g
the republican regime in France.

{80}

Supposing that, instead of being merely an insignificant commoner,
Madame Roland had been born in the ranks of aristocracy, had enjoyed
the right of sitting down in the presence of Their Majesties at
Versailles, and had shone at the familiar entertainments of the
Trianon, she would doubtless have shared the sentiments and ideas of
the women of the old regime, and, like the Princess de Lamballe or the
Duchess de Polignac, have shed tears of compassion over the Queen's
misfortunes. Fate, in placing her in a subordinate position, made her
an enemy and a rebel. She anathematized the society in which her rank
bore no relation to her lofty intelligence and her need of domination.
When, from the upper window of her father's house on the Quai des
Orfevres, beside the Pont-Neuf, she saw the brilliant retinue of Marie
Antoinette pass by on their way to Notre Dame to return thanks to God
for some happy event, she grew angry at all this pomp and glitter, so
much in contrast with her own obscure condition. What crimes have been
engendered by the sentiment of envy! The furies of the guillotine were
above all things envious. They were delighted to see in the fatal cart
the woman whom they had formerly beheld in gala carriages resplendent
with gold. Madame Roland certainly ought not to have carried her
hatred to such a pitch; but had she not demanded in 1789, when speaking
of Louis XVI. and the Queen, that "two illustrious heads" should be
brought to trial? Who knows? If, in 1784, she had obtained the {81}
patent of nobility for her husband which at that period she solicited
so ardently, she might have become sincerely royalist! But having
remained, despite herself, in the citizen class, she retained and
personified, to her latest hour, its rancor, pettiness, and wrath.
What figure could she have made at Versailles, or even at the
Tuileries? In the midst of great lords and noble ladies the haughty
commoner would have been out of place; she would have stifled. It was
chiefly on that account that she attached herself to the new ideas.
She told herself that so long as royalty lasted, she would always be of
small importance; while, if the republic were established, she might
aspire to anything. Though her husband was one of the King's
ministers, she became daily more adverse to the monarchy, and Roland,
following her counsels, was like a pilot whose whole intent is to make
the vessel