les maisons de Chaillot. A suburb of Paris

1. 12. des larmes douces coulaient délicieusement de mes yeux. The sensibility of the eighteenth century found fréquent expression in tears. Cf. Mackenzies' Man of Feeling ; Goethe's Werther ; Voyage autour de ma Chambre, ch. xix : ' Je nettoyai déhcieusement mon souUer gauche, sur lequel je laissai tomber une larme de repentir.'

Rousseau was the sentimentalist of the eighteenth century. The other philosophers of the period found their source of inspiration in reason. Rousseau exalted sentiment in the place of reason.

' Parmi tous les intellectuels qui l'entourent, Rousseau est un sensitif.' It was the sentimental in Rousseau which created his EurOTean influence.

1«>^. ce beau qvnrtier de Vile Saint-Louis. An island in the Seine, called after King Louis IX of France. In the quartier de Vîle St-Louis Uved Madame Roland's patemal grandmother, together with a sister. Mademoiselle Rotinet, the tante Angélique spoken of hère.

1. 32. le burin, an engraver's tool (cf. Ger. bohren, to pierce).

Page 8. 1. 15. cette Hêloîse future du dix-huitième siède. The original Héloïse, famous for her attachment to Abélard, lived 1101 -11 64. Lamartine is hère comparing Madame Roland to the Nouvelle Hêloîse, Julie, the heroine of Rousseau's novel. But the comparison is not just; Madame Roland's social circumstances were entirely différent from those of Juhe, and she at no moment of her life yielded to the weakness of Rousseau's heroine.

1, 25. Rousseau aux Charmettes. Les Charmettes, a picturesque viîlage in Savoy, not far from Chambéry, where Rousseau Uved under the protection of Madame de Warens and prepared himself for the work of his Ufe by an arduous course of reading. His first attempts with the pen were also made there. Cf. Confessions, Partie I, liv. vi.

J/2B. le Contrat social. The most famous political treatise of the qi^teenth century, published in 1762. The main argument of it is that ail govemment rests upon a contract between the govemor and the govemed, in accordance with which the govemed abandon a certain portion of their natural hberty in retum for certain advantages to be derived from the Govemment. Thèse advantages, considered as absolutely binding upon ail govemment for ail time, are called in technical language 'TheRights of Man.' But, in the more limited sensé the term 'contract' dénotes also the obhgations of any spécifie govemment at any particular period towards those it govems ; hence, in Rousseau the obligations of the Bourbons towards the people of France in the eighteenth century. The political ideas expressed by Rousseau are borrowed to some extent from Hobbes's Leviathan (cf. Part II, chapter xvi) and Locke's Treatise on Government {1690), though they are not identical with those of the Enghsh philosophers. The weak point in Rousseau is that he argues as a metaphysician pure and simple, imaffected by any considération of practical expediency.

1. 27. Philopœmen. Chief of the Achaean League, sumamed * the last of the Greeks ' (b.c. 253-183). The incident of his cutting wood is thus related by Plutarch : ' A certain hostess of Megara having had word brought her that the gênerai of the Achaeans

was coming to her house during the absence of her husband, was ail in a huny about providing his supper. Philopoemen, in an ordinary cloak, arriving at this point of time, she took him for one of his own train who had been sent on before, and bid him lend her his hand in his household work. He forthwith threw ofE his cloak and fell to cutting up the firewood. The husband retuming, and seeing him at it : — ' What,' says he, ' may this mean, O Philopoemen ? ' 'I am,' he repUed, ' pajdng the penalty of my ugly looks.'

Page 9. 1. 17. les affranchis, freedmen. The visit in question was paid to a certain Madame de Boismorel, a connexion of her grandmother's who hved in the rue Saint-Louis, in the Marais.

1. 27. Versailles. A town within a short distance of Paris containing a famous palace built originally by Louis XIII and greatly enlarged by Louis XIV The palace and park cost the enormous sum of 500 million francs, and the sum spent annually on its maintenance was something fabulous, for which reason it was called by Voltaire Vahîme des dépenses.

After the year 1682 Versailles became the permanent headquarters of the Court. It was hère that, at the meeting of the Estâtes in 1789, the Tiers-État took the mémorable step of forming itself into a separate body, the Assemblée Nationale.

