Jean-Marie Roland, vicomte de la Platière

Jean-Marie Roland, de la Platière was born in 1734 in the region of the Rhône.  He spent his years before the Revolution working as a manufacturer and factory inspector across France.  In 1781 he married Marie-Jeanne Philipon who became known as Madame Roland and who assisted him in his various writing projects.

During the early years of the Revolution the Rolands moved to Lyon.  The Roland’s writing became well known in Paris.  They stayed in Paris and became friends with leading revolutionaries and Roland became a member of the Jacobin club.  It was during this time period that Madame Roland started her salon and became well known in Parisian society.  When the Girondins came to power they appointed Roland as minister of the interior in March 1792

Roland became increasingly unpopular after the Insurrection of the 10th of August as he resented the centralisation of the Revolution.  He proposed that to increase stability the government should move to Blois.  He had been informed by a locksmith that there was an iron box containing personal papers of the King in the Tuileries Palace.  Roland looked through these on his own and brought them back to the Convention.  The evidence would incriminate the King and discredit the deceased Mirabeau.  Roland however received criticism from amongst others Marat who accused him of hiding papers damaging to the Girondins.   He later swam against the populist tide by stating that there should be a referendum to decide whether the King should be executed.  When the King was executed he resigned his position as minister.

As the Jacobins and the sans-culottes turned against the Girondins Roland was denounced and he fled Paris and went into hiding.  Madame Roland stayed in the capital and she was arrested and executed.  Roland was sentenced to death in his absence.  When he heard of his wife’s death he wrote a few notes on what he saw as the errors of the Terror he placed the note on his chest then stabbed himself through the heart.

Madame Roland praises her husband taken from The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p28

Roland had held in check the upstart Commune; he had imposed harmonious and regular discipline on all the elements of his administration; he had seen to the provision of supplies, restored peace in the departments and breathed a sense of order into the public service by means of a fair and energetic administration and an enlightened system of communications.  They should have supported Roland; but their impotence, which he understood only too well made this impossible and he had no option but to resign.