A young man sees in a relation with a woman of such an elevation of thought as Madame Roland the type of his dreams, the woman to whom sentiments and ideals are of far more importance than amusement and pleasure—the woman capable of great self-sacrifice for duty, of untiring action for a noble cause, of comprehension of all that is best in him, of brave resistance to temptation—and yet a woman to the last, dainty in her love of beauty, flattered by his homage, untiring in her efforts to please him, capable of a passion wide as the world. Buzot’s relation to Madame Roland must have been the dearer to her because at the moment the intimacy which she had had with several of her friends was waning. With Roland working twenty hours out of the twenty-four, tormented by false accusations, conscious of his helplessness, irritated by dyspepsia and over-work, there could have been very little satisfactory personal intercourse. Their relation had come to the point to which every intimate human relation must come, where forbearance, charity, a bit of humorous cynicism, courage, self-sacrifice, character, and nobility of heart must sustain it instead of dreams, transports, passion. She was incapable of the effort. Bosc was an old friend and a loving one, but their friendship had reached the stage where all has been said that could be, and while there was the security and satisfaction in it which comes from all things to which one is accustomed,—and it was necessary to her no doubt,—there was no novelty, no possible future. Bancal was interested in a Miss Williams, and since he had made that known to Madame Roland, she had been less expansive. No woman will long give her best to a man who holds another woman dearer. Lanthenas, who had been for years their friend, to whom she had given the title of “brother” and received in a free and frank intimacy, had begun to withdraw his sympathy. When Buzot came to Paris, it was natural and inevitable that they should see much of each other. All things considered, it was natural, inevitable, perhaps, that love should come from their intimacy; but that Madame Roland should have prevented the declaration of this love we have a right to expect when we remember her opinions, her habit of reflection, and, above all, her experience.