When, in May, 1793, Robespierre and the Mountain effected the final overthrow of the Girondists the moderate party of the French revolutionists M. Roland, who had recently resigned his office in the ministry, was forced to flee, and his wife was thrown into prison. To solace the sad hours of her captivity, she began to write her own Memoirs. “I propose to myself,” she says, “to employ the leisure hours of my captivity in relating the history of my life, from my infancy to the present time. Thus to retrace the steps of one’s career is to live a second time; and what better can a prisoner do than, by a happy fiction, or by interesting recollections, to transport herself from her prison?”

Her Memoirs are dated at the “Prison of St. Pélagie, August 9th, 1793,” and she thus commences: “Daughter of an artist, wife of a philosopher, who, when a minister of state, remained a man of virtue; now a prisoner, destined, perhaps, to a violent and unexpected death, I have known happiness and adversity; I have learned what glory is, and have suffered injustice. Born in an humble condition, but of respectable parents, I passed my youth in the bosom of the arts, and amidst the delights of study; knowing no superiority but that of merit, no grandeur but that of virtue.”

Her father, Gratien Philipon, was an engraver. During the early years of Manon’s life, he was well off, employing many workmen under him. His wife possessed little of what is called knowledge, but she had a discerning judgment and a gentle and affectionate disposition. By her example, as well as by the course of education which her disposition led her to pursue, she formed in her daughter the same gentle, feminine spirit which she herself possessed.

“The wisdom and kindness of my mother,” says Madame Roland, “quickly acquired over my gentle and tender character an ascendency which was used only for my good. It was so great that, in those slight, inevitable differences between reason which governs and childhood which resists, she had need to resort to no other punishment than to call me, coldly, Mademoiselle, and to regard me with a severe countenance. I feel, even now, the impression made on me by her look, which at other times was so tender and caressing. I hear, almost with shivering, the word mademoiselle substituted for the sweet name of daughter, or the tender appellation of Manon. Yes, Manon; it was thus they called me: I am sorry for the lovers of romances, the name is not noble; it suits not a dignified heroine; but, nevertheless, it was mine, and it is a history that I am writing. But the most fastidious would have been reconciled to the name, had they heard my mother pronounce it, or had they seen her who bore it. No expression wanted grace, when accompanied by the affectionate tone of my mother; when her touching voice penetrated my soul, did it teach me to resemble her? Lively without being ever rompish, and naturally retiring, I asked only to be occupied, and seized with quickness the ideas which were presented to me. This disposition was so well taken advantage of, that I do not remember learning to read: I have heard that I did so before I was four years old, and that, after that time, nothing more was required than to supply me with books.”

Her passion for these was subjected to little guidance or control; she read whatever chance threw in her way; they were, for the most part, of a serious character Locke, Pascal, Burlamaque, Montesquieu; relieved, however, by works on history, the poems of Voltaire, Don Quixote, and some of the popular romances; but, as these were few in number, she was compelled to read them often, and thus acquired a habit of thought. When she was nine years old, Plutarch’s Lives fell in her way, and more delighted her than any romance or fairy tale. The book became her bosom companion; and from that moment, she says, “she dated the ideas and impressions which made her a republican without her knowing that she was becoming one.”

“But this child, who was accustomed to read serious books, could explain the circles of the celestial sphere, could use the pencil and the graver, and at eight years old was the best dancer in a party of girls older than herself, assembled for a family festival. The same child was often called to the kitchen to prepare an omelette, wash herbs, or to skim the pot. This mixture of grave studies, agreeable exercise, and domestic cares, ordered and regulated by the wisdom of my mother, rendered me fit for all circumstances, seemed to anticipate the vicissitudes of my fortune, and has aided me in bearing them. I feel nowhere out of place; I can prepare my soup with as much ease as Philopemon cut wood, though no one seeing me would deem that such a task was fitted for me.”

