man should suddenly bethink himself to remind me of his strength
he would provoke me, and if he submitted to me he would make me
feel ashamed of my power." For such a woman marriage was certainly
a difficult problem. Finally, Roland de la Platieres came within her
circle; and although somewhat adverse to him at first, after a number
of his visits she wrote: "I have been much charmed by the solidity of
his judgment and his cultured and interesting conversation." Just such
a man appealed to her nature and was in harmony with her views. After
months of monotonous life in the convent to which she had retired, she
at last consented to become the wife of Roland, not from expectations
of any fortune, but purely from a sense of devoting herself to the
happiness of an honorable man, to making his life sweeter.

Roland, scrupulously conscientious, painstaking, and observing, had
won the position of inspector of manufactures, which took him away on
foreign travels part of the time. He had acquired a thorough knowledge
of manufacturing and the principles of political economy. The first
years of their life were spent in each other's society exclusively,
as he was insanely jealous of her; she rarely left his side, and
they studied the same works, copied and revised his manuscripts, and
corrected his proofs. In this she was indispensable to him. But her
activity did not stop with literary work; she managed her husband's
household, and for miles around her home the peasants soon learned
to know her through her charitable deeds. She was the village doctor,
often going for miles to attend the poor in distress. With her own
hands she prepared dainty dishes with which to tempt her husband's
appetite. Thus, her best years were spent upon things for which much
less ability would have sufficed. She watched with breathless
interest the installation of Necker and the dismissal of Turgot, the
convocation of the notables, the struggles for financial recovery,
and, finally, the calling of a States-General, which had not been
in session since 1614. During the first stormy years, 1789-1790, she
wrote burning missives to her friend Bosc, at Paris, which appeared
anonymously in the _Patriote Francais_, edited by Brissot, the future
Girondist leader. Soon came the commission of Roland as the first
citizen of the city of Lyons, which had a debt of forty million
francs, to acquaint the National Assembly with its affairs.

When, in 1791, Mme. Roland arri