minister highly, and he put it instantly into
execution. "I was conscious," says the irascible Egeria of the
Girondins in her Memoirs, "of all the effects this might produce, and I
was not deceived; my double object was attained, and both utility and
glory attended the retirement of my husband. I had not been proud of
his entering the ministry, but I was of his leaving it." Thenceforward
Madame Roland was to be the most indefatigable cause of the Revolution,
and Louis XVI. was to learn by experience what the vengeance of a woman
can accomplish.

{166}

XVI.

A THREE DAYS' MINISTRY.

Dumouriez had taken the portfolio of war. He kept it three days only.
But during those three days what activity! what excitement! More than
fifteen hundred signatures affixed, instructions sent to all the
generals, a most tumultuous session of the National Assembly, a last
effort to induce Louis XVI. to make further concessions, a resignation
which was to be the signal for catastrophes. How the scenes of the
drama multiply! How the denouement is accelerated!

The session at which Dumouriez was to appear for the first time as
Minister of War could not fail to be singular. It took place June 13,
1792, and from ten o'clock in the morning all the galleries had been
crowded. The Jacobins had filled them with their satellites. The
Girondins had prepared a dramatic surprise. The three ex-ministers
were to be brought into the chamber under pretext of explaining the
causes of their dismissal. It was agreed that they should be received
as victims of the aristocracy and martyrs of the Revolution. Roland's
letter--say, rather, his wife's letter--to Louis XVI. was read to {167}
the Assembly and frequently interrupted by loud bursts of applause.
Just as it was finished, and some one was demanding that it should be
sent to all the eighty-three departments, Dumouriez entered the hall.
Murmurs and hisses arose on all sides. The Assembly voted the despatch
of the letter to the departments. A deputy exclaimed: "It will be a
famous document in the history of the Revolution and of the ministers."
The Assembly went on to declare that Roland was followed by the regrets
of the nation. Then Dumouriez ascended the tribune and read a message
in which M. Lafayette announced the death of M. de Gouvion. He had
been major-general of the National Guard, and, having quitted the
Assembly rather than be present at the triumph of the Swiss of
Chat