the engraver of the Quai des Orfevres. They
are nearly the same age. Madame Roland was born March 18, 1754; and
Marie Antoinette, November 2, 1755. Both are beautiful, and both are
conscious of their charm. Each exercises a sort of domination over all
who approach her.

In 1792, when Roland enters the ministry, Marie Antoinette is no longer
thinking of coquetry, luxury, or dress. The heroine of the Gallery of
the Mirrors, the crowned shepherdess of the Trianon, the queen of
elegance, pleasure, and fashion is not recognizable in her. The time
for splendors is over, like the time for pastorals. No more festivals,
no more distractions, no more theatres. Incessant anxieties and
unremitting labor; writing throughout the day and reading, {74}
meditating, and praying throughout the night, are now the unfortunate
sovereign's whole existence. She hardly sleeps. Her eyes are reddened
by tears. A single night, that of the arrest on the journey to
Varennes, had sufficed to whiten her hair. She wears mourning for her
brother, the Emperor Leopold, and for her ally, the King of Sweden,
Gustavus III., and one might say that she is also wearing it for the
French monarchy. All trace of frivolity has disappeared. The severe
and majestic countenance of the woman who suffers so cruelly as queen,
spouse, and mother, is sanctified by the double poetry of religion and
sorrow.

Madame Roland, on the other hand, is more coquettish than she has ever
been. The actress who has at last found her theatre and is very proud
to play her part, wishes to allure, desires to reign. She delights in
presiding at these political dinners where all the guests are men, and
of which her grace and eloquence constitute the charm. She has just
completed her thirty-eighth year. Her husband is nearly fifty-eight;
Buzot is only thirty-two. Possibly she is still more preoccupied with
love than with ambition. To use one of her own expressions, "her heart
swells with the desire to please," to please Buzot above all; she takes
pains to celebrate her own beauty, which, in spite of showing symptoms
of decline, has the brilliance of sunset. In her Memoirs she describes
her "large and superbly modelled bust, her light, quick step, her frank
and open glance, at once keen and {75} soft, which sometimes amazes,
but which caresses still more, and always quickens." She writes: "My
mouth is rather large; there are a thousand prettier, but none that has
a softe