leading topics of the day, she sat silently by, apparently engaged with her writing or her embroidery, speaking only when her advice was asked or judgment appealed to; but her few words were always direct, strong, and inspiring.
Quiet, modest, but quick-thoughted and energetic, led on by the deep interest she felt in the affairs of the nation, Madame Roland soon, almost unconsciously to herself, became the life and leader of the Girondists, the party of impetus at that time, but afterward, under Robespierrean rule, the party of moderation.
But this leadership, dangerous to most women as it would have been, was yet not so to her pure soul. Beautiful as she was, and loose as was the morality of that period, no thought, much less word, of evil, was associated with her name. Men who had hitherto looked upon women only as the pretty sensuous playthings of an hour met this woman forgetful of her sex, in the deep interest of the questions of the
