AME ROLAND AT THE MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR.

Roland took the portfolio of the Interior, March 24, 1792, and
installed himself and his wife in the ministerial residence, then
occupying the site afterwards built on by the _Theatre Italien_. This
very beautiful and luxurious mansion had formerly been the controller's
office, and both Calonne and Necker had lived in it. Madame Roland
found no small pleasure in queening it under the gilded canopies of the
old regime. It was not at all disagreeable to her to give dinners in
the sumptuous banqueting hall erected by the elegant Calonne, nor did
the austere admirer of the ancients set the black broth of Sparta
before her guests.

Once arrived at power, was this great enemy of nobility and
prescription simple, and easy of approach? Not in the least. There is
often more arrogance displayed by parvenus of both sexes than by those
who are aristocrats by birth. Madame Roland was extremely proud of her
new dignity, and at once resolved, as she tells us in her Memoirs,
neither to make nor receive visits. Her attitude and {86} manners
while at the ministry were those of an Asiatic sovereign. She secluded
herself, permitting only a small number of privileged courtiers to
enter her presence. Under the old regime, the wives of ministers and
ambassadors, dukes and peers, had never felicitated themselves on
"cultivating their private tastes" to the detriment of the proprieties
and obligations of good breeding. But the Revolution had changed all
that. French politeness was now mere old-fashioned rubbish. At the
Ministry of the Interior, the etiquette whose "severity" is vaunted by
Madame Roland was more rigorous than that of the court of Versailles,
and it was easier to see the wife of the King than the wife of the
minister. With what hauteur the latter expresses herself concerning
"the self-seeking crowds who throng about those who hold great places"!
Assuredly, the Queen had never spoken of her subjects in this tone of
disdainful patronage.

[Illustration: MADAME ROLAND]

Madame Roland, who "was tired of fools," incommoded herself for nobody.
The agreeable side of power was all she wanted. Suppressing the
receptions which annoyed her, she gave none but men's dinners, where
she perorated and paraded, and where, being the only woman present, she
had no rivals to fear. Self-sufficiency and insufficiency are, for the
most part, what fall to the share of parvenus. What would