The study of Plutarch and the ancient historians was not, perhaps, favorable to the happiness of Mademoiselle Philipon. She regretted that her lot had not been cast in a free state, which she had persuaded herself was the only nursery of virtue, generosity, and wisdom. She contrasted the state of society, as she saw it around her, with the ideal state of its existence in ancient Greece and Rome. She had once paid a visit of eight days to Versailles, and witnessed the routine of the court. How different were the weak and dissolute actors upon that tinsel and tawdry stage from the heroes and philosophers with whom she was wont, in imagination, to associate! She “sorrowfully compared the Asiatic luxury, the insolent pomp, with the abject misery of the degraded people, who ran after the idols of their own creating, and stupidly applauded the brilliant shows for which they paid out of their own absolute necessaries.” Sometimes she was taken to visit certain ladies who called themselves noble, and who, looking upon her as an inferior, sent her to dine with the servants. But their airs of condescending kindness were even yet more offensive, and made her bosom swell with indignant emotion. She acknowledges that this feeling made her hail the revolution with greater transport.

The daughter of a prosperous tradesman, she had many suitors of her own rank; but she had formed to herself a beau ideal of wedded life which none but a man of education could satisfy; they were all rejected. A physician proposed; more refinement and knowledge was to be expected in the learned professions; she hesitated, but he also was rejected. In the mean time, her father’s habits began to change; he became a speculator, fond of pleasure and careless of his business. His speculations failed, and his customers left him. Her mother witnessed the approach of poverty with anxiety; she feared for her daughter alone, for her own health was so feeble, that she could look only for a short term of life. She wished to see her daughter’s happiness made as secure as possible, and tried to persuade her to accept the addresses of a young jeweller who had health and a good character to recommend him; but Manon wished to find in her husband a companion and a guide.

Her mother died; and intense grief overwhelmed the daughter, both body and mind. It was long before she could be roused to any exertion from that melancholy “which made her a burden to herself and others.” At this moment, the “Nouvelle Heloise” was placed in her hands; it excited her attention, and called her thoughts from her loss. “I was twenty-one,” she says, “and Rousseau made the same impression on me as Plutarch had done when I was eight. Plutarch had disposed me to republicanism; he had awakened the energy and pride which are its characteristics; he inspired me with a true enthusiasm for public virtue and freedom. Rousseau showed me domestic happiness, and the ineffable felicity I was capable of tasting.” She now returned to her studies. Her friends, among whom she numbered some literary men, finding that she committed her reflections to writing, predicted that she would become an author. But she was not ambitious of public distinction; she had adopted the sentiment of Rousseau, that the “dignity of woman is in being unknown; her glory, in the esteem of her husband; her pleasures, in the happiness of her family.” “I saw,” says Madame Roland, “that an authoress loses more than she gains. My chief object was my own happiness, and I never knew the public interfere with that for any one without spoiling it; there is nothing more delightful than to be appreciated by those with whom one lives, and nothing so empty as the admiration of those whom we are never to meet.”

In her school-girl days, Manon had formed a friendship with a girl of her own age, named Sophia, and the intercourse was still kept up by letters. Sophia felt the highest admiration for her friend, and often spoke of it. Among those who, through her, became acquainted with Manon’s character was M. Roland, a man whose great simplicity of character and strict integrity had gained for him universal esteem and confidence. His family was not of the ancient nobles, but of official dignity. He was fond of study, and laborious in the pursuit of knowledge. He had long sought for an introduction to Mademoiselle Philipon, and Sophia at length gave him a letter of introduction. “This letter,” she writes, “will be given you by the philosopher I have often mentioned, M. Roland, an enlightened and excellent man, who can only be reproached for his great admiration of the ancients at the expense of the moderns, whom he despises, and his weakness in liking to talk too much about himself.”

