attract even the most stagnant populations; Lyons was led on and
overwhelmed by the opinions of the epoch. M. Roland was raised to the
municipality at the first election, and spoke out with all the
earnestness of his principles, and the energy inspired by his wife.
Feared by the timid, adored by the eager, his name, at first a byeword,
became a rallying point;--public favour recompensed him for the insults
of the rich. He was deputed to Paris by the municipal council, there to
defend the commercial interests of Lyons, in the committees of the
Constituent Assembly.

The connection of Roland with philosophers and economists who formed the
practical party of philosophy, his necessary intercourse with
influential members of the Assembly, his literary tastes, and, above
all, the attraction and natural temptation which drew and retained
eminent men around a young, eloquent, and impassioned woman, soon made
the _salon_ of Madame Roland an ardent, though not as yet noted, focus
of the Revolution. The names which were found there reveal, from the
first days, extreme opinions. For these opinions, the constitution of
1791 was only a halt.

It was on the 20th February, 1791, that Madame Roland returned to that
Paris which she had quitted five years before, a young girl, unknown and
nameless, and whither she came as a flame to animate an entire party,
found a republic, reign for a moment, and--die! She had in her mind a
confused presentiment of this destiny. Genius and Will know their
strength,--they feel before others and prophesy their mission. Madame
Roland had beforehand seemed carried on by hers to the heart of action.
She hastened on the day after her arrival to the sittings of the
Assembly. She saw the powerful Mirabeau, the dazzling Cazales, the
daring Maury, the crafty Lameth, the impassive Barnave. She remarked
with annoyance and intense hate, in the attitude and language of the
right side, that superiority conferred by the habit of command and
confidence in the respect of the million; on the left side, she saw
inferiority of manners, and the insolence that mingles with low
breeding. And thus did the antique aristocracy survive in blood, and
avenge itself, even after its defeat on the democracy, which envied,
whilst it beat it to the earth. Equality is written in the laws long
before it is established in races. Nature is an aristocrat, and it
requires a long use of independence to give to a republican people the
noble a