1. 31. ce luxe royal qu'eue croyait payé, &c. For a description of French society, and more especially of the life at the French Court, at this period, cf. Ed. de Concourt, La Société française pendant la Révolution ; Taine, L'Ancien Régime ; Pierre de Nolhac, Marie- Antoinette Dauphine and Marie-Antoinette Reine.

Page 10. 1. 16. elle songeait à Athènes, &c. Athens was a repubhc, and hence in Madame Roland' s eyes safe from the corruption inévitable under a monarchy. Nevertheless Athens condemned Socrates (468-399) and Phocion (402-317) todrink poison, and banished Aristides the Just (540^68).

1. 36. Son père voulait la marier. Note the construction of marier. Marier quelqu'un, to give someone in marriage, i.e. to marry someone to a third person ; se marier à or avec quelqu'un, to marry, to get married.

Page U. 1. 8. Platon. Cf. note, p. 144, 1. 8.

1. 33. Sans aucune intention de devenir écrivain. It is doubtful whether this statement should be taken au pied de la lettre. It seems inconceivable that Madame Roland should hâve devoted herself so assiduously as she herself describes to the art of writing if she had not been impelled by some ulterior motive, such as a désire for Uterary famé. Cf. Michelet, Les Femmes de la Révo-

liUion, chapter xiv: 'elle était née scribe.' Cf. note, p. 138, 1.21.

1. 39. Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière belonged to the noblesse de la robe, and was bom at Villefranche, near Lyons, in 1752. He was inspector-general of fac tories when M^'^ Cannet introduced him to Manon Philipon. After a courtship of five years they were married. In 1786 he was promoted to the inspectorgeneralship at Lyons, and when the Révolution broke out he took a keen interest in local poli tics. In 1791 he was deputed by the city of Lyons to represent its condition to the Constituent Assembly, and on his return he founded a branch of the Jacobin Club there.

His post being suppressed, he took up his permanent résidence in Paris, and, in 1792, was appointed to the Ministry of the Interior, for which he was intellectually unfîtted. He had no grasp of afïairs, and no eye for the future.

For the estimation in which he was held by his contemporaries, cf. p. 25; Michelet does not seem to share this opinion. Cf. Femmes de la Révolution, chapter xiv : ' Cet homme (Roland) qu'on a trop sacrifié à la gloire de sa femme était un ardent citoyen qui avait la France dans le cœur, un de ces vieux Français de la race des Vauban et des Boisguillebert.

Page 12. 1. 1. une de ses jeunes amies d^ enfance mariée à Amiens. Whilst in the couvent of the Dames de la Congrégation, Madame Roland had contracted a friendship with two Demoiselles Cannet from Amiens, the elder one Sophie, about eighteen years old, the younger one, Henriette, about fourteen. The elder one became Manon Philipon' s most cherished friend, and their correspondence is one of the chief sources of our information concerning Madame Roland up to the time of her marriage, when M. Roland insisted that their intercourse should be restricted. They remained friends notwithstanding, and Henriette even offered to take Madame Roland's place in prison and to suffer death for her. The correspondence between Madame Roland and her friends was published in 1841. Sophie married the Chevalier de Gomiécourt ; Henriette, who had herself been destined for Roland, an old man named Vouglans.

1. 33. magistrature. A magistrat is not the équivalent of an EngUsh magistrate. The latter is in France always a stipendiary, and is caUed a juge de paix. The magistrature includes ail high gQ¥emment officiais and judges, of whatever rank.

^,' Page 13. \. 3. V esprit de Turgot. Anne-Robert Jacques Turgot, 1727-1781, a famous minister of finance under Louis XVI. Originally an ecclesiastic, he renounced his brilliant prospects in

144 MADAME KOLAND

the Church, ' pour ne point se condamner toute sa vie à porter un masque sur le visage.' He became conseiller au Parlement in 1757, contributed to the Encyclopaedia, and was Minister of Finance from August, 1775, to May, 1776. He, together with Malesherbes, attempted great économie reforms, which, however, aroused such opposition that the King was obliged to dispense with the services of thèse two able men.

1. 19. les associations antiques des jours de Socrate et de Platon. Socrates (468-399), an Athenian philosopher, whose teaching revolutionized the whole drift of subséquent philosophie spéculation Plato (429-347), the greatest of Greek philosophers — a professed disciple of Socrates. Both were famous as instructors of youth.

