History of the Girondists Part 20

After some years pa.s.sed at Amiens, Roland was promoted to the same duties at Lyons, his native place. In winter he dwelt in the town, and the rest of the year was pa.s.sed in the country in his paternal home, where his mother still lived, a respectable old woman, but meddlesome and overbearing in her household. Madame Roland, in all the flower of youth, beauty, and genius, thus found herself tormented and beset by a domineering mother-in-law, a rough brother-in-law, and an exacting husband. The most pa.s.sionate love could scarcely have been proof against so trying and painful a position. To soothe her she had the consciousness of discharging her duties, her occupation, her philosophy, and her child. It was sufficing, and eventually transformed this gloomy retreat into the abode of harmony and peace. We love to follow her into that solitude, when her mind was becoming tempered for her struggle, as we go to seek at Charmettes the still fresh and sparkling source of the life and genius of Jean Jacques Rousseau.

XII.

At the foot of the mountains of Beaujolais, in the large basin of the Saone, in face of the Alps, there is a series of small hills scattered like the sea sands, which the patient vine-dresser has planted with vines, and which form amongst themselves, at their base, oblique valleys, narrow and sinuous ravines, interspersed with small verdant meads. These meadows have each their thread of water, which filters down from the mountains: willows, weeping birch, and poplars, show the course and conceal the bed of the streams. The sides and tops of these hills only bear above the lowly vines a few wild peach trees, which do not shade the grapes and large walnut trees in the orchards near the houses.

On the declivity of one of these sandy protuberances was _La Platiere_, the paternal inheritance of M. Roland, a low farm-house, with regular windows, covered with a roof of red tiles nearly flat; the eaves of this roof project a little beyond the wall, in order to protect the windows from the rain of winter and the summer's sun. The walls, straight and wholly unornamented, were covered with a coating of white plaister, which time had soiled and cracked. The vestibule was reached by ascending five stone steps, surmounted by a rustic bal.u.s.trade of rusty iron. A yard surrounded by outhouses, where the harvest was gathered in, presses for the vintage, cellars for the wine, and a dove-cote, ab.u.t.ted on the house. Behind was levelled a small kitchen-garden, whose beds were bordered with box, pinks, and fruit trees, pruned close down to the ground. An arbour was formed at the extremity of each walk. A little further on was an orchard, where the trees inclining in a thousand att.i.tudes, cast a degree of shade over an acre of cropped gra.s.s; then a large enclosure of low vines, cut in right lines by small green sward paths. Such is this spot. The gaze is turned from the gloomy and lowering horizon to the mountains of Beaujeu, spotted on their sides by black pines, and severed by large inclined meadows, where the oxen of Charolais fatten, and to the valley of the Saone, that immense ocean of verdure, here and there topped by high steeples. The belt of the higher Alps, covered with snow and the apex of Mont Blanc, which overhangs the whole, frame this extensive landscape. There is in this something of the vastness of the infinite sea: and if on its bounded side it may inspire recollection and resignation, in its open part it seems to solicit thought to expand, and to convey the soul to far off hopes and to the eminences of imagination.

Such was, for five years, the bounded horizon of this young woman. It was there that she plunged into the plenitude of that nature of which, in her infancy, she had so frequently dreamed, and in which she had perceived only some small bits of sky, and some confused perspectives of royal forests, from the height of her window over the roofs of Paris. It was there that her simple tastes and loving soul found nutriment and scope for her sensibility.

Her life was there divided between household cares, the improvement of her mind, and active charity--that cultivator of the heart. Adored by the peasants, whose protectress she was, she applied to the consolation of their miseries the little to spare which a rigid economy left to her, and to the cure of their maladies the knowledge she had acquired in medicine. She was fetched from three and four leagues' distance to visit a sick person. On Sunday the steps of her court-yard were covered with invalids, who came to seek relief, or convalescents, who came to bring her proofs of their grat.i.tude; baskets of chestnuts, goats' milk cheeses, or apples from their orchards. She was delighted at finding the country people grateful and sensible of kindness. She had drawn her own picture of the people residing in the vicinity of large cities. The burning of chateaux, during the outbreak and ma.s.sacres of September, taught her subsequently that these seas of men, then so calm, have tempests more terrible than those of the ocean, and that society requires inst.i.tutions, just as the waves require a bed, and strength is as indispensable as justice to the government of a people.

