.

The outbreak of the Revolution found Mme. Roland at La Platiere, where
she shared her husband's philosophic and economic studies, brought
peace into a discordant family, attended to her household duties and the
training of her child, devoted many hours to generous care for the sick
and poor, and reserved a little leisure for poetry and the solitary
rambles she loved so well. The first martial note struck a responsive
chord in her heart. Her opportunity had come. Embittered by class
distinctions over which she had long brooded, saturated with the
sentiments of Rousseau, and full of untried theories constructed in
the closet, with small knowledge of the wide and complex interests with
which it was necessary to deal, she centered all the hitherto latent
energies of her forceful nature upon the quixotic effort to redress
human wrongs. Her birth, her intellect, her character, her temperament,
her education, her associations--all led her towards the role she played
so heroically. She had a keen appreciation for genuine values, but
none whatever for factitious ones. Her inborn hatred of artificial
distinctions had grown with her years and colored all her estimates
of men and things. When she came to Paris, she noted with a sort of
indignation the superior poise and courtesy of the men in the assembly
who had been reared in the habit of power. It added fuel to her enmity
towards institutions in which reason, knowledge, and integrity paid
homage to fine language and distinguished manners. She found even
Vergniaud too refined and fastidious in his dress for a successful
republican leader. Her old contempt for a "philosopher with a feather"
had in no wise abated. With such principles ingrained and fostered, it
is not difficult to forecast the part Mme. Roland was destined to play
in the coming conflict of classes. Whatever we may think of the wisdom
of her attitude towards the Revolution, she represented at least its
most sincere side. As she stood white-robed and courageous at the foot
of the scaffold, facing the savage populace she had laid down her life
to befriend, perhaps her perspectives were truer. Experience had given
her an insight into the characters of men which is not to be gained in
the library, nor in the worship of dead heroes. If it had not shaken her
faith in human perfectibility, it had taught her at least the value of
tradition in chaining brutal human passions.

The tragical fate of Mme. Roland has thrown a