors who came forward one after another to propose for Made- moiselle Phlipon would sound too like the fairy tale of the proud king's daughter, who used to have the claimants to her hand marshalled before her in a row, and refuse them in turn by pronouncing one to be as thin as a pole, another as fat as a barrel, and a third bearded like a goat, till her enraged sire declared that the first vagrant who came begging alms at his gates should have her, whether or no. M. Phlipon at one moment be- haved not unlike this incensed monarch. Seeing that a " martial young Apollo," a thriving Greffier des Batiments, and a certain M. Coquin, — a round-faced, beaming young man, "a good paste of a husband," young and wealthy, if not wise, — had all been rejected in turn, he was actually for marrying her to a man who, as she was entering her door, met her casually, and asked whether she could direct him to a certain house, and in the course of a day or two proposed for her to M. Phlipon, through the intervention of friends. " My father," she writes, "did not find it so absurd; what more shall I say ? With a little good-will on my part, I might have found myself become a vendor of lemonade, and been gloriously installed MANON'S SUITORS. 7 1 in a cafe. . . . Oh," she adds, after a few more comic remarks, " was it worth while to have such a variety of paths to choose from to keep obsti- nately on the solitary road of celibacy ? " Single she was not destined to remain long, however ; but before we follow up the story of her acquaintance with Roland, let us cast a glance at the kind of life she now led with her father. CHAPTER VI. FLIGHT TO THE CONVENT, AND MARRIAGE. While all sorts and conditions of men were thus courting the hand of the magnificent Marie Phlipon, was her life so sweet a one as to make her averse to exchange it for a home of her own ? On the contrary ; the serenity of her studious days be- came more and more clouded by anxieties, cares, and fears for the future. Her father, the vain- glorious, fickle Parisian, had loved his daughter as long as their interests seemed identical ; but they no sooner began to clash than he was ready to sacrifice her future to his caprice. In spite of Manon's efforts to make the house pleasant to him, and to while away his evenings by taking a hand at cards, he found these pleasures tame to those that awaited him abroad. He began absent- ing himself more and more, formed connections at coffee-houses, lost his business habits, con- tracted a passion for gaming, and began by spend- ing not only his own savings, but the money which according to French law belonged of right to his daughter. Manon, with her shrewd common- FLIGHT TO CONVENT, AND MARRIAGE. 73 sense, saw that as her father's custom fell off he tried to retrieve himself by gambling ; she sus- pected, besides, that he was squandering his money on an illicit connection. To add to her perplexi- ties, she feared that she herself was the innocent cause of his demoralization, and that but for her he might marry again, and once more take to orderly habits. The event was not one to be desired for her own sake, for she was mistress of the house and herself in a way quite unusual for French girls ; but the hope of rescuing her father from profli- gacy, improvidence, and an indigent old age de- cided her. There is something not a little comic in this reversal of the mutual relations of parent and child, — the wise daughter pondering how she may suitably marry the flighty papa of fifty- five, and not daring to let him guess her plans, lest he should set himself tooth and nail against them. A suitable woman was discovered, too, and the parties seemed mutually willing ; but the lady being of an undecided turn of mind, nothing came of the affair. Her uncles, more especially her great-uncle and godfather who was devoted to her, found it neces- sary to insist on M. Phlipon's taking an inventory of his property, previous to letting his daughter have the share which rightfully belonged to her ; but they did it in such a bungling and dilatory 74 MADAME ROLAND. fashion that months and years elapsed before any effective steps were taken, and in the mean while he had not only frittered away his capital, but come to regard Manon as the cause of these trou- bles, — so that sometimes he hardly came near his house, or, if he did, avoided speaking to her. Her life, however, was an exceedingly busy one, for while persistently carrying on her studies she was a most punctilious housekeeper, looked after her father's diminishing custom in his absence, was frequently engaged on some charitable errand or other, and at one time, in order to procure a holiday for a hard-worked cousin, she offered to serve behind the counter of the husband's shop in her absence. Behold, then, the woman who was to play so momentous a part in one of the most momentous periods of history trudging backwards and forwards between her house and the Rue Montmartre, in the dusty August weather, dili- gently selling spectacles and watch-glasses, with a head stuffed full of Socrates and Plato. Her position was no doubt a unique one ; for while sometimes relegated to the servants' hall when she went visiting with her relatives, she was at others the friend and correspondent of men of high rank and abilities. She took it all very philosophically, and attached herself to right action, she says, " with the zeal and desperation of a man who in a shipwreck clings with all his FLIGHT TO CONVENT, AND MARRIAGE. 