Duranton. Procureur to the Commune of Bordeaux

1. 10. madame Roland avertie de V élévation prochaine de son mari. Cf. Mémoires, éd. Barrière, p. 260.

1. 19. Les Girondins s'en étaient déjà sourdement occupés. Cf. the phrase ' une réputation sourde.'

Page 30. 1. 25. de Grave, &c. The efïect of this change of ministry, was to throw the full weight of the govemment upon the Girondins.

But from the moment of the appointment of a Republican ministry any hope that might hâve existed for the King was manifestly gone. The new ministers intended to work for their own advancement, not for the King. Moreover, the only man of distinction among them was Dumouriez ; Roland did not rise above mediocrity, and the rest sank below it.

Page 31. 1. 31. Cahier - Gerville had been Minister of the Interior when de Lessart was attacked by the Girondins.

1. 32. les frète-noms. A prête-nom is one that lends his name to another : dummy, stalking-horse.

1. 37. Il espéra le dominer en dominant le cœur de cette femme. For Madame Roland' s first impression of Dumouriez cf. Mémoires, éd. Barrière, p. 262.

Page 32. 1. 7. revêche, cross-grained, untractable stubbom ; etymology uncertain.

1. 24. U n' entrevoyait pas de si loin la disgrâce, literally, he could not see disgrâce from such a distance, i.e. he had no forebodinga of disgrâce.

Page 33. 1. 5. la prétention lacédémonienne. The affectation of a Lacedemonian, or Spartan, simpUcity on the part of Roland.

1. 12. Le roi étonnait, &c. Not much political acumen was to be expected from Louis XVI, who had been educated by ecclesiastics in complète isolation in the palace of Meudon. When sixteen, he was married to Marie-Antoinette, a daughter of Marie-Thérèse, but he continued to lead a retired and secluded life until his succession to the throne in 1774. He was pious, well-meaning, and devoted to his people, but he lacked energy and resolution. Trying to concihate ail parties, he estranged them ail in tum.

' Louis XVI était probe et dévoué au bien ; mais il n'avait pas compris, dès les premières impulsions de la Révolution, qu'il n'y a qu'un rôle pour le chef d'un peuple, c'est de se mettre à la tête de l'idée nouvelle, de hvrer le combat au passé, et de cumuler ainsi dans sa personne la double puissance de chef de la nation et de chef de parti. Le rôle de la modération n'est possible qu'à la condition d'avoir la confiance entière des partis qu'on veut modérer. Henri IV avait pris ce rôle, mais c'était après la victoire ; s'il l'eût tenté avant Ivry, il aurait perdu non seulement le royaume de France, mais celui de Navarre.' Les Girondins, Bk. i, ch. 23.

1. 17. Madame Roland reprochait ces causeries à son mari. See Mémoires, éd. Barrière, p. 262 : ' Quant aux conseils, ces séances ressemblaient davantage à des causeries de compagnie qu'à des délibérations d'hommes d'État. Chaque ministre y portait les ordonnances et proclamations à la signature, et celui de la justice présentait les décrets à la sanction. Le roi lisait la gazette, faisait à chacun des questions sur ce qui lui était personnel, témoignait ainsi avec assez d'adresse ce genre d'intérêt dont les grands savaient se faire un mérite ; raisonnait en bon homme sur les affaires en général, et protestait à tous propos avec l'ac-

154 MADAME EOLAND

cent de la franchise de son désir de faire marcher la Constitution. J'ai vu Roland et Clavière presque enchantés, durant trois semaines, des dispositions du roi, le croire sur sa parole et se réjouir en braves gens de la tournure que devaient prendre les choses. " Bon Dieu," leur diaais-je, "lorsque je vous vois partir pour le conseil dans cette disposition confiante, il me semble toujours que vous êtes prêts à faire une sottise." Je n'ai jamais pu croire à la vocation constitutionnelle d'un roi né sous le despotisme, élevé pour lui et habitué à l'exercer ; il aurait fallu que Louis XVI fût un homme fort au-dessus du vulgaire par son esprit pour vouloir sincèrement la constitution qui restreignait son pouvoir, et s'il avait été cet homme, il n'aurait pas laissé survenir les événements qui ont amené la constitution.'