1. 27. se retira dans un couvent, i. e. as a pensionnaire, not for the purpose of leading a religions life. She was hardly dénuée de tout, though obliged to lead a life of strict economy. Cf. her description in her Mémoires, éd. Barrière, p. 192.

Page 14. 1. 22. L'Hélolse de Rousseau (1757-1759). The most famous novel of the eighteenth century. The heroine is a certain Julie who is married to Volmar, a man much older than herself.

AGE 15. 1. 12. L'Encyclopédie nouvelle. It was a reprint bf the Grande Encyclopédie, completed in 1772, under the editorship of Diderot. His coUaborators had included Voltaire, Montesquieu, Bufîon, Condillac, Duclos, Marmontel, Helvétius, Rajrnal, Turgot, Necker, as well as a host of inferior scribes ; in their hands the Encyclopaedia became what Diderot had intended it should be : ' une irrésistible machine dressée contre l'esprit, les croyances, les institutions du passé ' (Lanson). The contributors to it were denounced in the Parlement, by the Advocate-General Omer de Fleury, as 'une société formée pour soutenir le matérialisme, pour détruire la religion, pour inspirer l'indépendance, et nourrir la corruption des mœurs,' Cf. note, p. 145, 1. 29.

Page 16. 1. 7. Il y a au pied des montagnes, &c. Lamartine's description of the country round Le Clos is accurate, except for the bouleaux. His description of the house is less exact ; cf. Les Roland en Beaujolais au xviii'^ siècle.

1. 7. Beaujolais. A district in the Lyonnais, watered by the Saône, capital Villefranche. La Platière was at Thizy, near Villefranche.

Page 17. 1. 3. le Charolais, a district in Burgundy.

1. 13. Td fut, pendant cinq ans, r horizon de cette jeune femme. Madame Roland did not live quite so isolated a Ufe as she is hère represented as doing. She frequently met Champagneux, a young joumalist of Lyons, to whose paper she contributed ai

leastone famous article. She wason intima te termswith Lanthenas, a young doctor, her husband's coadjutor in the work of disseminating revolutionary principles among the peasants of the district, and with Bancal des Issarts, who was introduced to the Rolands by Lanthenas, and in whom Madame Roland seems to hâve taken more than a passing interest, cf. her Lettres à Bancal des Issarts, published with an introduction by Sainte-Beuve. A proposai made by Roland himself that Bancal and Lanthenas should permanently join the family circle was, however, not carried out, and in February, 1791, the Rolands left for Paris.

Page 18. 1. 31. Les opinions de... madame Roland, &c. Cf. Mémoires, éd. Barrière, p. 198 : ' La Révolution survint et nous enflamma ; amis de l'humanité, adorateurs de la liberté, nous crûmes qu'elle venait régénérer l'espèce, détruire la misère flétrissante de cette classe malheureuse sur laquelle nous nous étions si souvent attendris ; nous l'accueillîmes avec transport. Nos opinions indisposèrent à Lyon beaucoup de gens qui, habitués au calcul du commerce, ne concevaient pas que par philosophie l'on provoquât et applaudît des changements qui n'étaient bons qu'aux autres ; ils devinrent par cela seul ennemis de M. Roland, dès lors d'autres le prisèrent davantage. On le porta dans la municipalité de première formation, il s'y prononça par son inflexible droiture; on le craignit, et la calomnie, d'ime part, se mit en campagne, tandis que de l'autre l'affection ou l'impartialité le défendait.'

Page 19. 1. 3. son nom, devint une injure, puis un drapeau, i.e. first a term of abuse, then the watchword or cry of a party ; literally, the standard around which his party ralhed.

1. 8. Les liaisons des Roland avec les philosophes et avec les économistes. Roland had written a séries of tractâtes on économie subjects, published under the common title of Les Arts industriels. Having in this way established a réputation as an economist, he was entrusted by the editor Panckoucke with the Dictionnaire des manufactures, arts et métiers, part of a plan to repubUsh the Grande Encyclopédie, arranged according to subjects, the original alphabetical order having led to a great confusion of subject-matter. Cf. note to p. 15, 1. 12.

