as its general
and preserver, he would equally have been the general and preserver of
the Coalition. Dumouriez was not the hero of a principle, but of the
occasion.

VIII.

The new ministers met at Madame Roland's, the soul of the Girondist
ministry: Duranton, Lacoste, Cahier-Gerville received there, in all
passiveness, their instructions from the men whose shadows only they
were in the council. Dumouriez affected, like them, at first, a full
compliance with the interests and will of the party, which, personified
at Roland's by a young, lovely, and eloquent woman, must have had an
additional attraction for the general. He hoped to rule by ruling the
heart of this female. He employed with her all the plasticity of his
character, all the graces of his nature, all the fascinations of his
genius; but Madame Roland had a preservative against the warrior's
seductions that Dumouriez had not been accustomed to find in the women
he had loved--austere virtue and a strong will. There was but one means
of captivating her admiration, and that was by surpassing her in
patriotic devotion. These two characters could not meet without
contrasting themselves, nor understand without despising each other.
Very soon, therefore, Dumouriez considered Madame Roland as a stubborn
bigot, and she estimated Dumouriez as a frivolous presuming man, finding
in his look, smile, and tone of voice that audacity of success towards
her sex which betrayed, according to her estimation, the free conduct of
the females amongst whom he had lived, and which offended her decorum.
There was more of the courtier than the patriot in Dumouriez. This
French aristocracy of manners displeased the engraver's humble daughter;
perhaps it reminded her of her lowly condition, and the humiliations of
her childhood at Versailles. Her ideal was not the military, but the
citizen; a republican mind alone could acquire her love. Besides, she
saw at a glance that this man was too great to remain long on the level
of her party; she suspected his genius in his politeness, and his
ambition beneath his familiarity. "Have an eye to that man," she said to
her husband after their first interview; "he may conceal a master
beneath the colleague, and drive from the cabinet those who introduced
him there."

IX.

Roland, too happy at being in power, did not foresee his disgrace, and
encouraging his wife, trusted more and more to the admiration which
Dumouriez feigned for him. He tho