7$ might to the only plank that is left him." But what wrung a cry from that strong soul was neither unkindness, nor loneliness, nor impend- ing destitution ; it was the sense of a great force wasted, of potential powers doomed to perish un- used. Once only she bursts forth with, — " In truth I am not a little annoyed at being a woman. I ought either to have had another sex, another soul, or another country. 1 ought to have been a Spartan or a Roman woman, or at least a Frenchman. As the latter I should have chosen the Republic of Letters for my coun- try, or one of those States where one may dare be a man and obey the law only. My displeasure looks very insane ; but I feel as if riveted to a manner of existence not prop- erly my own. I am like those animals transplanted to our menageries from the torrid soil of Africa, who, intended to develop in a tropical climate, are shut up in a narrow cage hardly able to contain them. My mind and heart are ham- pered on all sides by the obstacles of custom and the chains of prejudice, and I exhaust my strength in vainly shak- ing my fetters. To what use can I turn my enthusiasm for the public good, when I can do absolutely nothing to serve it ? " Yes ; in spite of stoicism, philosophy, and a wise reflection on the noble functions of wife- hood and motherhood, was it possible for such a nature as that not to rebel against the tyranny of petticoats ? One cannot but be surprised that with such a sense of native power, predilection for literary pursuits, and facility of expression, Manon should not have turned her pen to prac- 76 MADAME ROLAND. tical account. Michelet somewhat captiously makes it a reproach, both to Madame Roland and to Robespierre, that they were born scrib- blers, and were unable to see, think, feel anything without straightway pulling out their tablets." It was so, no doubt ; and from a very tender age Madame Roland had begun, in her letters to Sophie, chronicling every incident in her inner or outer life. On first opening the two bulky vol- umes of this correspondence (carefully edited by M. Dauban), written by a young girl leading an uneventful life amid seemingly commonplace sur- roundings, the prospect of their perusal is rather appalling. But this strong nature, through which life continually rushes with a torrent of thoughts, sensations, and feelings, invests the most trivial incidents with fresh dramatic interest. A Sun- day afternoon walk to the Jardin du Roi becomes an idyl ; midnight vigils, passed in the study of some ancient philosopher, grow astir with action; girlish friendship is invested with the glamour of romance. The more one reads, the more fully does this powerful nature unfold itself ; and such as she is at fourteen shall we find her still at thirty-eight. Besides her letters to Sophie and Henriette Cannet, often complete little essays in themselves, Marie Phlipon wrote a number of detached pieces, entitled, Mcs Loisiis (' Leisure Hours"). Most FLIGHT TO CONVENT, AND MARRIAGE. 77 of these have been published in her collected works. They are short prose essays, of a re- flective and elegiac character, — " On the Soul," " On Melancholy," " On Friendship," " On the Close of Day," " Reverie in the Wood of Vin- cennes," "On the Multiplication of Men being the Cause of Despotism, and of the Corruption of Morals," and so forth. They possess less bio- graphical and even literary interest than the let- ters, then her favorite style of composition. But a young lady who was capable of express- ing herself clearly and concisely on some of the questions which have exercised the powers of the most robust thinkers, questions which lay at the very root of the approaching crisis, should have been in no perplexity as to her future vo- cation. Nature had endowed her with a great gift ; the trammels of opinion forbade her to make use of it. She rattled her chains, and yet had no heart to break them asunder. It was only when by an unforeseen concurrence of cir- cumstances fate had cast her in the very focus of action, when by her daily contact with men at the head of affairs she gradually learned to mea- sure her powers with theirs, that she came fully to realize the extent of her own abilities. But, indeed, at this time she held avowed authorship in horror ; and on being urged by a friend to de- vote herself seriously to composition, her outburst ?8 MADAME ROLAND. was that she would sooner cut off her right hand than turn authoress. '* If a woman writes a good book," she said, "a male writer invariably gets the credit of it ; if a bad one, she incurs the full ridi- cule of failure." She did not perceive that she was one of the few women who could have vindi- cated the claims of her sex ; and in this respect she showed less originality than Mary Wollstone- craft and Madame de Stael, her juniors by a de- cade or so. In later life she considerably modified her views, and bitterly regretted having no time left to write, as, "if she could not be the Tacitus, she might, perhaps, have aspired to be the Mrs. Macaulay of the French Revolution." At the same time we must bear in mind that it was not the literary or aesthetic, but the moral side of life which possessed the greatest attraction for Madame Roland. In her judgment the life of woman as wife and mother always appeared the highest and best. She perceived that every con- centrated effort of the imagination tends to iso- late the individual, and to disturb that equilibrium of the faculties which essentially constitutes the harmony of life. She considered no function more important than that of the woman of fine nature and cultivated faculties regulating a house- hold or estate, with many people depending on her care and management, bringing up children in the consciousness that in them her soul is FLIGHT TO CONVENT, AND MARRIAGE. 