XIII.

The hour of the Revolution of '89 had struck, and came upon her in the bosom of this retreat. Intoxicated with philosophy, pa.s.sionately devoted to the ideal of humanity, an adorer of antique liberty, she became on fire at the first spark of this focus of new ideas;--she believed with all her faith, that this revolution, like a child born without a mother's sufferings, must regenerate the human race, destroy the misery of the working cla.s.ses, for whom she felt the deepest sympathy, and renew the face of the earth. Even the piety of great souls has its imagination. The generous illusion of France at this epoch was equal to the work which France had to accomplish. If she had not dared to hope so much, she would have dared nothing: her faith was her strength.

From this day, Madame Roland felt a fire kindled within her which was never to be quenched but in her blood. All the love which lay slumbering in her soul was converted into enthusiasm and devotion for the human race. Her sensibility deceived--too ardent, unquestionably, for one man--spread over a nation. She adored the Revolution like a lover. She communicated this flame to her husband and to all her friends. All her repressed feelings were poured forth in her opinions; she avenged herself on her destiny, which refused her individual happiness, by sacrificing herself for the happiness of others. Happy and beloved, she would have been but a woman; unhappy and isolated, she became the leader of a party.

XIV.

The opinions of M. and Madame Roland excited against them all the commercial aristocracy of Lyons, an honest right-minded city, but one of money, where all becomes a calculation, and where ideas have the weight and immobility of interests. Ideas have an irresistible current, which attract even the most stagnant populations; Lyons was led on and overwhelmed by the opinions of the epoch. M. Roland was raised to the munic.i.p.ality at the first election, and spoke out with all the earnestness of his principles, and the energy inspired by his wife.

Feared by the timid, adored by the eager, his name, at first a byeword, became a rallying point;--public favour recompensed him for the insults of the rich. He was deputed to Paris by the munic.i.p.al council, there to defend the commercial interests of Lyons, in the committees of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly.

The connection of Roland with philosophers and economists who formed the practical party of philosophy, his necessary intercourse with influential members of the a.s.sembly, his literary tastes, and, above all, the attraction and natural temptation which drew and retained eminent men around a young, eloquent, and impa.s.sioned woman, soon made the _salon_ of Madame Roland an ardent, though not as yet noted, focus of the Revolution. The names which were found there reveal, from the first days, extreme opinions. For these opinions, the const.i.tution of 1791 was only a halt.

It was on the 20th February, 1791, that Madame Roland returned to that Paris which she had quitted five years before, a young girl, unknown and nameless, and whither she came as a flame to animate an entire party, found a republic, reign for a moment, and--die! She had in her mind a confused presentiment of this destiny. Genius and Will know their strength,--they feel before others and prophesy their mission. Madame Roland had beforehand seemed carried on by hers to the heart of action.

She hastened on the day after her arrival to the sittings of the a.s.sembly. She saw the powerful Mirabeau, the dazzling Cazales, the daring Maury, the crafty Lameth, the impa.s.sive Barnave. She remarked with annoyance and intense hate, in the att.i.tude and language of the right side, that superiority conferred by the habit of command and confidence in the respect of the million; on the left side, she saw inferiority of manners, and the insolence that mingles with low breeding. And thus did the antique aristocracy survive in blood, and avenge itself, even after its defeat on the democracy, which envied, whilst it beat it to the earth. Equality is written in the laws long before it is established in races. Nature is an aristocrat, and it requires a long use of independence to give to a republican people the n.o.ble att.i.tude and polished dignity of the citizen. Even in revolutions, the _parvenu_ of liberty is long seen in the vanquisher. Women's tact is very sensitive to these nice shades. Madame Roland understood them, but, so far from allowing herself to be seduced by this superiority of aristocracy, she was but the more indignant, and felt her hatred redoubled against a party which it was possible to overcome but impossible to humble.

