Arrived in Paris, they settled in the Rue de la Harpe, where they lived very quietly, Roland occupying himself with the encyclopædia, with his plan for a pension, and with his friends. He went to the chief places of Gironde rendezvous when he had leisure, and they came to him sometimes. His chief political work, however, was at the Jacobin Club, where he was engaged on a committee. Their life was very quiet until March, when it suddenly changed. A friend dropping in one day told Madame Roland that the patriots were to be asked to form a ministry and that as they were going to seek men of ability and courage, Roland had been thought of for a portfolio. Some days later (March 21, 1792) Brissot came to see her to inquire if Roland would accept if asked. They talked the matter over, considered its dangers, sounded its possibilities,—the next day Brissot was told in classic phrase that Roland’s courage did not falter, that the knowledge of his force inspired him with confidence in his ability to be useful to the country and to liberty. The movement which had brought about the Girondin ministry had been led by Brissot. After the vetoes of the King to the decrees against the priests and _émigrés_, every effort had been made by the Jacobins to show that the ministry of the King was in secret sympathy with Court and _émigrés_, that while posing as constitutional, they were, in fact, anti-constitutional. Brissot had led this movement, and had condescended to some very low manœuvres to discredit certain members of the ministry. His plans had at last succeeded, and Louis XVI., hoping to quiet suspicion, had consented to name a cabinet which would satisfy the Girondins. It was in this body that Roland had been asked to take the Department of the Interior. As was to be expected, the conservatives criticised the new ministers harshly from the first. Roland was pictured to the country by the _Mercure_ as one of the principal agitators of Lyons; “no administrative talent, no experience in affairs of state, a hot head, and the principles of the times in their greatest exaggeration.” The conservative element naturally accepted this characterization; for, outside of the manufacturing world, Roland was utterly unknown. As for the Jacobin element, it was a question of how far in anarchy the cabinet would go; if it kept up with them, well and good; if it fell behind, then let it take care.