It was not only the new ideas on love and marriage which influenced her. In the chaos of laws, of usages, of ideas, of aspirations, of hopes in which she found herself, there seemed nothing worth saving but this. The Revolution was stained and horrible. Her friends were helpless, she herself seemed to be no longer of any use,—why not seize the one last chance of joy? When the efforts and enthusiasms of one’s youth suddenly show themselves to be but illusions, and the end of life seems to be at hand, can it be expected that human nature with its imperious demand for happiness refuse the last chance offered? Remember, too, that never in the world’s history had a class of people believed more completely in the _right_ to happiness, never demanded it more fully. At all events Madame Roland and Buzot declared their love. But this was not enough for her; she felt that she could not deceive Roland and she told him that she loved Buzot, but that since it was her duty to stay with him (Roland) she would do it, and that she would be faithful to her marriage vows. All considerations of kindliness, of reserve, of womanly tenderness, of honor, should have dictated to Madame Roland that if she really had no intention of yielding to her love, as she certainly never had, it was useless and cruel to torment Roland at his age, with failing health, and in his desperate public position, with the story of her passion. He loved her devotedly, and she had incessantly worked to excite and deepen this love—to be told now that she loved another must wound him in his deepest affections. But she had a sentimental need of frankness. She loved expansion; she must open her heart to him. In doing it she heaped upon the overburdened old man the heaviest load a heart can carry, that of the desertion of its most trusted friend and companion, and that after years of association and almost daily renewal of vows of love and fidelity. Absorbed by her passion, she found it unreasonable and vexing that Roland should take her confession to heart, that he did not rejoice over her candor and accept her “sacrifice” with gratitude and tears. In her Memoirs she says of Roland’s attitude towards the affair: “I honor and cherish my husband as a sensitive daughter adores a virtuous father, to whom she would sacrifice even her lover; but I found the man who might have been my lover, and while remaining faithful to my duties, I was too artless to conceal my feelings. My husband, excessively sensitive on account of his affection and his self-respect, could not endure the idea of the least change in his empire; he grew suspicious, his jealousy irritated me. Happiness fled from us. He adored me, I sacrificed myself for him, and we were unhappy.”