husband, which was
to echo in the ears of royalty like a funeral knell. She says of it:--

"The letter was written at one stroke, like nearly all matters of the
sort which I have done; for, to feel the necessity, the fitness of a
thing, to apprehend its good effect, to desire to produce it, and to
give form to the object from which this effect should result, was to me
but a single operation."

This letter, a veritable arraignment of the King, was much more like a
club speech or a newspaper article than a letter from a minister of
state to his sovereign. Such sentences as these occur in it: "Sire,
the existing state of things in France cannot long continue; it is a
crisis whose violence is attaining its highest point; it must end by an
outbreak which should interest Your Majesty as seriously as it affects
the entire kingdom.... It is no longer possible to draw back. The
Revolution is {163} accomplished in men's minds; it will end in blood
and be cemented by blood if wisdom does not avert the evils which it is
still possible to prevent.... Yet a little more delay, and the
afflicted people will behold in their King the friend and accomplice of
conspirators. Just Heaven! hast Thou stricken with blindness the
powerful of this earth, and will they never heed other counsels than
those which drag them to destruction! I know that the austere language
of truth is rarely welcomed near the throne; I know, also, that it is
because it so rarely obtains a hearing there that revolutions become
necessary; I know, above all, that I am bound to employ it to Your
Majesty, not merely as a citizen submissive to the law, but as a
minister honored with your confidence, or vested with functions which
imply this."

The letter also contained a defence of the two decrees, and plainly
threatened Louis XVI., should he veto them, with the horrors of a civil
war which would develop "that sombre energy, mother of virtues and of
crimes, which is always fatal to those who have evoked it!" Was not
Madame Roland here announcing the September massacres, and the heinous
crimes of which she herself was speedily to become one of the most
celebrated victims?

At first Roland sent this letter to the King, with a promise that it
should always remain a secret between them. But, incited by the vanity
of his wife, who was incessantly urging him on to notoriety and
display, Roland did not keep this promise. He read {164} the letter at
the next meeting