rondist ministry. This was a party manoeuvre,
executed beneath the appearance of sudden indignation in the tribune--it
was more, it was the first signal made by the Girondists to the men of
the 20th of June and the 10th of August. The act of accusation was
carried, and De Lessart sent to the court of Orleans, which only yielded
him up to the cut-throats of Versailles. He might have fled, but his
flight would have been interpreted against the king. He placed himself
generously between death and his master, innocent of every crime except
his love for him.

The king felt that there was but one step between himself and
abdication: that was, by taking his ministry from amongst his enemies,
and giving them an interest in power, by placing it in their hands. He
yielded to the times, embraced his minister, and requested the
Girondists to supply him with another. The Girondists were already
silently occupied in so doing. They had previously made, in the name of
the party, overtures to Roland at the end of February. "The court," they
said to him, "is not very far off from taking Jacobin ministers: not
from inclination, but through treachery. The confidence it will feign to
bestow will be a snare. It requires violent men in order to impute to
them the excesses of the people and the disorders of the kingdom: we
must deceive its perfidious hopes, and give to it firm and sagacious
patriots. We think of you."

XI.

Roland, whose ambition had soured in obscurity, had smiled at the power
which came to avenge his old age. Brissot, himself, had gone to Madame
Roland on the 21st of the same month, and repeating the same words, had
requested from her the formal consent of her husband. Madame Roland was
ambitious, not of power but of fame. Fame lightens up the higher places
only, and she ardently desired to see her husband elevated to this
eminence. She spoke like a woman who had predicted the event, and whom
fortune does not surprise. "The burden is heavy," she said to Brissot,
"but Roland has a great consciousness of his own powers, and would
derive fresh strength from the feeling of being useful to liberty and
his country."

This choice being made, the Girondists cast their eyes on Lacoste, an
active commissioner of the navy, a working man, his mind limited by his
duties, but honest and upright; his very candour of nature preserving
him from faction. Put into council to watch over his master, he
naturally became his friend. Duranto