Madame Roland (Marie-Jeanne Philipon)
Marie-Jeanne Philipon was born in March 1754. In her youth she studied a wide range of literature and she would attend a convent school. She would marry Jean-Marie Roland in 1780. He was twenty years her senior but they appeared to have a happy marriage as she contributed to his political writings.
Whilst in Lyon the Rolands wrote a series of letters in praise of the revolution. Jean-Marie was elected to represent Lyon. Madame Roland would seize the moment and soon became the centre of salon culture as she entertained a wide range of guests including Brissot and Robespierre. She developed a particular fondness for Buzot. She became increasingly important to her husband’s political life writing his speeches and drafting much of his correspondence.
The Roland’s sided with the Girondin faction and rose as they did. Jean Marie Roland became Minister of the Interior whilst trying to function under the new Constitutional Monarchy. Madame Roland’s importance also increased as she wrote more correspondence for him including letters to the King. Soon all of this ended however when most of the leading Girondins were arrested in early June 1793. Madame Roland was also arrested and placed in prison. Her husband would escape but she would remain. She was once cruelly released only to be rearrested and returned to prison. It was whilst in prison that she would write her memoirs which were smuggled out. She was tried and found guilty and on 8th November 1793 she was taken to her execution. Her last words were said to be ‘Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name.’ Upon hearing of her death her husband still in hiding committed suicide.
Madame Roland discusses the September massacres. Taken from The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p43-44
On 1 September of last year he became aware of disturbances threatening the prisons. Early in the morning he visited them all. At the Abbaye as in others, he found a crowd of people who had just come in, having been arrested during the last domiciliary raids, and held as I am held today under a arbitrary and unmotivated warrants. There was an atmosphere of agitation and fear; orders from the Commune had prohibited all communication with the outside world. Grandpré invited these people to write notes to their friends. He waited for two hours and carried out the letters which he delivered to the section, enabling at least some of them to be saved in time. For in the meantime the report of a massacre was spreading like the dread murmur that precedes a storm. Grandpré went to the Ministry of the Interior and waited for the rising of the Council which was being held in the office of Roland, its president. Danton came out first; Grandpré approached him, described with some heat the imminent dangers and insisted on the needs for a distinction to be made at once between the different types of prisoner. Danton cut him off with an oath, shouting at the top of his voice and with a madman’s gesture, “I don’t give a damn for the prisoners they can go to the devil.” The bystanders (for this took place in the second antechamber) were horrified that a Minister of Justice could express such views. They did not know that, as has subsequently emerged, clandestine meetings were being held in Danton’s office where lists of prisoners were produced, orders given to lock up the victims and a number of them set aside for a dispatch in a manner which give the impression of a “people’s verdict”.
Madame Roland discusses Danton and his role after the 10th August 1792. Taken from The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p64
Recalled to the Ministry at that time, he had brave news hopes for liberty. “But it is a shame, we used to say, that the Council should be tarnished by the presence of the man Danton, who has such an evil reputation.” Friends to whom I whispered this thought took the line that had been useful in the Revolution, that the people loved him, and that there was no point in making an enemy unnecessarily. They thought we must make the best of him as he was. This was all very well, but it is easier to avoid giving a man power than to prevent him abusing it. That is where the patriots started to go wrong.
Madame Roland discusses Danton and his role after the 10th August 1792. Taken from The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p66
One of the first measures proposed by the Council was to send commissioners into the departments to enlighten the people about the events of 10th August and above all to encourage defence preparations and raise recruits for our armies at the frontiers. When the question of selecting these men came up, Roland asked for a twenty four hour delay in which to make proposals. Danton leapt to his feet. “I will undertake the whole thing,” he cried. “The Paris Commune will supply true patriots for this job.” With fatal indolence the Council authorised him to find the men and the next day he turned up with the commissions all complete, ready to be filled in with the names suggested by himself and signed. There was no discussion, no examination; they just signed. So now you had a swarm of unknown adventurers, tavern brawlers, fanatic patriots and riff raff making profit out of the public disorder, united only in their loyalty to Danton whose coarse behaviour and licentious doctrines they adored. These were the men who were to represent the Council in the departments of France.
Madame Roland discusses the September massacres. Taken from The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p70
The massacres continued. At the Abbaye they lasted from Sunday evening until Tuesday morning; at La Force, longer; at Bicêtre, four days, and so on. I am now in the first of these three prisons myself and that is how I have heard the gruesome details; I dare not describe them. But there was one event which I will not pass over in silence because it helps to show how all this was linked and premeditated. In the faubourg St-Germain there was a warehouse where they put the prisoners for whom there was no room in the Abbaye. The police chose the Sunday evening just before the general massacre to move prisoners from the depot to the prison. The assassins were lying in wait; they fell upon the coaches, five or six in number, broke them open with swords and pikes and slew the men and women within, screaming there in the open street. All Paris witnessed these terrible scenes, carried out by a small number of butchers. (At the Abbaye there were barely fifteen of them, but only defenders of the gate, despite all the demands made to the Commune and to the Commander of the Guard, were two men of the National Guard.) All Paris saw it and all Paris let it go on. I abominate this city. It is impossible to imagine Liberty finding a home amongst cowards who condone every outrage and coolly stand by watching crimes which fifty armed men with any gumption could easily have prevented.
