But when Madame Roland went up to Paris she found other interests, new friends. Bancal received less attention, and he, occupied in making new friends, gave less attention; gradually the personal tone dropped from their letters, and by the fall of 1792 the correspondence had become purely patriotic. The friendship became of still less moment to Madame Roland when Bancal revealed to her his love for Miss Williams, a young English girl who had been attracted to Paris by the Revolution, and there had become associated with the Girondins.
The affair with Bancal des Issarts proves Madame Roland to have had no more discretion than an ordinary woman when her heart was engaged, and drives one to the reluctant conclusion that in her case, as in the majority of cases, she was saved from folly by circumstances.
By experience and by reflection, then, she was armed. Indeed, on whatever side we regard the revelation of her love to Buzot, she was blamable save one—and that of importance. In the general dissolution of old ideas, in the return, in theory, to the state of nature, which intellectual France had made, every law of social life, as every law of government, had been traced to its origin, and its reasonableness and justice questioned in the light of pure theory. Marriage had come under the general dissection. Love is a divine law, a higher wisdom. It is unjust, unreasonable, unnatural, to separate those who love because of any previous tie. It is the natural right of man to be happy.
This opinion in the air had affected Madame Roland. She found it “bizarre and cruel” that two people should be chained together whom differences of age, of sentiment, of character, have rendered incompatible; and although she would not consent to take advantage of this theory and leave Roland, it justified her in loving Buzot and in telling him so.
It was not only the new ideas on love and marriage which influenced her. In the chaos of laws, of usages, of ideas, of aspirations, of hopes in which she found herself, there seemed nothing worth saving but this. The Revolution was stained and horrible. Her friends were helpless, she herself seemed to be no longer of any use,—why not seize the one last chance of joy? When the efforts and enthusiasms of one’s youth suddenly show themselves to be but illusions, and the end of life seems to be at hand, can it be expected that human nature with its imperious demand for happiness refuse the last chance offered? Remember, too, that never in the world’s history had a class of people believed more completely in the right to happiness, never demanded it more fully.
At all events Madame Roland and Buzot declared their love. But this was not enough for her; she felt that she could not deceive Roland and she told him that she loved Buzot, but that since it was her duty to stay with him (Roland) she would do it, and that she would be faithful to her marriage vows. All considerations of kindliness, of reserve, of womanly tenderness, of honor, should have dictated to Madame Roland that if she really had no intention of yielding to her love, as she certainly never had, it was useless and cruel to torment Roland at his age, with failing health, and in his desperate public position, with the story of her passion. He loved her devotedly, and she had incessantly worked to excite and deepen this love—to be told now that she loved another must wound him in his deepest affections. But she had a sentimental need of frankness. She loved expansion; she must open her heart to him. In doing it she heaped upon the overburdened old man the heaviest load a heart can carry, that of the desertion of its most trusted friend and companion, and that after years of association and almost daily renewal of vows of love and fidelity.
Absorbed by her passion, she found it unreasonable and vexing that Roland should take her confession to heart, that he did not rejoice over her candor and accept her “sacrifice” with gratitude and tears. In her Memoirs she says of Roland’s attitude towards the affair:
“I honor and cherish my husband as a sensitive daughter adores a virtuous father, to whom she would sacrifice even her lover; but I found the man who might have been my lover, and while remaining faithful to my duties, I was too artless to conceal my feelings. My husband, excessively sensitive on account of his affection and his self-respect, could not endure the idea of the least change in his empire; he grew suspicious, his jealousy irritated me. Happiness fled from us. He adored me, I sacrificed myself for him, and we were unhappy.”
Such was the delicate and painful situation in which Madame Roland, Buzot, and Roland were placed during the struggle between the Gironde and Mountain. We might expect despair and indifference from them in the face of the enormous difficulties in the Convention. But they never faltered. Their courage was superb from first to last. Furthermore, there is no sign left us of distrust and irritation towards one another. Buzot supported Roland in every particular. Madame Roland and her husband were associated as closely as ever in public work. Roland and Buzot, both of them, were held to an almost Quixotic state of forbearance and strength by the exalted enthusiasm of this woman of powerful sentiments and affections. Neither of the men ever looked upon her with dimmed love and respect. In spite of all she made them suffer, inspired by her faith in their virtue, they accepted a Platonic life à trois, and for many months were able to work together.