XV.

It was at this period that she and her husband united with some of the most ardent amongst the apostles of popular ideas. It was not they who, as yet, were foremost in the favour of the people, and the _eclat_ of talent,--it was they who appeared to it, to love the Revolution for the Revolution itself, and to devote themselves, with sublime disinterestedness, not to the success of their fortune, but to the progress of humanity. Brissot was one of the first. M. and Madame Roland had been, for a long time, in correspondence with him on matters of public economy, and the more important problems of liberty. Their ideas had fraternised and expanded together. They were united beforehand by all the fibres of their revolutionary hearts, but, as yet, did not know it. Brissot, whose adventurous life, and unwearied contentions were allied to the youth of Mirabeau, had already acquired a name in journalism and the clubs. Madame Roland awaited him with respect; she was curious to judge if his features resembled the physiognomy of his mind. She believed that nature revealed herself by all forms, and that the understanding and virtue modelled the external senses of men just as the statuary impresses on the clay the outward forms of his conception. The first appearance undeceived, without discouraging her in her admiration of Brissot. He wanted that dignity of aspect, and that gravity of character which seem like a reflection of the dignity, life, and seriousness of his doctrines. There was something in the man political, which recalled the pamphleteer. His levity shocked her; even his gaiety seemed to her a profanation of the grave ideas of which he was the organ. The Revolution, which gave pa.s.sion to his style, did not throw any pa.s.sion into his countenance. She did not find in him enough hatred against the enemies of the people. The mobile mind of Brissot did not appear to have sufficient consistency for a feeling of devotion. His activity, directed upon all matters, gave him the appearance of a novice in ideas rather than an apostle. They called him an intriguer.

Brissot brought Petion, his fellow-student and friend. Petion, already member of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, and whose harangues in two or three cases had excited interest. Brissot was reputed to have inspired these orations. Buzot and Robespierre, both members of the same a.s.sembly, were introduced there. Buzot, whose pensive beauty, intrepidity, and eloquence were destined hereafter to agitate the heart and soften the imagination of Madame Roland; and Robespierre, whose disquiet mind and fanatic hatred cast him henceforward into all meetings where conspiracies were formed in the name of the people. Some others, too, came, whose names will subsequently appear in the annals of this period.

Brissot, Petion, Buzot, Robespierre, agreed to meet four evenings in each week in the _salon_ of Madame Roland.

XVI.

The motive of these meetings was to confer secretly as to the weakness of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, on the plots laid by the aristocracy to fetter the Revolution, and on the impulse necessary to impress on the lukewarm opinions, in order to consolidate the triumph. They chose the house of Madame Roland, because this house was situated in a quarter equi-distant from the homes of all the members who were to a.s.semble there. As in the conspiracy of Harmodius, it was a woman who held the torch to light the conspirators.

Madame Roland thus found herself cast, from the first, in the midst of the movement party. Her invisible hand touched the first threads of the still entangled plot which was to disclose such great events. This part, the only one that could be a.s.signed to her s.e.x, equally flattered her woman's pride and pa.s.sion for politics. She went through it with that modesty which would have been in her a _chef d'oeuvre_ of skill if it had not been a natural endowment. Seated out of the circle near a work table, she worked or wrote letters, listening all the time with apparent indifference to the discussions of her friends. Frequently tempted to take a share in the conversation, she bit her lips in order to check her desire. Her soul of energy and action was inspired with secret contempt for the tedious and verbose debates which led to nothing. Action was expended in words, and the hour pa.s.sed away taking with it the opportunity which never returns.

The conquests of the National a.s.sembly soon enervated the conquerors.

The leaders of this a.s.sembly retreated from their own handiwork, and covenanted with the aristocracy and the throne to grant the king the revision of the const.i.tution in a more monarchical spirit. The deputies who met at Madame Roland's lost heart and dispersed, until, at length, there only remained that small knot of unshaken men who attach themselves to principles regardless of their success, and who are attached to desperate causes with the more fervour in proportion as fortune seems to forsake them. Of this number were Buzot, Petion, and Robespierre.

