Rousseau. Madame Roland spoke well—too well. The listener would fain have discoveied signs of preparation in her speech, but could not. Hers was simply too perfect a nature. Wit, reason, common-sense, and sweetness flowed with spontaneous felicity of diction from between ivory teeth and rosy lips; there was nothing for it but to resign yourself . . . At the beginning of her husband's ministry I saw Madame Roland for the last time. She had lost nothing of her freshness, youthfulness, or simplicity. Roland looked like a Quaker, for whose daughter she might have passed. Her child capered round her with hair rippling down to her waist. You would have said inhabitants from Pennsylvania transplanted to the salon of M. de Calonne. Madame Roland spoke only of public affairs, and I could see that my moderation inspired her with some pity. Her soul was wrought up, but her heart remained gentle and inoffensive. Although the wreck of monarchy had not yet occurred, she did not disguise from herself that signs of anarchy were beginning to show themselves, and she promised to oppose them unto death."
Although the power of the executive in reality rested not so much in the Ministry as in the Representative Assembly, the conscientious Roland was preparted to fulfil his duties to the utmost. The good-nature and apparent sincerity of the King had charmed him at first, and he had come home from the Cabinet meetings full of hope concerning the future working of the Constitution, seeing the excellent hitherto misanderstood intentions of the monarch. His wife was not so easily duped, and warned him not to be too credidous. Her misgivings proved only too well founded, for, in spite of his protestations of