M. Roland’s appearance was not calculated to make a favorable impression upon a young woman; his manners were cold and stiff; he was careless in his dress, and he had passed the meridian of life. But Mademoiselle Philipon discerned and appreciated his excellence, and received him to her friendship and confidence. For five years, this intercourse between them continued, before he disclosed to her the sentiments of love which had been making a slow, but deeply-rooted, growth in his heart. His proposal of marriage was not distasteful to her; but she was proud, and did not like to encounter the opposition which the match with a girl of humble birth would meet with from his family. Roland persisted in his addresses, and she at length referred him to her father. Philipon did not like the terms of his letter, and returned a rude answer, rejecting the proffered alliance.

The result, though anticipated by Manon, was a great disappointment to her, and the manner in which her father had conducted, shocked her feelings. She had a great cause for anxiety in his general management; his affairs were fast approaching utter ruin; extreme poverty was before her; she resolved to secure her own independence, and purchased an annuity of about one hundred and twenty dollars. With this she hired a room in a convent, and lived upon the simplest food, which she prepared for herself: her wants were strictly limited by her means.

Six months elapsed, and M. Roland once more presented himself to her at the convent. He renewed his offer, and it was accepted. “I reflected deeply,” says Madame Roland, “on what I ought to do. I could not conceal from myself that a younger man would not have delayed, for several months, entreating me to change my resolution, and I confess this circumstance had deprived my feelings of every illusion. I considered, on the other hand, that this deliberation was an assurance that I was appreciated; and that, if he had overcome his pride, which shrunk from the disagreeable circumstances that accompanied his marrying me, I was the more secure of an esteem I could not fail to preserve. In short, if marriage was, as I thought, an austere union, an association in which the woman usually burdens herself with the happiness of two individuals, it were better that I should exert my abilities and my courage in so honorable a task, than in the solitude in which I lived.”

Such were the feelings with which she married. She was then twenty-six years old. She discharged with fidelity the duties she assumed. She was her husband’s friend and companion, and soon became absolutely necessary to him. With him she visited England and Switzerland, and finally they took up their abode at the family mansion near Lyons. She had one child, a daughter; and to educate her, and make her husband and those about her happy, was apparently to be the whole scope of her life. At this period, she writes to a friend, “Seated in my chimney corner, at eleven before noon, after a peaceful night and my morning tasks, my husband at his desk, and my little girl knitting, I am conversing with the former, and overlooking the work of the letter; enjoying the happiness of being warmly sheltered in the bosom of my dear little family, and writing to a friend, while the snow is falling on so many poor wretches overwhelmed by sorrow and penury. I grieve over their fate. I repose on my own, and make no account of those family annoyances, which appeared formerly to tarnish my felicity.”

The revolution came to disturb this peaceful existence. At first she hailed it with joy; but fears soon arose. “Is the question,” she says, “to be whether we have one tyrant or a hundred?” She attached herself zealously to that party which advocated liberty without anarchy. The confusion of the times proved destructive to the manufacturing interests of Lyons; twenty thousand workmen were thrown out of employment, and were without means of support. M. Roland was selected to proceed to Paris to make known the distresses to the National Assembly, and to solicit relief.

The Girondists held opinions most in consonance with her own; her house at Paris soon became the rendezvous of that party; and her talents, beauty, and enthusiasm, insensibly procured for her a great influence in their councils. A late historian thus speaks of her: “Roland was known for his clever writings on manufactures and mechanics. This man, of austere life, inflexible principles, and cold, repulsive manners, yielded, without being aware, to the superior ascendency of his wife. She was young and beautiful. Nourished in seclusion by philosophical and republican sentiments, she had conceived ideas superior to her sex, and had erected a strict religion from the then reigning opinions. Living in intimate friendship with her husband, she wrote for him, communicated her vivacity and ardor, not only to him, but to all the Girondists, who, enthusiastic in the cause of liberty and philosophy, adored beauty and talent, and their own opinions in her.” But she carefully guarded against appearing to exert influence. Present at the councils held at her own house, she sat apart, and, apparently engaged in needle-work or in writing, took no part in the public deliberations; but her opinions were freely expressed in private to the leaders of the party, who eagerly engaged with her in discussion.

