In the archives of the Academy of Lyons there are still preserved a large number of manuscripts by Roland, some of these in the hand of his wife. They discuss a variety of subjects: the choice of themes for the public séances of the provincial academies; the influence of literature in the country and the capital (this paper was given a place in the published annals); the outlook for a universal language—to be French of course. One peculiar paper, to come from so dry a pen as his, is on the “Means of Understanding a Woman.” Plutarch comes in for a eulogy, and there is an exhortation on the wisdom of knowing our fellows. Most of the manuscripts are purely scientific, and treat the subjects in which M. Roland was particularly at home,—the preparation of hides and leather, of oils and soaps; the processes of drying. Others consider means for quickening the decaying manufacturing interests of Lyons. Altogether, it is a very honorable collection. The annals of the Academy contain also a full printed report of a contest over cotton velvet which had embroiled Roland in the North. Both sides of the discussion, which Roland’s efforts to spread the knowledge of the new industry awakened, are given. I have examined all of these manuscripts, as well as Roland’s printed articles in the _Encyclopédie_, and elsewhere, for a trace of the idea the Abbé Guillon de Montléon credits to him, in his Memoirs,—that dead bodies, instead of being buried, be utilized for the good of the community, the flesh being used for oil and the bones for phosphoric acid. This idea was advanced, it is said, to settle a dispute over the cemeteries, which had long agitated Lyons; but as there is no reference to it in any of Roland’s manuscripts or printed articles, it is probable that it was never pushed to public attention, as the Abbé would have his reader believe. The story is told too naturally not to have at least a shadow of truth, and such a proposition is so like the utilitarian Roland that, if anybody in France suggested such a thing, it probably was he. If their life in Villefranche and Lyons was not satisfactory, that at their country home was entirely so; indeed, Madame Roland seems never to have been so happy, so natural, so charming, as she was at Le Clos, where she spent much time each year.