CHAPTER III.

THE ENGRAVER'S DAUGHTER, MADAME ROLAND.

Two women may be said to have acted a part of more than common importance in the fall of monarchy. The one, as queen of France, by her ill-timed resistance to the revolution; the other by her imprudent enthusiasm as the secret inspirer of the republican party.

Though thus tending, by different means, and with far different objects, to the same end-an end which proved ruin for both, and for the principles they professed-these two women, divided by the vast difference of their social positions, never met. Their struggle was carried on through the men they influenced. This is no vague assertion: the struggle existed; it was a long and severe one-the struggle of energetic reaction represented by Marie Antoinette, and of republican ardour embodied by Madame Roland. The queen was certainly no more the whole reaction than the engraver's daughter was the whole republican party; but it is a significant and important fact, to find in two women the fittest representatives of the great principles which divided France at that momentous period of her history.

We have already dwelt at some length on the conduct of Marie Antoinette; on the imprudence which hastened the fall of Louis XVI.; on the heroism which gave to that fall some of her own native dignity. Whilst the queen thus pursued her ill-advised course, Madame Roland-as lovely, highspirited, and inflexible as the daughter of Maria Theresa, but with less of her frivolous grace, and with an intellect of more commanding grasp and energy-gathered around her, by the power of her beauty and eloquence, a party of talented and

ardent men, who, yielding to her inspirations, hurried France towards a brief and premature republic.

Beautiful-but of that chaste and almost spiritual beauty which is felt and not portrayed-tall and graceful in person, with a broad, clear brow, blue eyes, deep and thoughtful, dark curling locks that clustered around her neck, and features which, if not strictly regular, were full of fire and expression, Madame Roland exercised an irresistible fascination on all those who approached her. Great as was the power of her personal charms, it yielded to that of her voice. Those who had heard it once could never forget it again. The low, clear tones-so mellow and so deep-haunted them like a strain of exquisite melody through years, long after she who gave them utterance had perished on a scaffold.

But the real source of Madame Roland's influence must be sought in her dauntless and noble character. To the austere heroism of a Roman matron, she united that sensitive and passionate enthusiasm unknown to the ancients; and which has sprung from Christianity, with its fount of boundless love, and its yearning thirst of self-sacrifice. Great, indeed,

as her talents were, they were far surpassed by a spirit as heroic, and yet as womanly, as ever tenanted female form. Earnest and deeply convinced herself, she could convince others her eloquence was not merely the eloquence of genius; it sprang from the heart, and had that power which the heart alone can give.

There is nothing, perhaps, more remarkable in the history of this eminent woman than the simple dignity of her earlier years. We may take her from her obscure youth, and follow her to the scaffold; we still find her the same pure, resolute, and independent being, bearing her unmerited isolation and poverty with the same fortitude which she afterwards displayed in a prison, with the prospect of a certain death before her. It is in this completeness of her character that lies its ue, its perfect greatness. Manon Phlipon was born at Paris, the year 1756, of obscure but respectable parents: her ther was an engraver of some talent, and in easy circum

stances. She was surrounded from her youth by those pure and religious influences which, notwithstanding the scepticism of the age, still lingered in the humble homes of the bourgeois. Even as a child Manon was grave and thoughtful, and displayed an inflexible temper, strange in one so young. She yielded to persuasion, but resisted force or arbitrary will with unflinching obstinacy. When she was about six years old, she was ordered, during one of her childish illnesses, to take a nauseous draught: the disgust natural to her age made her refuse. Her father immediately administered to her a personal chastisement, and imperatively bade her obey; she refused again, and the correction was repeated a third injunction to drink the medicine was then delivered to her; this time the child said nothing: without even deigning to utter a refusal, she offered herself silently to the expected blow. A gentle prayer and remonstrance from her mother, who then interfered, sufficed to make her comply: overpowering her strong reluctance, she drank off the medicine without hesitation. Struck with the indomitable resolution of his daughter's temper, M. Phlipon yielded her entirely to the management of his wife, and forbore exercising over Manon an injudicious tyranny, which might pervert, but could not subdue, the native energy of her character.