The flight of the king filled her with alarm; his arrest and return to Paris excited new hopes; she looked for safety only in his dethronement, and in the establishment of a republican form of government; but for this she hardly dared hope. “It would be a folly, an absurdity, almost a horror,” she writes to a friend at this time, “to replace the king on the throne. To bring Louis XVI. to trial, would doubtless be the greatest and most just of measures; but we are incapable of adopting it.”

At the end of seven months, Roland’s mission terminated, and he returned to Lyons. But Madame Roland could no longer be happy in the quiet, domestic circle; her discontent thus expresses itself in a letter to a friend, but, unwittingly perhaps, does not assign it to the true cause: “I see with regret that my husband is cast back on silence and obscurity. He is habituated to public life; his energy and activity injure his health when not exercised according to his inclinations; in addition, I had hoped for great advantages for my child in a residence at Paris. Occupied there by her education, I should have excited and developed some sort of talent. The recluse life I lead here makes me tremble for her. From the moment that my husband has no occupation but his desks, I must remain near to amuse him, according to a duty and a habit which may not be eluded. This existence is exactly opposite to that suitable for a child of ten. My heart is saddened by this opposition of duties. I find myself fallen into the nullity of a provincial life, where no exterior circumstances supply that which I cannot do myself. If I believed my husband were satisfied, hope would embellish the prospect. However, our destiny is fixed, and I must try to render it as happy as I can.”

But the truth was, that her life at Paris had opened a new prospect to Madame Roland, and excited new desires in her bosom. Her activity and enthusiasm longed to employ themselves upon a grand theatre, and she panted to become great, as Plutarch’s heroes were great, and to go down to posterity as one of the founders of her country’s freedom.

She was soon restored to the wished-for scene of action. In December, 1792, her husband was appointed minister of the interior. She relates with great good-humor the surprise which her husband’s plain, citizen-like costume excited at court. The master of ceremonies pointed him out to Dumoriez with an angry and agitated mien, exclaiming, “Ah, sir, no buckles to his shoes!” “Ah, sir,” replied Dumoriez, with mock gravity, “all is lost!”

Two measures, which the liberal party deemed essential, were presented to the king by the ministry, but were rejected by him. The party urged the ministers, as a body, to remonstrate; but a majority declined. Madame Roland insisted that her husband should individually present a remonstrance, which she prepared for him; it was couched in bold and menacing language, and rather calculated to irritate than to persuade the king. Roland read it to the king in full council; he listened patiently to his minister’s rebuke, but the next day dismissed him from his office.

Satisfied with having discharged their duty to liberty, Roland and his wife felt no regret at the loss of office. They ceased to meddle with politics, and led a retired life, with the fearful anticipation that the intervention of foreign troops would soon put an end to all their hopes of constitutional freedom. Her appearance and manners at this period of her life are thus described by one who visited her: “Her eyes, her figure, and hair, were of remarkable beauty; her delicate complexion had a freshness and color, which, joined to her reserved yet ingenuous appearance, imparted a singular air of youth. She spoke well, and without affectation; wit, good sense, propriety of expression, keen reasoning, natural grace, all flowing without effort from her rosy lips. Her husband resembled a Quaker, and she looked like his daughter. Her child flitted about her with ringlets down to her waist. She spoke of public affairs only, and I perceived that my moderation inspired pity. Her mind was excited, but her heart remained gentle. Although the monarchy was not yet overturned, she did not conceal that symptoms of anarchy began to appear, and she declared herself ready to resist them to death. I remember the calm and resolute tone in which she declared that she was ready, if need were, to place her head on the block. I confess that the image of that charming head delivered over to the axe of the executioner made an ineffaceable impression; for party excesses had not yet accustomed us to such frightful ideas.”

