“The present troubles which agitate your department at several points,” he wrote them, April 18th, “seem to have their source in the diversity of religious opinions. This diversity of opinion is the fruit of error, and the error comes from ignorance. If, then, we enlighten men, we deliver them from prejudices, and if the prejudices were destroyed, peace would reign on the earth.... It is not by force of arms that one teaches reason.... In the first place a well-organized state has only enough troops to prevent invasions, to meet force by force, and to enable all the citizens to enjoy all the benefits of their own constitution. Second, internal order should be maintained by instruction, by public opinion, and finally by the force of the National Guards.... Elected by the people, you ought to have their confidence. Your instruction ought to produce the greatest effect, and you ought to be able through confidence and reason to form and direct public opinion. These means, used energetically and wisely, are sure. Is there a rare circumstance when they are too slow? You have all the public force of your department; you can use it as it is necessary, and you ought to direct it according to the circumstances. These are your means, sirs, and you rest responsible before the nation and its representatives, before the King and your constituency, for all the disorders that you do not foresee and prevent.” One can imagine the feelings of a board of county directors harassed by daily riots, by incessant quarrels, by threats and plots, on receiving such a letter from the minister, charged with executing the laws relative to the internal tranquillity of the State. The directory must have been composed of men singularly devoid of humor, if even in their grave situation they did not laugh at Roland’s application of instruction to the Lyons street-fights. To a department which had asked him for troops to restore order, and secure the free circulation of grain in its territory, he responded that if it was necessary to use force they must take the National Guards, and he added: “But must I counsel this step? So soon as one employs arms to execute the laws, one not only proves that he has not known how to make himself loved, but that he will never be able to do so. A constitution which is enforced by the bayonet only, is not a constitution. Other means are necessary to attach a free people to the laws that it has made.... Instruct the administrations that you direct, and if they deviate from the observation of the rules, use that sweetness which commands so easily, that persuasion which leads to the repentance of a fault often involuntary. It is so easy for a superior administration to make itself agreeable to those that it has under its surveillance that, in fact, I believe I might say it is always the fault of the former when harmony is broken.”