Like all the young blood of the country, they were planning action against the dangers which threatened. Their plans were well advanced when they met Lanthenas and Roland. The latter wished to discuss the situation seriously with them, and the next day Barbaroux went to the Rue de la Harpe. Madame Roland was with the ex-minister, and the three were not long in understanding each other. Barbaroux soon won their confidence by his enthusiasm and eloquence. He was young, but twenty-five, and of a beauty that won him the name of Antinoüs from Madame Roland. He was animated, too, by a fiery scorn of “tyrants,” “courts,” and “kings,” as unbelieving as Madame Roland in the sincerity of any party outside his own, profoundly convinced of his call to reverse the monarchy, and already with a record of services rendered to the Revolution. The Rolands found him “active, laborious, frank, and brave,” and they opened their hearts to him on the means of saving France. “Liberty is lost,” cried Roland, “if the plots of the courts are not immediately checked. Lafayette is meditating treason in the North. The army of the centre is disorganized, in want of munitions, and cannot stand against the enemy. There is nothing to prevent the Austrians being in Paris in six weeks. Have we worked for three years for the grandest of revolutions only to see it overthrown in a day? If liberty dies in France, it is forever lost to the rest of the world. All the hopes of philosophy are deceived. The most cruel tyranny will reign upon the earth. Let us prevent this disaster. Let us arm Paris and the departments of the North. If they fail, let us carry the statue of liberty to the South. Let us found somewhere a colony of independent men.” His words were broken by sobs. Madame Roland and Barbaroux wept with him. Rapidly then the young man sketched his plan. It was Roland’s own. Arm Paris; if that failed, seize the South. A map was brought out and they traced the natural boundaries of the new State. The Vosges, the Jura, the Loire, and a vast plain between mountains and river divide France. The plain they would take for a camp; the river and mountains could be easily defended. If this position was lost, there was a second boundary; on the east, the Doubs, the Ain, the Rhone; on the west, the Vienne, the Dordogne; in the centre, the rocks and rivers of Limoges. Farther still was Auvergne, the mountains of Velay, the Cévennes, the Alps, Toulon. “And if all these points were forced, Corsica remained,—Corsica where Genovese and French had not been able to naturalize tyranny.”