The fomenters of disturbance and the friends of anarchy were the party of the Mountain, at the head of which were Robespierre, Danton, Marat, &c. To this party the known moderation of Madame Roland made her peculiarly obnoxious. When, after the suspension of the royal authority, consequent on the events of the 10th of August, it was proposed in the National Convention to recall Roland to the ministry, one of the party exclaimed, “We had better invite madame; she is the real minister.” He was reinstated in his office, and maintained for a short time an unflinching struggle with the anarchists; but his efforts were not supported by others; and, wearied out, he tendered his resignation. The Mountain urged its acceptance, but the only charges against him were complaints of his feebleness, and of his being governed by his wife. The Girondists yet held the ascendency in the Convention, and his resignation was not accepted. At the entreaty of his friends, he consented to remain, and wrote thus to the Convention: “Since I am calumniated, since I am threatened by dangers, and since the Convention appear to desire it, I remain. It is too glorious that my alliance with courage and virtue is the only reproach made against me.”

Madame Roland has herself offered an apology for her interference in the business of her husband. In the early days of their marriage, she had acted as his amanuensis, and had faithfully copied what he wrote. But the dryness of his style did not suit her taste, and she began to amend his writings. At length, having a perfect agreement in views and opinions with her husband, he entirely yielded up to her the pen. “I could not express any thing,” she says, “that regarded reason or justice, which he was not capable of realizing or maintaining with his conduct; while I expressed better than he could whatever he had done or promised to do. Without my intervention, Roland had been an equally good agent; his activity and knowledge, as well as his probity, were all his own; but he produced a greater sensation through me, since I put into his writings that mixture of energy and gentleness, of authority and persuasion, which is peculiar to a woman of a warm heart and a clear head. I wrote with delight such pieces as I thought would be useful, and I took greater pleasure in them than I should have done had I been their acknowledged author.”

Roland continued his struggle against the Mountain, who were daily gaining strength. Although in a minority in the Convention, they were all powerful with the mob; and the knowledge of this, together with their menaces, induced some of the more timid Girondists to vote for their savage measures. Of the frightful state of affairs at Paris, Madame Roland thus writes to a friend: “We are under the knife of Robespierre and Marat. These men agitate the people, and endeavor to turn them against the Assembly and Council; they have a little army, which they pay with money stolen from the Tuileries.” Again she writes, “Danton leads all; Robespierre is his puppet; Marat holds his torch and dagger; this ferocious tribune reigns, and we are his slaves until the moment when we shall become his victims. You are aware of my enthusiasm for the revolution; well, I am ashamed of it; it is deformed by monsters, and become hideous. It is degrading to remain, but we are not allowed to quit Paris; they shut us up to murder us when occasion serves.”

At length, disheartened by his unavailing efforts to stem the tide of anarchy, Roland again resigned his office; and, satisfied that remaining at Paris could be of no advantage to their country, he and his wife began their preparations for retiring to the country. Her illness caused a delay, and they were yet in Paris when the final overthrow of the Girondists left them no hope for safety but in flight. An order was issued by the Convention for the arrest of Roland: his wife resolved to appeal in person to the Assembly in his behalf. Veiled and alone, she hurried to the place of meeting. She was not admitted: she sent in a letter, soliciting to be heard; but it received no attention. Sadly she left the national palace, sought out her husband, related to him her want of success, and then returned to make another effort to be heard. The Convention was no longer sitting. She returned home: her husband was in a place of security; and, indifferent to her own fate, she resolved to await whatever might happen.

At a late hour of the night she retired to rest, but was soon roused by her servant, who announced to her that a party of soldiers had come to arrest her. The sanguinary shouts of the mob saluted her as she passed through the streets. “Shall I close the windows?” said an officer who rode with her in the carriage. “No,” replied she; “innocence, however oppressed, will never assume the appearance of guilt. I fear the eyes of no one, and will not hide myself.” “You have more firmness than most men,” said the officer.

Her plans for prison life were at once arranged: she asked and obtained a few books, Plutarch being of the number. The situation of the poorer class of prisoners exciting her pity, she restricted herself to the most abstemious diet, and distributed the money which she thus saved among them.