XVII.

History must have a sinister curiosity in ascertaining the first impression made on Madame Roland, by the man who, warmed at her hearth, and then conspiring with her, was one day to overthrow the power of his friends, immolate them _en ma.s.se_, and send her to the scaffold. No repulsive feeling seems, at this period, to have warned her that in conspiring to advance Robespierre's fortune, she conspired for her own death. If she have any vague fear, that fear is instantly cloaked by a pity which is akin to contempt. Robespierre appeared to her an honest man; she forgave him his evil tongue and affected utterance.

Robespierre, like all men with one idea, appeared overcome with _ennui_.

Still she had remarked that he was always deeply attentive at these committees, that he never spoke freely, listened to all other opinions before he delivered his own, and then never took the pains to explain his motives. Like men of imperious temper, his conviction was to him always a sufficing reason. The next day he entered the tribune, and profiting, for his reputation's sake, by the confidential discussions to which he had listened in the previous evening, he antic.i.p.ated the hour of action agreed upon with his allies, and thus divulged the plan concerted. When blamed for this at Madame Roland's, he made but slight excuse. This wilfulness was attributed to his youth, and the impatience of his _amour-propre_. Madame Roland, persuaded that this young man was pa.s.sionately attached to liberty, took his reserve for timidity, and these petty treasons for independence. The common cause was a cover for all. Partiality transforms the most sinister tokens into favour or indulgence. "He defends his principles," said she, "with warmth and pertinacity--he has the courage to stand up singly in their defence at the time when the number of the people's champions is vastly reduced.

The court hates him, therefore we should like him. I esteem Robespierre for this, and show him that I do; and then too, though he is not very attentive at the evening meetings, he comes occasionally and asks me to give him a dinner. I was much struck with the affright with which he was agitated on the day of the king's flight to Varennes. He said the same evening at Petion's that the Royal Family had not taken such a step without preparing in Paris a Saint Bartholomew for the patriots, and that he expected to die before he was twenty-four hours older. Petion, Buzot, Roland, on the contrary, said that this flight of the king's was his abdication, that it was necessary to profit by it in order to prepare men's minds for the republic. Robespierre, sneering and biting his nails, as usual, asked what a republic was."

It was on this day that the plan of a journal, called the _Republican_, was arranged between Brissot, Condorcet, Dumont of Geneva, and Duchatelet. We thus see that the idea of a republic was born in the cradle of the Girondists before it emanated from Robespierre, and that the 10th of August was no chance, but a plot.

At the same epoch, Madame Roland had given way, in order to save Robespierre's life, to one of those impulses which reveal a courageous friends.h.i.+p, and leave their traces even in the memory of the ungrateful.

After the ma.s.sacre of the Champ-de-Mars, accused of having conspired with the originators of the pet.i.tion of forfeiture, and threatened with vengeance by the National Guard, Robespierre was obliged to conceal himself. Madame Roland, accompanied by her husband, went at 11 o'clock at night to his retreat in the Marais, to offer him a safer asylum in their own house. He had already quitted his domicile. Madame Roland then went to their common friend Buzot, and entreated him to go to the Feuillants, where he still retained influence, and with all speed to exculpate Robespierre before any act of accusation was issued against him.

Buzot hesitated for a moment, then replied,--"I will do all in my power to save this unfortunate young man, although I am far from partaking the opinion of many respecting him. He thinks too much of himself to love liberty; but he serves it, and that is enough for me. I shall be there to defend him." Thus, three of Robespierre's subsequent victims combined that night, and unknown to him, for the safety of the man by whom they were eventually to die. Destiny is a mystery whence spring the most remarkable coincidences, and which tend no less to offer snares to men through their virtues than their crimes. Death is everywhere: but, whatever the fate may be, virtue alone never repents. Beneath the dungeons of the Conciergerie Madame Roland remembered that night with satisfaction. If Robespierre recalled it in his power, this memory must have fallen colder on his heart than the axe of the headsman.

BOOK IX.

I.