79 moulding the future of the race. Because, in the exercise of these duties the most diversified at- tributes are called into play, love itself being its guiding principle. This was Manon's ideal of life for a woman, and it is practically that of the states- man and ruler in miniature. But the very strength of her convictions as to the duties of wifehood and motherhood rendered marriage more difficult to her. Her decided views as to the bringing up of children made her very critical as to the partner who wished to share this responsibility. About all this she spoke in the frankest way to her friends. It seemed, there- fore, that she would soon be reduced to teach- ing or needle-work, that last resource of destitute women. Her father's dishonest waste had now reduced the savings of thirty years' labor to about five hundred and eighty pounds. Worse than this, M. Phlipon had lost all his custom, and, what was a greater affliction to his daughter, his honesty into the bargain. " I don't know how it is," she tells Sophie, " but every time my father gives me a fresh cause of annoyance, I feel an impulse of tenderness towards him, which seems to be there on purpose to enhance my suffering." Her friend, in trying to comfort her, remarks that the faults of our children are more humiliating to us than those of our parents ; but added a remark calculated to cut Manon to the quick, that " from 80 MADAME ROLAND. our birth we are destined to wear the moral liver- ies of our parents ! " Poor Manon's best anodyne was an increase of benevolent activity. She was always at this time engaged in some active work of charity or other ; now visiting some destitute woman, or spending her dress-money on some deeply-indebted father of a family. She was now approaching the time of her majority, fixed at twenty-five by the French law. Even her dilatory relatives felt it necessary to take some decisive steps to bring about a divi sion of property in favor of the daughter. But these steps, by humiliating M. Phlipon, only ag- gravated the position of affairs. In consequence of this he became so irritated that at last, in June, 1779, ne bade his daughter leave his house once and forever. This violent threat was not a little calculated to upset Manon's equanimity. Practical and sagacious as she was, she could not help seeing the insurmountable obstacles which confronted a young unmarried woman the moment she should be cut adrift from her family. For such an one there seemed to be no inch of standing room on her native soil, and she must either be prepared to bow her neck beneath the yoke, or seek shelter in the tomb-like isolation of conventual life. English women, even at that time, were already acting with considerably more independ- FLIGHT TO CONVENT, AND MARRIAGE. 8l ence ; and the brave and beautiful Mary Woll- stonecraft, not many years from the present date, settled as a female author in London, " to be the first of a new genus." But Madame Roland's heroism did not consist in braving public opinion; on the contrary, she considered a certain confor- mity to it as part of the duty which the in- dividual owed to the social compact, — duty to which was, from first to last, the motive spring of her actions. A reconciliation having been effected between M. Phlipon and his daughter, the latter wrote to Sophie: — " The cares and worries of housekeeping are not repug- nant to me. With a lively taste for the acquisition of knowledge, I yet feel that I could pass the remainder of my life without opening a book or being bored by not doing so. Let only the home I live in be embellished by order, peace, and harmony ; let me only feel that I have helped towards making it so, and be able to tell myself at the close of each day that it has been usefully spent for the good of a few, — and I shall value existence and daily bless the rising of the sun." With her high conception of the responsibilities, of marriage, it cannot surprise us that Marie Phlipon could not make up her mind to accept one of the many wooers who had asked for her hand, in spite of her forlorn position, feeling, as she did, a stumbling-block in her father's way. Yet outlet, save in a makeshift marriage, there 6 82 MADAME ROLAND. seemed none for this grandly-organized creature. At first, as we have seen, she had been ready to take the conventional middle-class French view of marriage. Provided that positions were suit- able, parents agreed, the man not too repulsive, it seemed as if, in spite of inward misgivings, she must subordinate her own wishes in the matter to what was expected of her. But the more she reflected on the marriage