Heroines That Every Child Should Know: Tales for Young People of the World's Heroines of All Ages
History
Heroines That Every Child Should Know: Tales for Young People of the World's Heroines of All Ages
Women heroes
This celebrated letter was presented to the King on the 11th of June,
1792. On the same day M. Roland received a letter from the King
informing him that he was dismissed from office.
"Here am I, dismissed from office," was M. Roland's exclamation to his
wife on his return home.
"Present your letter to the Assembly, that the nation may see for what
counsel you have been dismissed," replied the undaunted wife.
M. Roland did so. He was received as a martyr to patriotism. The
letter was read amid the loudest applause. It was ordered to be
printed and circulated by tens of thousands through the kingdom; and
there came rolling back upon the metropolis the echo of the most
tumultuous indignation and applause. The famous letter was read by all
France--nay, more, by all Europe. Roland was a hero. Upon this wave of
enthusiastic popularity Madame Roland and her husband retired from the
magnificent palace where they had dwelt for so short a time and
selected for their retreat very humble apartments in an apparently
obscure street.
But M. Roland and wife were more powerful now than ever before. The
letter had placed them in the front ranks of the friends of reform,
and enshrined them in the hearts of the ever fickle populace. Even the
Jacobins were compelled to swell the universal voice of commendation.
M. Roland's apartments were ever thronged. All important plans were
discussed and shaped by him and his wife before they were presented to
the Assembly.
The outcry against M. Roland's dismissal was falling in thunder tones
on the ear of the King. This act had fanned those flames of
revolutionary frenzy which were now glaring in every part of France.
The people, intoxicated and maddened by the discovery of their power,
were now arrayed, with irresistible thirstings for destruction and
blood, against the King, the court, and the nobility. There was no
hope for Louis but in the recall of M. Roland. The Jacobins were upon
him in locust legions. M. Roland alone could bring the Girondists, as
a shield, between the throne and the mob. He was recalled, and again
moved in calm triumph from his obscure chambers to the palace of the
minister. If Madame Roland's letter dismissed him from office, her
letter also restored him again with an enormous accumulation of power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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