I. 34. le roi ajournait sans cesse la sanction . . . aux décrets contre les émigrés, &c. The question of the émigrés (French princes and nobles who had fled in terror of the Révolution) had been treated in a long séries of debates, in which Brissot, Isnard, Condorcet, Pastoret, and Vergniaud chiefly distinguished themselves. The Assembly finally decided that ail émigrés who had not retumed by January 1, 1792, should be declared conspirators, that their property should be confiscated, and that they themselves should be condemned to death. The King, however, vetoed this decree. He was then asked to sanction a decree against the prêtres insermentés, enacting that ail priests who did not take the oath to the constitution within a week of the promulgation of the decree should be deprived of their bénéfices and expelled from their several departments.

The King' s conscience rebelled against this decree, and he again exercised the veto. This repeated exercise of the royal prérogative, however, seriously affected his popularity.

The Girondins, nothing daunted, retumed to the attack, and on May 27 —

( 1 ) Vergniaud moved, the motion being carried, that on the request of any twenty citizens of a canton the directory of any department was immediately to exile the unconstitutional priests from their department.

(2) Servan proposed that a camp of 20,000 fédérés from différent departments of France should be formed outside the walls of Paris as a reserve for the armies massed on the frontier.

Roland then presented the famous letter to the King urging him to sanction both decrees.

Page 34. 1. 1. Elle persuada à son mnri d'écrire au roi une lettre confidentielle. Ci. Mémoires,i.99: 'Le retard de la sanction devenait un refus ; on touchait au terme du délai. Nous sentîmes que le

conseil n'ayant pas assez de nerf et d'ensemble pour se prononcer en masse, il convenait à l'intégrité, au courage de Roland de s'avancer seul, et nous arrêtâmes entre nous deux sa fameuse lettre au roi : il l'avait portée avec lui au conseil pour la lire hautement le jour où le roi, pressé de nouveau pour la sanction, se résuma à demander que chacun de ses ministres lui donnât son opinion écrite et signée . . .'

I. 4. d' en garderune copie que Rdand rendrait publique au moment marqué. Cf. Mémoires, éd. Barrière, p. 273: ' "Et puisqu'il (le roi) n'a pas profité des leçons de votre lettre, il faut rendre ces leçons utiles au public en les lui faisant connaître ; je ne vois rien de plus conséquent au courage de la lui avoir écrite, que la hardiesse d'en envoyer copie à l'Assemblée ; en apprenant votre renvoi, elle en verra la cause."

'Cette idée devait plaire beaucoup à mon mari ; elle fut saisie, et l'on sait comment l'Assemblée honora le renvoi des trois ministres en déclarant qu'ils emportaient les regrets de la nation, comme elle applaudit à la lettre en ordonnant qu'elle fût imprimée et envoyée aux départements. Je suis convaincue et je crois que l'événement a démontré que cette lettre a beaucoup servi à éclairer la France ; elle offrait au roi avec tant de force et de sagesse ce que son propre intérêt devait le déterminer à faire, qu'on a pu juger qu'il ne refusait à s'y prêter que par une opposition déterminée au maintien de la constitution.'

Page 36. 1. 18. le plan d'invasion en Belgique. The plan in question is discussed by Lamartine, Bk. XIV, chap. ix. It consisted briefly in a rapid invasion of Belgium before Prussia could hâve time to appear on the scène of action. It was hoped that the Belgians, among whom revolutionary feeling was strong, would then join the French and fight on their side.

Page 37. 1. 35. cette armée du parlement aux ordres de Cromwell, qui avait mené Charles I à V échafaud. Cromwell did not become a soldier until after the Civil War had broken out (1642), In 1645 he was appointed Lieutenant- General of the New Model Army. In 1647, by Cromwell' s orders, Charles I was taken prisoner at Holmby ; in 1649 he was tried by a spécial High Court of Justice and executed.