At the end of about three weeks, a most cruel deception was practised upon her. She was told that she was free, and left the prison; but, on reaching home, she was again arrested, and carried to a new prison, in which the lowest and most infamous criminals of both sexes were confined. A few hours’ reflection restored the equanimity which this outrage had disturbed. “Had I not my books?” she says; “was I no longer myself? I was almost angry at having felt disturbed, and thought only of making use of my life, and employing my faculties with that independence which a strong mind preserves even in chains, and which disappoints one’s most cruel enemies.”

At first, she was confined in the midst of the most abandoned of her sex; but, after a time, the wife of the jailer took compassion on her, and removed her to a more retired apartment. Nor did this humane woman stop here; she sought in every way to soften the rigors of imprisonment. Jasmine was twined round the bars of her window; a piano-forte was provided, with every comfort which her narrow quarters would allow. A few friends were allowed to visit her: she learned that her husband and child were in safety; she became almost happy. But her quiet was soon disturbed. The visitor of the prison was angry at the comforts which she enjoyed; equality must be preserved, and he ordered her to be removed to a common cell.

At one period she meditated suicide. There was no accusation against her, and she saw herself left behind in the daily drafts for the guillotine. “Two months ago,” she writes, “I aspired to the honor of ascending the scaffold. Victims were still allowed to speak, and the energy of great courage might have been of service to truth. Now all is lost; to live is basely to submit to a ferocious rule.” But her purpose was changed when she found herself included in the act of accusation against the chief Girondists. She expected to be examined before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and hoped to do some good by courageously speaking the truth.

On the 31st of October, 1792, she was transferred to the prison of the Conciergerie, a yet more squalid place of confinement. Her examination commenced the next day, and was continued for several days. The charge against her was holding intercourse with the Girondists. Her defence, which was written out, but not spoken, is eloquent and full of feeling. She was, of course, declared guilty, and sentenced to be executed within twenty-four hours.

Even during these few eventful days, she was not occupied entirely with self. Many of her hours were devoted to the consolation of her fellow-victims. She who was a prisoner with her thus speaks of her: “Perfectly aware of the fate that awaited her, her tranquillity was not disturbed. Though past the bloom of life, she was yet full of attractions: tall, and of an elegant figure, her physiognomy was animated; but sorrow and long imprisonment had left traces of melancholy in her face that tempered her natural vivacity. Something more than is usually found in the eyes of woman beamed in her large, dark eyes, full of sweetness and expression. She often spoke to me at the grate with the freedom and courage of a great man. This republican language, falling from the lips of a pretty woman, for whom the scaffold was prepared, was a miracle of the revolution. We gathered attentively around her in a species of admiration and stupor. Her conversation was serious, without being cold. She spoke with a purity, a melody, and a measure, which rendered her language a sort of music, of which the ear was never tired. Sometimes her sex had the mastery, and we perceived that she had wept over the recollections of her husband and daughter. The woman who attended her said to me one day, ’Before you she calls up all her courage; but in her room she sometimes remains for hours leaning on the window, weeping.’”

She was led to execution on the 10th of November. On the way she exerted herself to restore the failing fortitude of a fellow-sufferer, and won from him, it is said, two smiles. On arriving at the place of execution, she bowed to the statue of Liberty, saying, “O Liberty, how many crimes are committed in thy name!” She bade her companion ascend the scaffold first, that he might escape the pain of seeing her die. To the last, she preserved her courage and dignity of manner.

The news of her death reached her husband at Rouen. He resolved not to outlive her. He doubted whether to surrender himself to the Revolutionary Tribunal, or to commit suicide. He decided on the latter course, in order to save for his child his property, which by law would be confiscated if he died by the judgment of a court. On the 15th of November, he was found dead on the road to Paris, four miles from Rouen. In his pocket was found a paper, setting forth the reasons for his death “The blood that flows in torrents in my country dictates my resolve; indignation caused me to quit my retreat. As soon as I heard of the murder of my wife, I determined no longer to remain on the earth tainted by crime.”