The reasonable girl who welcomed Louis XVI. to the throne, the politic woman who for years had been seeking a title and its advantages, and who had been willing to devote all her splendid power to reforming the old régime, had become suddenly inexorable in her demands, unyielding in her suspicions, fierce in her thought. She believed that one must “watch and preach to the last sigh or else not mingle with the Revolution.” It was the revolt of the idealist against compromises made in the past; resentment for wrongs suffered; the “strike back” for the title not granted, and for Roland’s talent and services unrecognized; the hope of realizing dreams of an ideal society.
Nor was it a momentary enthusiasm. Her conviction never wavered. Others as firmly founded in the doctrines as she, and as eloquent in their defence of them, hesitated sometimes, drew back with apprehension at the torrents of passion and of demagogy they were loosening on France. But she never admitted that anything but “complete regeneration” could come of their teachings. It was the woman’s nature which, stirred to its depths by enthusiasm or passion, becomes narrow, stern, unbending,—which can do but one thing, can see but one way; that inexplicable feminine conviction which is superior to experience, and indifferent to logic.
VI
FIRST POLITICAL SALON
The Rolands were not long in embroiling themselves in Lyons and in the Beaujolais. Disorganization and disorder were increasing daily there, as in Paris and throughout the country. The aristocracy, clergy, and commercial portions of the community, irritated at the failure of the government to restore tranquillity, and discouraged over the delay of the National Assembly in forcing its way through the difficulties of the situation, grew hard against the Revolution. There was a universal demand for order. Disorder grew from day to day.
The conservative party was firmly convinced that the disorder was the fault of the friends of the Revolution. There was a suspicion of everybody who professed the new doctrines. Those who taught them were regarded as dangerous “agitators.” The reforms to which they had consented, and which they had left to the National Assembly, would never be made, they felt, unless the people could be quieted. They saw a general and universal catastrophe awaiting society if organization was not restored.
On the other hand, the liberals saw in the policy of the aristocrats and clergy a plot against the people; sympathy with the Court. The disorders which occurred they attributed either to the just indignation of the long-oppressed “sovereign,” or to hired agitators, brought in by the conservative party to stir up riots, and thus cover the popular cause with odium.
On either hand there were accusations without proof, suspicions without cause, violence and hatred instead of patience and good-will. All of the generosity, the dignity, the reasonableness, which the different estates had shown a year before in the memorials which they had sent to the States-General, had disappeared.
Roland and his wife were known to be deeply in sympathy with democratic ideas, to preach them constantly. In spite of the fact that his natural relations were with the aristocratic class, Roland was active in the people’s clubs at Lyons; he was called the Mæcenas of Champagneux. He was suspected, if not of inciting to disorder, yet of sympathizing with it, and of regarding it as an instrument for forcing the Court, and driving the Assembly. He began to be considered a “suspect” by the conservatives. Such was the feeling towards him when he was a candidate for mayor, in 1789, that the most improbable stories were circulated about him. The Abbé Guillon declares in his Memoirs that Roland disguised himself and went into the taverns, begging the people’s votes; that he joined in their orgies and distributed among them seditious pamphlets. These charges are so inconsistent with the real character of Roland that it is not worth considering them, and they are only worth quoting as a specimen of the violent suspicions of the liberals, or révolutionnaires, held and spread by the conservative party.
About this time a question arose in which Roland took an active interest—that of the octroi. The misery of the people of Lyons demanded that it be removed. It was retained, however, and the people, desperate, rose in revolt. This uprising, said the patriots, was “spontaneous.” It was the “work of agitators,” declared the conservatives. Brissot, in the Patriote français, condemned the riot. Roland wrote, thereupon, a long letter defending it, and remarked in Lyons, one day, that there never had been a revolution yet without bloodshed. This was enough for his opponents to declare him to be the author of the insurrection. “This report has already [21 July, 1790] reached the capitol,” wrote Madame Roland to Bancal, “and in three or four quarters of Lyons, where the mercantile aristocracy is dominant, the strangest things are said against him. You judge that this storm disturbs us very little; we have seen more terrible, and would not mind it if our enemies should cause us to be called to the bar of the National Assembly. Our friend there would be like Scipio before the assembly of the people.”
Every-day matters grew more complicated. The aristocracy, in face of the disorders, called upon the government for troops. The people, like the Parisians the year before, were exasperated at the idea of guards. At the same time rumors of an Austrian and Prussian invasion, organized by the émigrés who had been leaving France ever since the days of October 5th, irritated and frightened the Lyonnais. It was said that the enemy would enter by the way of Savoy. The idea of a counter-revolution, centred in Lyons, was spread abroad and inflamed more than ever the nervous and terrified populace.