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 municipality 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 municipal council, there to defend the commercial interests of Lyons, in the committees of the Constituent Assembly.
The connection of Roland with philosophers and economists who formed the practical party of philosophy, his necessary intercourse with influential members of the Assembly, his literary tastes, and, above all, the attraction and natural temptation which drew and retained eminent men around a young, eloquent, and impassioned 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 constitution 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 Assembly. She saw the powerful Mirabeau, the dazzling Cazalès, the daring Maury, the crafty Lameth, the impassive Barnave. She remarked with annoyance and intense hate, in the attitude 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 noble attitude 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 éclat 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 passion to his style, did not throw any passion 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 Pétion, his fellow-student and friend. Pétion, already member of the Constituent Assembly, 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 Assembly, 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, Pétion, 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 Constituent Assembly, 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 assemble 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 assigned to her sex, equally flattered her woman's pride and passion for politics. She went through it with that modesty which would have been in her a chef d'œuvre 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 passed away taking with it the opportunity which never returns.