The conquests of the National Assembly soon enervated the conquerors. The leaders of this Assembly retreated from their own handiwork, and covenanted with the aristocracy and the throne to grant the king the revision of the constitution 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, Pétion, 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 masse, 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 anticipated 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 passionately 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 Pétion'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. Pétion, 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 Duchâtelet. 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 friendship, and leave their traces even in the memory of the ungrateful. After the massacre of the Champ-de-Mars, accused of having conspired with the originators of the petition 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 Constituent Assembly, 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 Platière 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 participated 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.