Madame Roland praises the Girondin Buzot. Taken from The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p76
Although he is still young, the maturity of his judgement and the probity of his conduct earned him the admiration and confidence of fellow citizens. He justified both by his devotion to the truth and by the firmness and perseverance with which he spoke it. Second-rate men, who depreciate anything that they cannot obtain themselves, called his foresight dreaming, his warmth passion, his powerful thoughts diatribes, his opposition to all forms of excess disrespect for majority opposition. He was accused of royalism because he believed that morality is necessary in a republic and should be upheld; of slandering Paris because he abhorred the September massacres; of aristocracy because he wanted the people to be allowed to exercise their sovereignty in the trial of Louis XVI, and of federalism because he called for equality between all the departments of France and spoke against the municipal tyranny of the usurping Paris Commune.
Madame Roland on Mirabeau after his death. Taken from The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p79
I heard- but far too seldom- the astonishing Mirabeau, the only man in the Revolution who had the genius to sway men and to magnetise an Assembly; a great man in his abilities (though he had his faults), he stood head and shoulders above the rest and was the unquestioned master whenever he took the trouble to command. He died soon after. I thought at the time that this was timely for his reputation and for the cause of freedom, but subsequent events have taught me to regret him more. We needed the counterweight of such a man to oppose the depredations of a pack of curs and to save us from the domination of swindlers.
Madame Roland praises Brissot. Taken from The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p80
He is a well-informed political writer who from early youth has studied social conditions and thought about how to improve the human lot. He is an expert on Man but knows very little about men. He is aware that evil exists but cannot believe that anyone who looks him straight in the eye can be a villain. When he does recognise a bad man he treats him as if he were mad and to be pitied. He cannot hate: one might say that any feeling so vigorous as that is too strong for his sensitive nature. He knows a lot and he writes easily: he will dash off an article as another might copy out a song. In some of his writings, despite their serious content, there is hastiness and a touch of levity and his boisterous energy gives him the air of interfering in everybody’s business. People looking for something of which to accuse him say that he is an intriguer, but that is hardly the word for a man who never thinks of himself, is incapable of looking after his own interests and is not ashamed of poverty or afraid of death. He devoted all his time to the Revolution with no other aim than the public good. He made nothing out of the journal which he edited with so much care and was content to let his partner make a small fortune from it.
Madame Roland in initial praise of Robespierre taken from The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p81
Robespierre’s behaviour during the sessions in my house was extraordinary. He spoke little, sneered a great deal and threw out sarcastic asides, but never gave a straight opinion. If there was any coherent discussion he would take pains to appear in the Assembly the following day and make use of what he had heard his friends say. They sometimes reproached him about this. He would excuse himself with a joke and they would overlook it as the product of an insatiable amour proper. But it did undermine confidence. If they wanted to follow some agreed course of action, and to allot tasks to one another in pursuit of it, they could never be sure that Robespierre would not give the game away and upset the whole thing by trying to take the credit for himself. I thought then that Robespierre was a genuine libertarian and I attributed his faults to excessive zeal.
Madame Roland shows tolerance to d’Orléans. Taken from The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p83
In isolation d’Orléans presented no threat, but his name, his connections and his wealth gave him great influence. There is no doubt he was secretly encouraging much of the popular agitation. Genuine democrats suspected this but considered it to be part of the leverage necessary to shift the inert mass of the Ancien Régime. They thought that so long as they themselves took no part in his intrigues they could safely make use of them in the public interest. They also imagined that d’Orléans was more interested in humiliating the Court that had spurned him that in seeking power for himself.
Madame Roland on Dumouriez The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p96-97
Dumouriez is energetic, vigilant, amusing and brave, just made for war and for intrigue. He is a capable officer and even his jealous colleagues thought him the only one of them fit to command a great army. But in character and in morality he was more suited to the old Court than to the new Regime. He had imagination and courage but lacks stability and self-control. He can hatch a plot but he is too indiscreet to keep it to himself. In short, too hot-headed to be the leader of a party.
I am sure Dumouriez did not go to Belgium with the intention of betraying his country; he would have served a Republic or King with equal enthusiasm if he could have seen glory and profit in it for himself. But the rotten decrees of the Convention, the appalling behaviour of the commissioners and the follies of the executive destroyed our cause in that country. Everything was in turmoil there and he had the idea of changing course. He tied himself up in his own contrivances through imprudence and immaturity.
Madame Roland on Tom Paine in The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p104
I have already named the most notable of the people I entertained, but I must also mention Paine. He had been given French citizenship as one of the celebrated foreigners whom the nation felt proud to adopt, being noted for his writings which had played a large part in the American Revolution and might have helped to bring about a similar revolution in England. I cannot form an absolute judgement of him because he could speak no French though understood it and I was such in much the same position with English; so that although I could follow his conversation with others I could hardly engage him in one myself. But I did form the impression that, like so many authors, he was not worth so much as his writings.
The daring of his opinions, the originality of his style, his audacious way of casting unpleasant truths in the faces of those he was exposing naturally caused a great sensation. But I would judge him more adept at setting things alight than at preparing the foundations of government. He can illuminate a revolution but hardly helps to construct a constitution.