Notwithstanding the inflexibility she displayed whenever she thought herself the victim of injustice or caprice, Manon was habitually of a gentle and serene disposition. Her earliest inclination was a passionate fondness for books and flowers; with both of which she afterwards cheered her prison solitude. A child in years, a woman in the depth and earnestness of her feelings, she might often be seen seated in a recess of her father's workshop, poring for hours over an old volume of Plutarch's Lives; her cheeks flushed, and her eyes swimming with tears, as she dwelt on the immortal pages which have roused and inspired so many heroic spirits. Often then the loved book fell from her grasp, whilst, with brow bent down and clasped hands, she silently wept, to think that she was not born in ancient Sparta or glorious Rome. When her

mother, a woman of remarkable beauty and gentleness, wished to draw away Manon from her books, for which the child, as has already been observed, always felt a strange yearning, she offered her flowers. The volume of Plutarch, however, left her but seldom: she secretly carried it with her, instead of her prayer-book, whenever Madame Phlipon, who was extremely devout, took her to the parish church during Lent. The deeds of the heroic men of old were the "Acts of the Apostles" which steeled the soul of the martyr of liberty. Unconscious of the stern future destined to her, she already envied, perchance, in the dreams of her childhood, that gloomy and yet glorious fate which has revealed her to posterity. And is not character, indeed, that secret power of fashioning life and events which was so long called destiny?

The parents of the young Manon, proud of her dawning beauty and singular talents, strained their means to give her an education worthy of her, though far above her position in History, geography, astronomy, chemistry, geometry, Latin, English, Italian, music, dancing, and drawing, were taught her by various masters; who all admired her rapid progress. Her eagerness to learn was such that she often rose, unbidden, at five in the morning, in order to have more time for her studies. But knowledge could not absorb entirely a soul naturally so ardent and enthusiastic. That longing for ideal excellence, which she afterwards placed in stoic endurance and republican freedom, already haunted the mind of the thoughtful child. She wished to understand her own nature, to know the real destination of man, and to prepare herself for it, whatever it might be. This earnestness of purpose is one of the noblest characteristics of her brief existence. In youth, her aspirations took the form of religious mysticism: she gave herself up to prayer and contemplation. Like the beautiful and impassioned Saint Theresa, of Avilar, she early sighed for martyrdom, and dwelt with silent rapture on the unfathomed mysteries of divine love. She entertained for a while the project of embracing a religious life the sublime devotedness of the Sisters of Charity

deeply touched her heart, already thirsting for self-sacrifice. Yielding to her earnest prayers, her parents allowed her to spend a year in a convent. In this calm retreat her mind acquired the deep and subdued tone of feeling characteristic of those persons who have lived in loneliness and self-communion. She loved to sit apart from her companions, reading and meditating in the solitary avenues of the grounds by which the convent was surrounded, or to muse in the lonely cloisters, over the grave of some departed nun, familiarising her soul with the solemn thoughts of death and eternity. Though the religious sentiments of Manon Phlipon yielded, at a later period, to the scepticism of the age, their purifying influence is to be traced through every stage of her existence. They imparted to her character that tenderness and calmı fortitude which marked her domestic and public life, and chastened down the almost pagan heroism of her last hours.

When the young girl-for she was now no longer a child— left the convent, and returned to her father's house, it was to lead a life of severe retirement. For several years she remained wholly secluded within the pure atmosphere of domestic life. Religion, study, and humble household cares filled her quiet existence, and fortified her soul for future struggles. An active correspondence which she then carried on with two of her convent friends, Henriette and Sophie Cannet, shews how calm and obscure was the life she led. The influence of early home is felt throughout every woman's life; her world is essentially inward: it is in the practice of homely duties, in slight but repeated trials and sufferings, that she acquires the subdued gentleness, the habit of calm endurance, which, in more impatient man, are the result of judgment or iron will. Manon accustomed herself to a severe self-discipline. She was early convinced that it is more easy to repress our passions than to satisfy them with due moderation. Whenever her active imagination seemed to her in need of control, she therefore studied geometry and algebra with passionate ardour. The austere turn of her mind made her dislike the licentious novels then in fashion; history even lost its charms for her: