The King hesitated to sign the measure when it was presented to him. In Madame Roland’s eyes this refusal was due to nothing but his disloyalty, and she advised forcing him to a decision. She was, she says, in a kind of “moral fever” at the moment, and felt the absolute necessity of some kind of action which would determine the situation. In her judgment Roland should withdraw from the ministry if the King did not sign the measures. But she wished that if he withdrew everybody should know that he did it because the King would not take his advice.
In these circumstances Madame Roland proposed to Roland to send a letter to Louis XVI., stating his opinions, urging the King to consent to the proscription of the priests and the camp about Paris, and warning him against the consequences of a refusal. She dashed off this letter in a single sitting, in the passion of conviction and exaltation which possessed her.
“Sire,—The present condition of France cannot long endure. The violence of the crisis has reached the highest degree; it must be terminated by a blow which ought to interest Your Majesty as much as it concerns the whole Empire.
“Honored by your confidence, and placed in a position where I owe you the truth, I dare to speak it; it is an obligation that you yourself have imposed upon me.
“The French have adopted a constitution; there are those that are discontented and rebellious because of it; the majority of the nation wishes to maintain it, has sworn to defend it with its blood, and has welcomed joyfully the war which promises to assure it. The minority, however, sustained by its hopes, has united all its forces to overthrow it. Hence this internal struggle against the laws, this anarchy over which good citizens groan, and of which the wicked take advantage to heap calumny on the new régime. Hence this discord which has been excited everywhere, for nowhere is there indifference. The triumph or the overthrow of the constitution is desired; everywhere people are eager to sustain it or to change it. I shall refrain from examining it, and consider simply what circumstances demand; taking as impersonal attitude as possible, I shall consider what we can expect and what it is best to do.
“Your Majesty enjoyed great privileges which you believed belonged to royalty. Brought up in the idea of preserving them, you could not see them taken from you with pleasure; your desire to recover them was as natural as your regret at seeing them destroyed. These sentiments, natural to the human heart, must have entered into the calculation of the enemies of the Revolution. They counted then on secret favor, until such times as circumstances permitted open protection. This disposition could not escape the nation itself, and it has been driven to defiance. Your Majesty has been constantly between two alternatives: yielding to your prejudices, to your private preferences, or making sacrifices dictated by philosophy and demanded by necessity; that is, either emboldening the rebels by disturbing the nation; or quieting the nation by uniting with her. Everything has its course, and this uncertainty must end soon.
“Does Your Majesty ally yourself openly to-day with those who are pretending to reform the constitution? Are you going generously to devote yourself without reserve to its triumph? Such is the true question, and the present state of things makes a solution necessary.
“As for the very metaphysical question, are the French ripe for liberty, the discussion is of no importance here; it is not a question of judging what we shall be in a century, but of seeing of what the present generation is capable.
“The Declaration of Rights has become a political gospel, and the French Constitution, a religion for which the people are ready to die. Already violence has sometimes supplanted the law. When the law has not been sufficiently vigorous to meet the situation, the citizens have taken things in their own hands. This is why the property of the émigrés, or persons of their party, has been exposed to pillage. This is why so many departments have been forced to punish severely the priests whom public opinion had proscribed, and who otherwise would have become its victims.
“In the shock of interests, passion has controlled. The country is not a word that the imagination amuses itself in embellishing; it is a being for whom one makes sacrifices, to whom one becomes attached according to the suffering that it causes, who has been created by great effort, and raised up in the midst of disturbances, and who is loved for what it has cost as well as for what it promises. Every attack made upon it inflames enthusiasm for it.