state, the more clearly she came to see that no one had a right to de- mand of her that she should enter into so close and life-long a union with any person for whom she did not feel love, or at least entertain the highest regard ; and after a while she was con- vinced that her duty lay, not in contracting such a marriage, but in opposing it, — and then she stood firm as a rock, determined to do the hum- blest work, the most menial drudgery, to take service if need be, rather than sell herself in mar- riage for a mess of pottage. At the same time, in spite of her admiration of the " Nouvelle HeloYse," which had made her realize the ex- quisiteness of domestic joys, she was not haunted by visions of romantic love, and had but few illusions in regard to men. According to the severe Roman ideal, she regarded marriage as a union to be entered into from duty more than passion, and from a high devotion to the family, because on the family depended the welfare of FLIGHT TO CONVENT, AND MARRIAGE. 83 the State. But nothing seemed more improbable than that in her circle of acquaintances she should ever have a suitor to meet so stern an ideal. One day, however, there presented himself, with a letter of introduction from the faithful Amiens friend, a tall, meagre, rigorous gentleman, of a sallow complexion, already worn-looking, and scant of hair about the temples, but with the un- mistakable stamp of character about him. He had the air and manners of a scholar, was care- less in his dress, and spoke in an unmodulated voice (Manon was peculiarly susceptible to the sound of voices), with chopped-up sentences, as if he were scant of breath. But as he warmed up in conversation a benevolent smile lit up his countenance, and the range and thoroughness of his acquirements lent a keen interest to his so- ciety. This was Roland de la Platiere, of whom Lavater, who saw him some years afterwards in Zurich, exclaimed warmly : " You reconcile me to French travellers." Inspector of Manufactures at Amiens, he had often heard the Cannets speak of their remarkable friend at Paris, had seen her portrait hanging up in the drawing-room, and at last volunteered to play the postman to this phoenix of girls. On the other hand, Roland's praises had frequently been sung by Sophie, who said in introducing him: — 84 MADAME ROLAND. " You will receive this letter by the hand of the philoso- pher of whom I have spoken to you already, — M. Roland, an enlightened man of antique manners, without reproach, except for his passion for the ancients, his contempt of his age, and his too high estimation of his own virtue." The first interview took place as early as Jan- uary, 1776, and Manon was impressed by the dignity, uprightness, and pride which stamped his individuality, while his erudition inspired her with admiration. But the dogmatic narrowness and pedantry of his nature did not escape her. He awoke in her neither the tenderness which she had felt for Lablancherie, nor the intellectual enthusiasm Sainte Lette had done. As compared with the latter, she told her friend some weeks later, " M. Roland is a mere savant!' Never- theless, she was not altogether indifferent, and a certain feminine preoccupation peeps out from the following lines sent to Amiens immediately after this visit : — " Our conversation touched on a thousand interesting topics. I stammered a little, without being too shy ; I re- ceived him unceremoniously in my baigneuse and white camisole, in that tiigligi which you used to like in the summer mornings. [This was in January.] He may have seen from my manner that I was charmed by his visit, and has asked my leave to come again, which was willingly granted." The leave was not neglected. M. Roland pre- sented himself again before the fair stammerer FLIGHT TO CONVENT, AND MARRIAGE. 85 within the month. This time she was quite con- vinced that she had made the most unfavorable of impressions on the critical Roland. Of all the disenchanting accidents that beauty is liable to, she was then suffering from a violent cold in the head, which, next to sea-sickness, has perhaps the most sobering effect on the raptures of love. To add to her discomfort, her father, who never left her on such occasions if he could help it, and to whom these philosophical talks were caviare, fid- geted about the room, till she felt so teased that she had not even sense enough left to put any questions to M. Roland. Every one knows that the great art of conversation is to ask people the right kind of questions. Only give a man the opportunity of bringing out his pet theories and favorite stories, and he will pronounce you the most admirable talker he ever met. Manon, who pos- sessed the talent of listening, was no doubt mis- tress of the art of drawing people out ; but whether she failed on this occasion or not, Roland not only gave free vent to his opinions, but he startled and shocked her by his contemptuous mention of some of her favorite authors. On the whole this visit left an uncomfortable impression behind it, and Marie was convinced that it would be the last. Nevertheless, M. Roland repeated his calls, undismayed by disfiguring colds and fuming fathers, — possibly, with the oblivious- 86 MADAME ROLAND. ness of men to such sublunary trifles, he had remained in blissful ignorance of them. In May, 