MADAME ROLAND A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY [Illustration: MADAME ROLAND AT THE CONCIERGERIE. From a painting by Jules Goupil, now in the museum of Amboise. ] MADAME ROLAND _A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY_ BY IDA M. TARBELL [Illustration] NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1896 COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. TO MY DEAR FRIEND MADAME CÉCILE MARILLIER ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PREFACE Some eight years ago I undertook a study of the women of the French Revolution, my object being merely to satisfy myself as to the value of their public services in that period. In the course of my studies I became particularly interested in Madame Roland, and when five years ago I found myself in Paris for an extended period, I decided to use my leisure in making a more careful investigation of her life and times than I had been able to do in America. The result of that study is condensed in this volume. Much of the material used in preparing the book is new to the public. The chapter on Mademoiselle Phlipon’s relations with M. Roland and of their marriage has been written from unpublished letters, and presents a very different view of that affair from that which her biographers have hitherto given, and from that which she herself gives in her Memoirs. The story of her seeking a title with its privileges in Paris in 1784 has never before been told, the letters in which the details of her search are given never having been published. Those of her biographers who have had access to these letters have been too ardent republicans, or too passionate admirers of their heroine, to dwell on an episode of her career which seemed to them inconsistent with her later life. The manuscripts of the letters from which these chapters have been written are now in the _Bibliothèque Nationale_ of Paris. They were given to the library in 1888, by Madame Faugère, the widow of M. P. Faugère, to whom they had been given by Madame Champagneux, only daughter of Madame Roland, that he might prepare a satisfactory edition of her mother’s works, and write a life of her father. M. Faugère finished his edition of Madame Roland’s writings, but he died before completing his life of M. Roland.