Page 40. 1. 3. Charles- Jean-Marie Barbaroux (1767-1794), bom at Marseille. Sent as deputy for his native town to the Législative Assembly in 1791, he rapidly became popular, and, in a short time, was the acknowledged and intimate friend of Madame Roland. He helped quite as much as Brissot to bring about the events of August 10, for it was he who secured the despatch of the Marseillais battalions that created the

156 MADAME KOLAND

preliminary riots. His enmity against Robespierre was fierce and open. He was proscribed together with the rest of the Girondins, but escaped to Caen. Tliis is the historié occasion of his meeting with Charlotte Corday. He played an active part in fomenting the insurrection of the Calvados. Forced to retire to St-EmiUon, he there composed his Mémoires. Even this retreat having become unsafe, he made a deliberate attempt to commit suicide, but was prevented, and guillotined. On his relation to Charlotte Corday cf. Vattel, Charlotte Corday et les Girondins.

1. 2. une république dans le Midi. Cf. note on Fédération, below.

1. 34. La Fayette médite la trahison au Nord. La Fayette (1757- 1834), a member of one of the oldest famihes in France, became an officer in 1773, and first distinguished himself in the American army fighting against England. It being Washington' s policy to secure the help of France, he, on every possible occasion, extoUed the services of La Fayette, who, in conséquence, acquired a réputation for great military abihty, and after his retum he was made commandant of the newly foimded National Guard. His political principles were whoUy unstable, and he was at ail times actuated by personal motives.

The plan of campaign was as f oUows : La Fayette was to advance upon Namur, and from thence upon Brussels or Liège. He was to be supported by three divisions of the Army of the North, one under Rochambeau, one under Biron, one under Dillon. As there were only 30,000 Austrians in Belgium, the plan ought to hâve succeeded, but owing to the disorganization of the French army it failed entirely.

Page 41. 1. 23. Vhomme qui me semble le 'plus se rapprocher de Coton. Cato Censor, so called on account of the austerity of his principles. Alarmed at the prosperity of Carthage, he incessantly urged upon the Romans the necessity for the destruction of that city, concluding each discourse with the words Censée Carthaginem esse delendam (b.c. 234-146).

I. 26. la pensée d' une république fédérative. Before 1789 France may be said to hâve possessed pohtical, but not administrative, unity. The country was divided into provinces, which possessed a considérable degree of administrative autonomy. The Législative Assembly decreed the administrative unity of France and abolished the ancient division into provinces in favour of a division into eighty-three départements, the Umits of which were artificially and arbitrarily defined. Each department was placed under a local and elected authority, but the Assembly neglected to Aveld

thèse eighty-three separate communities into an organic body by creating some central authority suprême over them ail.

At any moment, therefore, thèse isolated bodiea might hâve declared themselves independent and formed a number of small federative republics. This was so obvions a danger that an attempt was made to assert the gênerai désire for unity {la république une et indivisible) by celebrating the so-called Fête de la Fédération, July 14, 1790, on the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille. It was hoped that this public démonstration would strengthen the bond between Paris and the provinces. When the struggle broke out between the Girondins and the Montagne, and the principle of national représentation had been violated by the proscription of the Girondins on May 31, a number of the latter took refuge in the departments they represented. Thèse then protested against the high-handed policy of the capital, and Paris repUed by inveighing against what it called the sécession of the departments, and brought against them the accusation of federalism. The Girondins, who had helped to foster the hostiUty of the provinces towards Paris, sufïered most under this indictment, but they were, no doubt, as far removed as their opponents from any désire to spUt up France into a number of petty states. Their action was probably a mère manifestation of party policy. If the Girondins could hâve succeeded in overthrowing the Montagne, they would hâve championed as warmly as the latter the cause of a united France.

Page 42. 1. 7. Lanthenas, physician and poUtician, intimately connected with the Rolands, who secured for him a govemment appointment. Member of the Convention, he became suspected by the Montagne, and was impeached together with the rest of the Girondins, but was saved by Marat, who said in his defence : ' Tout le monde sait que le docteur Lanthenas est un pauvre d'esprit.' Author of several poHtical tracts.