Madame Roland has herself offered an apology for her interference in the business of her husband. In the early days of their marriage, she had acted as his amanuensis, and had faithfully copied what he wrote. But the dryness of his style did not suit her taste, and she began to amend his writings. At length, having a perfect agreement in views and opinions with her husband, he entirely yielded up to her the pen. "I could not express any thing," she says, "that regarded reason or justice, which he was not capable of realizing or maintaining with his conduct; while I expressed better than he could whatever he had done or promised to do. Without my intervention, Roland had been an equally good agent; his activity and knowledge, as well as his probity, were all his own; but he produced a greater sensation through me, since I put into his writings that mixture of energy and gentleness, of authority and persuasion, which is peculiar to a woman of a warm heart and a clear head. I wrote with delight such pieces as I thought would be useful, and I took greater pleasure in them than I should have done had I been their acknowledged author." Roland continued his struggle against the Mountain, who were daily gaining strength. Although in a minority in the Convention, they were all powerful with the mob; and the knowledge of this, together with their menaces, induced some of the more timid Girondists to vote for their savage measures. Of the frightful state of affairs at Paris, Madame Roland thus writes to a friend: "We are under the knife of Robespierre and Marat. These men agitate the people, and endeavor to turn them against the Assembly and Council; they have a little army, which they pay with money stolen from the Tuileries." Again she writes, "Danton leads all; Robespierre is his puppet; Marat holds his torch and dagger; this ferocious tribune reigns, and we are his slaves until the moment when we shall become his victims. You are aware of my enthusiasm for the revolution; well, I am ashamed of it; it is deformed by monsters, and become hideous. It is degrading to remain, but we are not allowed to quit Paris; they shut us up to murder us when occasion serves."