1776, Manon wrote to her friend that on this occasion she has learned to appreciate M. Roland better. " I have been charmed by the solidity of his judgment, the interest of his conversation, and the variety of his acquirements." In the summer of this year Roland left France for Italy, where he remained until 1778. He cor- responded with Mademoiselle Phlipon during his absence, and these letters, afterwards corrected and revised by both, were published under the title u Letters written from Switzerland, Italy, Sicily, and Malta in 1776, 1777, 1778." This book of Italian travel is, in Michelet's estimation, the best work on that subject produced in France during the eighteenth century. The manuscripts of which Roland had made his young friend the depositary, and which con- sisted in descriptions of travel, sketches of pro- jected works, and personal anecdotes, gave her a better opportunity of becoming acquainted with his mind than a number of personal interviews would have done. They increased her regard for Roland, and on his return from Italy she found a genuine friend in him. Their relations towards each other were apparently purely those of friend- ship ; and the fact of Manon classing Roland with Sainte Lette and a certain Boismorel, two seniors FLIGHT TO CONVENT, AND MARRIAGE. 87 whom she venerated for their wisdom and knowl- edge, shows that the idea of looking at him in any other light was far from her thoughts. Yet the staid philosopher could not come thus fre- quently in contact with the glowing nature of this magnificent girl without experiencing a stronger emotion than friendship. His feelings insensibly changed, and in the beginning of 1779 ne made Manon an offer of his hand. She, who respected and honored him more than any man she had met, felt highly gratified by this mark of affection. The prospect it opened of passing her life with one guided by the same lofty notions of duty and patriotism as herself, had always been the limit of her aspirations. True, this woman of five-and- twenty, in the full energy of life, would have been capable of a very different feeling from that in- spired in her by the grave, middle-aged Roland, more than twenty years her senior; nevertheless, it was a marriage in harmony with her precon- ceived views, and the consideration which pre- vented her from accepting him at first was not one of sentiment but of pride. The French custom of the woman bringing a dowry to her husband is so general, that to a proud nature, such as Manon's, the idea of en- tering the marriage state empty-handed, owing everything to the man she wedded, was almost intolerable. Shrinking from the idea of marrying 88 MADAME ROLAND. into a family which would consider M. Roland's choice as one beneath his name and expectations, she put all these objections before her wooer, with the cool impartiality of a third party, and advised him to desist from his suit. To advise a man to desist usually has the opposite effect of making him persist the more obstinately. This happened in Roland's case, rather more self-willed and obsti- nate than the generality of men. He no doubt told her that he did not wish to wed her dowry or her father, but herself alone ; and at last he obtained her consent formally to write to her father. But M. Phlipon's conduct on this occa- sion showed that whatever good-humor and geni- ality might have originally been his, had now turned into the most unmitigated scoundrelism. Not content with beggaring his daughter, his baseless spite now begrudged her this prospect of a settled home: probably the idea of finding a censor in this virtuous son-in-law galled his vanity. At any rate, after having vainly tried to tease her and flatter her and scold her into taking a husband, he now wrote a rude and humiliating refusal to Roland, of which he only informed his daughter after the event. This last drop filled her cup to overflowing. She considered that her father might possibly pay more attention to his business if left entirely to his own devices, and that it would be more FLIGHT TO CONVENT, AND MARRIAGE. 89 becoming in herself to make some kind of liveli- hood than drift into helpless destitution along with him. No sooner had she come to this reso- lution than she informed Roland that, fearful of becoming the source of fresh humiliations to him, she begged him to desist from his suit. Thus, without an open rupture, she at the age of five- and-twenty left the home which had been such a scene of " carking cares" since her mother's death. With her vigorous health and robust frame Manon could laugh at privations, and there would have been nothing very painful in her lot, but that all the avenues to the nobler kinds of work were closed to her, and that with her incomparable powers there yet seemed nothing for her to do but, if possible, to teach " the use of the globes " and a little feeble music to half a dozen pupils, — provided always that she could get them in her rather anomalous position. Young and unpro- tected, there seemed no course open but refuge in a nunnery. To a nunnery she went, therefore, — the same where she had passed such moments of religious ecstasy in her childhood, but now in how different a mood and mental attitude ! Per- mitted to become an inmate without sharing in the conventual life, she, for twenty