After the dispersion of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, the mission of M. and Madame Roland having terminated, they quitted Paris. This woman, who had just left the centre of faction and business, returned to La Platiere to resume the cares of her rustic household and the pruning of her vines.

But she had quaffed of the intoxicating cup of the Revolution. The movement in which she had partic.i.p.ated for a moment impelled her still, though at a distance. She carried on a correspondence with Robespierre and Buzot; political and formal with Robespierre, pathetic and tender with Buzot. Her mind, her soul, her heart, all recalled it. Then took place between herself and her husband a deliberation, apparently impartial, in order to decide whether they should bury themselves in the country, or should return to Paris. But the ambition of the one, and the ardent desire of the other, had decided, unknown to, and before, either.

The most trifling pretext was sufficient for their impatience. In the month of December they were again installed in Paris.

It was the period when all their friends arrived. Petion had just been elected _maire_, and was creating a republic in the _commune_.

Robespierre, excluded from the Legislative a.s.sembly by the law which forbade the re-election of the members of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, found a tribune in the Jacobins. Brissot a.s.sumed Buzot's place in the new a.s.sembly, and his reputation, as a public writer and statesman, brought around him and his doctrines the young Girondists, who had arrived from their department, with the ardour of their age, and the impulse of a second revolutionary tide. They cast themselves, on their arrival, into the places which Robespierre, Buzot, Laclos, Danton, and Brissot had marked out for them.

Roland, the friend of all these men, but in the back ground, and concealed in their shadow, had one of those peculiar reputations, the more potent over opinion, as it made but little display: it was spoken of as though an antique virtue, beneath the simple appearance of a rustic: he was the Sieyes of his party. Beneath his taciturnity his deep thought was a.s.sured, and in his mystery the oracle was accredited. The brilliancy and genius of his wife attracted all eyes towards him: his very mediocrity, the only power that has the virtue of neutralising envy, was of service to him. As no one feared him, every body thrust him forward--Petion as a cover for himself--Robespierre to undermine him--Brissot to put his own villanous reputation under the shelter of proverbial probity--Buzot, Vergniaud, Louvet, Gensonne, and the Girondists, from respect for his science, and the attraction towards Madame Roland; even the Court, from confidence in his honesty and contempt for his influence. This man advanced to power without any effort on his own part, borne onwards by the favour of a party, by the _prestige_ which the unknown has over opinion, by the disdain of his opponents and the genius of his wife.

II.

The king had for some time hoped that the wrath of the Revolution would be softened down by its triumph. Those violent acts, those stormy oscillations between insolence and repentance, which had marked the inauguration of the a.s.sembly, had painfully undeceived him. His astonished ministry already trembled before so much audacity, and in the council avowed their incompetency. The king was desirous of retaining men who had given him such proofs of devotion to his person. Some of them, confidants or accomplices, served the king and queen, either by keeping up communications with the emigrants or by their intrigues in the interior.

