They lived in a _hôtel garni_, and she gave all her time to him, preparing his meals even, for he was never well, and spending hours in his study aiding him in his work. Roland’s literary labors seem to have awed her a little at first, and she took up copying and proof-reading with amusing humility and solemnity. It was not an inviting task for a young and imaginative mind accustomed to passing leisure hours with the best thinkers of the world. Roland was writing on manufacturing arts and getting his letters from Italy ready for the printer. As always, he was overcrowded with work. He was particular and tenacious, careless about notes, and wrote an execrable hand,—about the most aggravating type possible to work with. But his wife accommodated herself to him with a tact, a submission, a gentleness which were perfect. He found her judgment so true, her devotion so complete, her notions of style so much better than his own, that he grew to depend upon her entirely. It was the object she had in view. She wanted to make herself indispensable to him. Thus the first year of her marriage was largely an apprenticeship as a secretary and proof-reader. In order to be better prepared for her duties, she determined to follow the lectures in natural history and botany at the Jardin des Plantes. This study, begun for practical reasons, was in reality a delight and a recreation; for she had already a decided taste for science, and was even something of an observer. The lectures led to her forming one of the most satisfactory relations of her life, that with Bosc, a member of the Academy of Sciences, and well known in Paris for his original work. Bosc took an active interest in Madame Roland and her husband, and was of great use to them in their studies, as well as a most congenial comrade. In fact, they saw almost no one but him at this time. Absorbed in her husband and her new duties, Madame Roland relished no one who was not in some way essential to that relation. Even Sophie was neglected; only six letters to her during the year 1780, after the marriage, appearing in the published collection, and evidently from their contents they are about all she wrote.