"The king is not known," said Roland to his wife: "a weak prince, he is one of the best of men; he does not want good intentions, but good advice: he does not like the aristocracy, and has strong affection for the people: perhaps he was born to serve as the medium between republic and monarchy. By rendering the constitution easy to him we shall make him like it, and the popularity he will re-acquire by following our counsels will render government easy to ourselves. His nature is so great that the throne has been unable to corrupt it, and he is equally remote from the silly brute which has been held up to the laughter of the people as from the sensitive and highly accomplished man his courtiers pretend to adore in him; his mind, without being superior, is expansive and reflecting; in a humble position his abilities would have provided for him; he has a general and occasionally sound knowledge, knows the details of business, and acts towards men with that simple but persuasive ability which gives kings the precocious necessity of governing their impressions; his prodigious memory always recalls to him at the right time things, names, and faces; he likes work, and reads every thing; he is never idle for a moment; a tender parent, a model of a husband: chaste in feeling, he has done away with all those scandals which disgraced the courts of his predecessors; he loves none but the queen, and his condescension, which is occasionally injurious to his politics, is at least a weakness 'which leans to virtue's side.' Had he been born two centuries earlier his peaceable reign would have been counted amongst the number of happy years of the monarchy. Circumstances appear to have influenced his mind. The Revolution has convinced him of its necessity, and we must convince him of its possibility. In our hands the king may better serve it than any other citizen in the kingdom; by enlightening this prince we may be faithful alike to his interests and those of the nation—the king and Revolution must be with us as one."
X.
Thus said Roland in the first dazzling of power; his wife listened with a smile of incredulity on her lips. Her keener glance had at the instant measured a career more vast and a termination more decisive than the timid and transitory compromise between a degraded royalty and an imperfect revolution. It would have cost her too much to renounce the ideal of her ardent soul; all her wishes tended to a republic; all her exertions, all her words, all her aspirations, were destined, unconsciously to herself, to urge thither her husband and his associates.
"Mistrust every man's perfidy, and more especially your own virtue," was her reply to the weak and vain Roland. "You see in this world but courts, where all is unreal, and where the most polished surfaces conceal the most sinister combinations. You are only an honest countryman wandering amongst a crowd of courtiers,—virtue in danger amidst a myriad of vices: they speak our language, and we do not know theirs. Would it be possible that they should not deceive us? Louis XVI., of a degenerate race, without elevation of mind, or energy of will, allowed himself to be enthralled early in life by religious prejudices, which have even lessened his intellect; fascinated by a giddy queen, who unites to Austrian insolence the enchantment of beauty and the highest rank, and who makes of her secret and corrupt court the sanctuary of her pleasures and the focus of her vices, this prince, blinded on the one hand by the priests, and on the other by love, holds at random the loose reins of an empire which is escaping from his grasp. France, exhausted of men, does not give to him, either in Maurepas, Necker, or Calonne, a minister capable of supporting him. The aristocracy is barren, and produces nothing but to its shame; the government must be renewed in the holier and deeper fount of the nation; the time for a democracy is here,—why delay it! You are its men, its virtues, its characters, its intelligence. The Revolution is behind you, it hails you, urges you onward, and would you surrender it to the first smile from the king because he has the condescension of a man of the people? No: Louis XVI., half dethroned by the nation, cannot love the nation that fetters him; he may feign to caress his chains, but all his thoughts are devoted to the idea of how he can spurn them. His only resource at this moment is to protest his attachment to the Revolution, and to lull the ministers whom the Revolution empowers to watch over his intrigues. But this pretence is the last and most dangerous of the conspiracies of the throne. The constitution is the forfeiture of Louis XVI., and the patriot ministers are his superintendents. Fallen greatness cannot love the cause of its decadence; no man likes his humiliation. Trust in human nature, Roland—that alone never deceives, and mistrust courts. Your virtue is too elevated to see the snares which courtiers spread beneath your feet."
XI.
Such language amazed Roland. Brissot, Condorcet, Vergniaud, Gensonné, Guadet, and especially Buzot, the friend and most intimate confidant of Madame Roland, strengthened at their evening meetings the mistrust of the minister. He armed himself with fresh distrust from their conversations, and entered the council with a more frowning brow and more resolute determination: the king's frankness disarmed him—Dumouriez discouraged him by his gaiety—power softened him by its influence. He wavered between the two great difficulties of the moment, the double sanction required from the king for the decrees which were most repugnant to his heart and conscience, the decree against the emigrants, and the decree against the nonjuring priests; and he wavered as to war.
During this tergiversation of Roland and his colleagues, Dumouriez acquired the favour of the king and the people, the secret of his conduct being comprised in what he had said a short time before to M. de Montmorin, in a secret conversation he had with that minister. "If I were king of France, I would disconcert all parties by placing myself at the head of the Revolution."
This sentence contained the sole line of policy capable of saving Louis XVI. In a time of revolution every king who is not revolutionary must be inevitably crushed between the two parties: a neutral king no longer reigns—a pardoned king degrades the throne—a king conquered by his own people has for refuge only exile or the scaffold. Dumouriez felt that his first step was to convince the king of his personal attachment, and take him into his confidence, or indeed make him his accomplice in the patriotic part he proposed to play; constitute himself the secret mediator between the will of the monarch and the exactions of the cabinet, to control the king by his influence over the Girondists, and the Girondists by his influence over the king; the part of the favourite of misfortune and protector of a persecuted queen pleased alike his ambition and his heart. A soldier, diplomatist, gentleman, there was in his soul a wholly different feeling for degraded royalty than the sentiment of satisfied jealousy which filled the minds of the Girondists. The prestige of the throne existed for Dumouriez; the prestige of liberty only existed for the Girondists. This feeling, revealed in his attitude, language, gestures, could not long escape the observation of Louis XVI. Kings have twofold tact, misfortune makes them more nice; the unfortunate perceive pity in a look; it is the only homage they are allowed to receive, and they are the more jealous of it. In a secret conversation the king and Dumouriez came to an understanding.
XII.
Dumouriez's restless conduct in his commands in Normandy, the friendship of Gensonné, the favour of the Jacobins for him, had prejudiced Louis XVI. against his new minister. The minister, on his side, expected to find in the king a spirit opposed to the constitution, a mind trammelled by routine, a violent temper, an abrupt manner, and using language imperious and offensive to all who approached him. Such was the caricature of this unfortunate prince. It was necessary to disfigure him in order to make the nation hate him.