Thus suspicion drove them from the conservative party, while fear of suspicion drove them towards the Mountain. Resentment at superior refinement turned their sympathy from the decent element of the Assembly, while a superstition about the true meaning of rags, dirt, and disorder awakened it for the wanton element.
Just as they floated between the parties of the Assembly, they vacillated between the clubs,—the Feuillants, which was for the constitution, and the Jacobins, which was for anarchy. Their object was not simply to do what was just and honorable, it was to do what would carry them into power. They must have power in order to carry their cause. To serve their party all means were justifiable. It was their uncertainty about which side would the quicker give them the leadership of the Assembly which explains their wavering over all the questions which absorbed the attention of the Legislative Assembly,—such as the questions of the unsworn priests, the immigration of nobles, and the declaration of war against Austria.
When the Rolands came up to Paris in December, the Gironde was floating between the two other parties, fearing both, suspected by both. Hate, defiance, exaggeration, were at their height. No one knew what would happen next. “You would say it was a fleet at anchor in a thick fog,” wrote Morris to Washington. “No one dares to put up sail for fear of running against a rock.”
When Madame Roland appeared on the scene, she had no hesitation in deciding what should be done by the Gironde. She had been too firmly convinced since the fall of the Bastille of the benefits of anarchy to fear it now. The lack of it had long been her despair. She was too suspicious of all persons of aristocratic origin to tolerate any union with the conservative party. She was too firmly convinced of the value of war as a “great school of public virtue” to hesitate about offensive operations.
Arrived in Paris, they settled in the Rue de la Harpe, where they lived very quietly, Roland occupying himself with the encyclopædia, with his plan for a pension, and with his friends. He went to the chief places of Gironde rendezvous when he had leisure, and they came to him sometimes. His chief political work, however, was at the Jacobin Club, where he was engaged on a committee.
Their life was very quiet until March, when it suddenly changed. A friend dropping in one day told Madame Roland that the patriots were to be asked to form a ministry and that as they were going to seek men of ability and courage, Roland had been thought of for a portfolio. Some days later (March 21, 1792) Brissot came to see her to inquire if Roland would accept if asked. They talked the matter over, considered its dangers, sounded its possibilities,—the next day Brissot was told in classic phrase that Roland’s courage did not falter, that the knowledge of his force inspired him with confidence in his ability to be useful to the country and to liberty.
The movement which had brought about the Girondin ministry had been led by Brissot. After the vetoes of the King to the decrees against the priests and émigrés, every effort had been made by the Jacobins to show that the ministry of the King was in secret sympathy with Court and émigrés, that while posing as constitutional, they were, in fact, anti-constitutional. Brissot had led this movement, and had condescended to some very low manœuvres to discredit certain members of the ministry. His plans had at last succeeded, and Louis XVI., hoping to quiet suspicion, had consented to name a cabinet which would satisfy the Girondins.
It was in this body that Roland had been asked to take the Department of the Interior. As was to be expected, the conservatives criticised the new ministers harshly from the first. Roland was pictured to the country by the Mercure as one of the principal agitators of Lyons; “no administrative talent, no experience in affairs of state, a hot head, and the principles of the times in their greatest exaggeration.” The conservative element naturally accepted this characterization; for, outside of the manufacturing world, Roland was utterly unknown. As for the Jacobin element, it was a question of how far in anarchy the cabinet would go; if it kept up with them, well and good; if it fell behind, then let it take care.
With Roland’s appointment, Madame Roland was at once put into a position of responsibility and power. The Hôtel of the Interior, into which they moved, was situated in the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs at the point where the Rue Ventadour now opens. It was a fine building which had been arranged elegantly by Calonne for the controller-general. In going into this palace they did not give up their apartment in the Rue de la Harpe. The other ministers settled themselves as if they were to remain for life, but Madame Roland saw only the “luxury of an inn” in the gilded hôtel, and kept her modest apartment on the Left Bank, a “retreat which one must always have in mind as certain philosophers their coffins,” she told Bancal.
In no way were their habits changed by their new position. Roland was, perhaps, even a little more severe than usual, and took virtuous delight in appearing at Court with ribbons on his shoes instead of buckles, to the horror of the courtiers. They called him a Quaker in Sunday dress, with his white hair plastered down and sparsely powdered, his plain black coat, above all his unadorned shoes. Madame Roland arranged her life with strict regard for her notions of classic simplicity. She neither made nor received visits, and never invited women to dinner. Every Friday she had the members of the ministry; twice a week a mixed company of ministers, deputies, and persons Roland wanted to see. Rarely were there more than fifteen covers at table. One sat down at five o’clock to a meal always simple, and at nine o’clock this puritan household was closed. Of course, there was the theatre, with a loge for the minister, but it was not often that she left her duties for it.