ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE 95 ROLLAND aided him in editing his works, and dur- ing his two ministries acted as his secre- tary and entered into all the intrigues of his party without debasing herself by their meanness. After the flight of her husband, Madame Roland was arrested by order of the Paris Commune under the dictation of Marat and Robespierre, and consigned to the Abbaye prison, from which, on Oct. 31, she was removed to a more wretched abode in the Conciergerie. When sentenced at the bar of Fouquier Tinville she was eager to embrace her fate. She declared her conviction that her husband would not survive her. (He committed suicide.) On the scaffold she apostrophized the statue of liberty near- by — "Ah, Liberty! what crimes are com- mitted in thy name!" Besides her miscellaneous works, Madame Roland left "Memoirs" composed during her captivity, and a last affecting composition in the "Counsels of a Letter," addressed to her little girl. She was executed Nov. 8, 1793. ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE, JEAN MARIE, a French statesman; born in Villefranche, France, Feb. 18, 1734; was inspector-general of manufactures and commerce in that city when the French Revolution commenced, and having em- braced popular principles became, in 1790, member of the Lyons municipality. In February, 1791, he was sent to Paris as deputy extraordinary to defend the com- mercial interests of Lyons in the com- mittees of the Constituent Assembly, and remained there seven months, accom- panied by his gifted wife. The practical philosophy, commercial knowledge, and strict simplicity of Roland, recommended him to men of all parties, and when the patriot ministry was formed in March, 1792, he was made minister of the in- terior. He kept his position till June 13, when the royal veto on the proposal to form a patriot camp around Paris, and on the decree against the priests, pro- voked his celebrated letter to the king, written, however, by Madame Roland, and as a consequence, his almost instant dis- missal. This event was followed by the arrival of the Marseillais in Paris, and the conflict at the Tuileries, on Aug. 10, when Roland was recalled, and Danton became minister of justice. The struggle between the Girondists and the munici- pality under the guidance of Robespierre filled up the period till May 31; the for- mer party were then vanquished, and Ro- land was among the number who saved their lives by flight. He found an asy- lum with his friends at Rouen, but de- liberately killed himself with his cane sword on hearing of the execution of his wife, Nov. 15, 1793. ROLFE, JOHN CAREW, an Amer- ican educator, born in Lawrence, Mass., in 1859, the son of William J. Rolfe. He graduated from Harvard University in 1881 and took post-graduate studies in Cornell and in Athens. From 1882 to 1885 he was instructor of Latin in Cornell, and he occupied the same post at Harvard in 1889-90. From 1890 tc 1902 he was on the faculty of the Uni- versity of Michigan, and from 1902 was professor of the Latin language and literature at the University of Penn- sylvania. He edited various text-books and was a frequent contributor to scien- tific magazines. ROLFE, WILLIAM JAMES, an American editor; born in Newburyportf Mass., Dec. 10, 1827. He was a distin- guished Shakespearian scholar, and pub- lished many editions of Shakespeare, annotated; among them "The Friendly Edition," in 20 volumes (1870-1883), and a "School Edition," in 40 volumes. He also published: "Shakespeare, the Boy," annotated editions of selections from Tennyson, Scott, Browning, Words- worth, Gray, Goldsmith and other Eng- lish poets, and "Tales from English History." He died July 7, 1910. ROLLAND, ROMAIN, a French au- thor; born at Clamecy, in 1866. He re» ROMAIN ROLLAND ceived his education at the Ecole Nor- male Superieure, became a professor of
