ught himself the statesman of the
cabinet, and his gratified vanity lent itself credulously to the
advances of Dumouriez, and even made him better disposed towards the
king. On his entry to the ministry Roland had affected in his costume
the bluntness of his principles, and in his manners the rudeness of his
republicanism. He presented himself at the Tuileries in a black coat,
with a round hat, and nailed shoes covered with dust. He wished to show
in himself the man of the people, entering the palace in the plain garb
of the citizen, and thus meeting the man of the throne. This tacit
insolence he thought would flatter the nation and humiliate the king.
The courtiers were indignant; the king groaned over it; Dumouriez
laughed at it. "Ah, well then, really, gentlemen," he said to the
courtiers, "since there is no more etiquette there is no more monarchy."
This jocose mode of treating the thing had at once removed all the anger
of the court, and all the effect of the Spartan pretensions of Roland.

The king no longer regarded the discourtesy, and treated Roland with
that cordiality which unlocks men's hearts. The new ministers were
astonished to feel themselves confiding and moved in the presence of the
monarch. Having arrived suspicious and republican to their seats in the
cabinet, they quitted it almost royalists.

"The king is not known," said Roland to his wife: "a weak prince, he is
one of the best of men; he does not want good intentions, but good
advice: he does not like the aristocracy, and has strong affection for
the people: perhaps he was born to serve as the medium between republic
and monarchy. By rendering the constitution easy to him we shall make
him like it, and the popularity he will re-acquire by following our
counsels will render government easy to ourselves. His nature is so
great that the throne has been unable to corrupt it, and he is equally
remote from the silly brute which has been held up to the laughter of
the people as from the sensitive and highly accomplished man his
courtiers pretend to adore in him; his mind, without being superior, is
expansive and reflecting; in a humble position his abilities would have
provided for him; he has a general and occasionally sound knowledge,
knows the details of business, and acts towards men with that simple but
persuasive ability which gives kings the precocious necessity of
governing their impressions; his prodigious memory always recalls to him
at the r