this party the known moderation of Madame Roland made
her peculiarly obnoxious. When, after the suspension of the royal
authority, consequent on the events of the 10th of August, it was
proposed in the National Convention to recall Roland to the ministry,
one of the party exclaimed, "We had better invite madame; she is the
real minister." He was reinstated in his office, and maintained for a
short time an unflinching struggle with the anarchists; but his
efforts were not supported by others; and, wearied out, he tendered
his resignation. The Mountain urged its acceptance, but the only
charges against him were complaints of his feebleness, and of his
being governed by his wife. The Girondists yet held the ascendency in
the Convention, and his resignation was not accepted. At the entreaty
of his friends, he consented to remain, and wrote thus to the
Convention: "Since I am calumniated, since I am threatened by dangers,
and since the Convention appear to desire it, I remain. It is too
glorious that my alliance with courage and virtue is the only reproach
made against me."

Madame Roland has herself offered an apology for her interference in
the business of her husband. In the early days of their marriage, she
had acted as his amanuensis, and had faithfully copied what he wrote.
But the dryness of his style did not suit her taste, and she began to
amend his writings. At length, having a perfect agreement in views and
opinions with her husband, he entirely yielded up to her the pen. "I
could not express any thing," she says, "that regarded reason or
justice, which he was not capable of realizing or maintaining with his
conduct; while I expressed better than he could whatever he had done
or promised to do. Without my intervention, Roland had been an equally
good agent; his activity and knowledge, as well as his probity, were
all his own; but he produced a greater sensation through me, since I
put into his writings that mixture of energy and gentleness, of
authority and persuasion, which is peculiar to a woman of a warm heart
and a clear head. I wrote with delight such pieces as I thought would
be useful, and I took greater pleasure in them than I should have done
had I been their acknowledged author."

Roland continued his struggle against the Mountain, who were daily
gaining strength. Although in a minority in the Convention, they were
all powerful with the mob; and the knowledge of this, together with
their menaces, indu