on the 5th, "We are under the knife of Robespierre and Marat"—all this helps to explain the else inexplicable quiescence of the Minister of the Interior.
But a change had come over the face of the Revolution. The massacres, it may be said, were in substance not nearly as bad as the atrocities over and over again committed, as history records. But atrocities committed in the name of liberty and fraternity—there is the pity of it! By them, declares the humane Michelet, the cause of freedom in Europe was retarded for a century. And well may it be so! For all the best minds began to lose faith in this uprising of the French nation, which they had hailed as the dawning of a new era. With the rivers of blood spilt so ruthlessly they sullied the pure, new-born idea of equality; with the red glare of their terror they blotted out the clear sunrise that had promised a better day. "You know my enthusiasm for the Revolution," was Madame Roland's cry to Bancal. "Well, I am ashamed of it! Scoundrels have defiled it! It is become hideous! . . . To remain in power is degrading, yet we are not allowed to leave Paris . . ."
Already, on the 11th of September, Roland wished to send in his resignation. "But," said his wife, "Brissot has been scolding me terribly, and declaring that for my husband to quit the Administration at such a juncture would prove a public calamity."