M. de Montmorin, an able man, but unequal to the difficulties of the crisis, had retired. The two princ.i.p.al men of the ministry were M. de Lessart for Foreign Affairs; M. Bertrand de Molleville in the Marine Department. M. de Lessart, placed by his position between the armed emigrants, the impatient a.s.sembly, undecided Europe, and the inculpated king, could not fail to fall under his own good intentions. His plan was to avoid war in his own country by temporising and negotiations--to suspend the hostile demonstration of foreign power: to present to the intimidated a.s.sembly the king, as sole arbiter and negotiator of peace between his people and the foreigner; and he trusted thus to adjourn the final collisions between the a.s.sembly and the throne, and to re-establish the regular authority of the king by preserving peace. The personal arrangements of the emperor Leopold aided him in his plans; he had only to contend against the fatality which urges men and things to their _denouement_. The Girondists, and Brissot especially, overwhelmed him with accusations, inasmuch as he was the man who could most r.e.t.a.r.d their triumph. By sacrificing him they could sacrifice a whole system: their press and their harangues pointed him out to the fury of the people;--the partisans of war marked him down as their victim. He was no traitor--but with them to negotiate was to betray. The king, who knew he was irreproachable and confided all his plans to him, refused to sacrifice him to his enemies, and thus acc.u.mulated resentments against the minister. As to M. de Molleville, he was a secret enemy of the const.i.tution. He advised the king to play the hypocrite, acting in the letter, and thus to destroy the spirit, of the law,--advancing by subterranean ways to a violent catastrophe,--when, according to him the monarchical cause must come out victorious. Confiding in the power of intrigue more than in the influence of opinion, seeking everywhere traitors to the popular cause, paying spies, bargaining for consciences, believing in no one's incorruptibility, keeping up secret intelligence with the most violent demagogues, paying in hard money for the most incendiary propositions under the idea of making the Revolution unpopular from its very excesses, and filling the tribunes of the a.s.sembly with his agents in order to choke down with their hootings, or render effective by their applause, the discourses of certain orators, and thus to feign in the tribunes a false people and a false opinion; men of small means in great matters presuming that it is possible to deceive a nation as if it were an individual. The king, to whom he was devoted, liked him as the depositary of his troubles, the confidant of his relations with foreign powers, and the skilful mediator of his negotiation with all parties. M. de Molleville thus kept himself in well-managed balance between his favour with the king, and his intrigues with the revolutionary party He spoke the language of the const.i.tution well--he had the secret of many consciences bought and paid for.

It was between these two men that the king, in order to comply with popular opinion, called M. de Narbonne to the ministry of war. Madame de Stael and the const.i.tutional party sought the aid of the Girondists.

Condorcet, was the mediator between the two parties. Madame de Condorcet, an exceedingly lovely woman, united with Madame de Stael in enthusiasm for the young minister. The one lent him the brilliancy of her genius, the other the influence of her beauty. These two females appeared to fuse their feelings in one common devotion for the man honoured by their preference. Rivalry was sacrificed at the shrine of ambition.

III.

The point of union of the Girondist party with the const.i.tutional party, in that combination of which M. de Narbonne's elevation was the guarantee, was the thirst of both parties for war. The const.i.tutional party desired it, in order to divert internal anarchy, and dispel those fermentations of agitation which threatened the throne. The Girondist party desired it in order to push men's minds to extremities. It hoped that the dangers of the country would give it strength enough to shake the throne and produce the republican regime.

It was under these auspices that M. de Narbonne took office. He also was desirous of war; not to overthrow the throne in whose shadow he was born, but to dazzle and shake the nation, to hazard fortune by desperate casts, and to replace at the head of the people under the arms of the high military aristocracy of the country, La Fayette, Biron, Rochambeau, the Lameths, Dillon, Custines, and himself. If victory favoured the French flag, the victorious army, under const.i.tuent chiefs, would control the Jacobins, strengthen the reformed monarchy, and maintain the establishment of the two chambers; if France was destined to reverses, unquestionably the throne and aristocracy must fall, but better to fall n.o.bly in a national contest of France against her enemies, than to tremble perpetually and to perish at last in a riot by the pikes of the Jacobins. This was the adventurous and chivalrous policy which pleased the young men by its heroism, and the women by its _prestige_. It betokened the high courage of France. M. de Narbonne personified it in the council. His colleagues, MM. de Lessart and Bertrand de Molleville, saw in him the total overthrow of all their plans. The king, as usual, was all indecision; one step forward and one backwards; surprised by the event in his hesitation, and thus unable to resist a shock, or himself to give any impulse.

Beside these official councillors, certain const.i.tuents not in the a.s.sembly, especially the Lameths, Duport, and Barnave, were consulted by the king. Barnave had remained in Paris some months after the dissolution of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly. He redeemed by sincere devotion to the monarchy the blows he had previously dealt upon it. He had measured with an eye of judgment, the rapid declivity down which the love of popular favour had impelled him. Like Mirabeau, he wished to pause when it was too late. Henceforth, remaining on the brink of events, he was besieged with terror and remorse. If his intrepid heart did not tremble for himself, the sympathy he experienced for the queen and royal family urged him to give the king advice which had but one fault,--it was impossible now to follow it.