1. 31. le puissant Mirabeau. The leader of the National Assembly, and the last bulwark of the monarchy against the inroads of democracy. He belonged to an ancient, but not, as he believed, originally Italian family. His father was the distinguished economist (1716-1789) of the same name. After a stormy youth (cf. note, p. 147) he threw himself into politics and warmly espoused the cause of the people, but hoped to save France from the evils (1) L

of a Révolution by the création of a constitutional monarchy. His death in April, 1791, destroyed the last hope for the King. For his chief pohtical acts cf. Sketch of French Révolution.

1. 31. Cazalès (1758-1805). Originally a cavalry officer, he became one of the most ardent supporters in the Assembly of the décadent monarchy, the champion of a forlom hope. After August 10, he emigrated. He is styled étonnant, because no one suspected his oratorical gifts until chance cast him into the Assembly.

1. 32. Maury (1746-1817). A priest who had risen from the ranks (his father, a shoemaker), and who rivalled Mirabeau in his powers of éloquence. He championed the clergy as Cazalès championed royalty. Lamartine calls Cazalès and Maury les deux athlètes du côté droit. But Maury was lacking in sincerity, and his words failed to carry conviction. He is called audacieux because he ventured to deck the faded splendour of the ancien régime in glowing and specious colours. He was appointed Archbishop of Paris by Napoléon, became a cardinal, and died at Rome.

1. 32. Charles Lameth, also a fréquent speaker in the Assembly, though less éloquent than Bamave. He had served in America, and had there imbibed American poUtical ideas. He was really a tool in the hands of Duport. He is called astucieux on account of his factions intrigues against Mirabeau, in which he was aided by his brother.

1. 32. Barnave (1761-1793), the orator of the so-called Triumvirate (the other two being Charles Lameth and Duport), son of a wealthy avocat of Grenoble, and himself a member of the bar there. Having established a réputation for éloquence by the part he took in the poUtical movement in the Dauphiné, he was elected to the States-General, where he rapidly espoused the cause of the démocratie party. At Versailles he formed a friendship with Duport. Being appointed to escort the royal family back from Varennes, he conceived a violent passion for the Queen, and his communications and intrigues with her led to his death on the scaffold, November, 1793. He is called le froid because his éloquence was of the head, not of the heart. ' Il eut le malheur d'être le grand homme d'un parti médiocre.' The epithets applied to thèse five poUticians are quoted from Madame Roland's Mémoires.

1. 32. Elle remarqua avec le dépit de la haine, &c. Cf. Michelet, Les Femmes de la Révolution, chapter XIV. ' Rien de plus sévère que le premier coup d'œil de Madame Roland sur Paris. L'Assemblée lui fait horreur, ses amis lui font pitié . . . Elle voit à un coup les faussetés, les lâchetés, les bassesses, la comédie des constitu-

tionnels, les tergiversations, l'indécision des amis de la liberté . . . Cf. Mémoires, eid. Barrière, p. 250.

Page 20. 1. 21. Brissot. Cf. note, p. 135, 1. 13.

1. 28. avaient de Vanalogie avec la jeunesse de Mirabeau. Mirabeau had been notorious in his youth for his violent passions and his quarrels with his family, for which it is customary to blâme his father, ' l'ami du peuple et le tyran de sa famille.' He was several times imprisoned by lettre de cachet, and his first valuable book is an indictment of this procédure. He studied practical politios in England, and saw something of diplomatie life in Berlin. As author of a séries of polemical pamphlets, he gained a réputation for courage and disinterestedness, marred, however, by a want of modération and self-control.

1. 30, dans le journalisme et dans les clubs. The chief periodical literature of the Revolutionary period is mentioned incidentally in the course of thèse two biographies. For the vast daily output from the Paris press at this time cf. Young's Travels in France, p. 153.

The clubs were poUtical debating societies, originally the équivalent among the lower classes of the salons in vogue among the upper classes. They had been introduced into Paris in imitation of EngUsh customs. By degrees, their power in influencing political opinion became so generally recognized that everybody interested in pohtics frequented them. For the more important of them — the Jacobins, the Feuillants, &c. — cf. note, pp. 133, 148.

Page 21. 1. 13. Pétion. Cf. note, p. 134, 1. 28.