Madame Roland’s letters written at this period abound in similar just criticisms on the Revolutionary temper. Her remarkably virile and comprehensive intellect penetrated the real weaknesses of the movement whenever she considered men and measures impersonally. Then she grasped perfectly the meaning of things, and her observations were profound, her insight keen, her judgments wise, and her conclusions statesmanlike. However discreet Madame Roland may have been at the gatherings in her salon, however silent she may have kept, she gained at this period a veritable supremacy over the group of patriots. There were many reasons for this. She embodied in a sort of Greek clearness and chastity the principles they professed. No one had a clearer conception of the ideal government which France should have; no one expressed more eloquently all this government ought to do; no one idealized the future with more imagination, more hopefulness. No one gave himself more fully to the cause than this woman who would not go to the theatre because the country was in peril; who could not look at pictures; who was ashamed to send Bancal a song in exchange for one he had sent her, because it was not grave enough for the circumstances; who was even “ashamed to write of songs.” She became in a way the ideal Revolutionary figure, a Greek statue, the type of the Republic of which they dreamed. Her inflexibility was as great a power over her friends. They wavered, compromised, stopped at practical results instead of pushing to ideal ones. She had decision, firmness of purpose, the determination to reach the end, and her influence over them was powerful because of this unyielding attitude. Nothing daunted her. Riot and war were sacred necessities. To die was their duty. Nothing could have been more inspiring than her firmness of purpose, her superb indifference to consequences. This high attitude had something of the inspired sibyl in it. Their “Greek statue” became their prophetess. Her very cruelty was divine. It was the “wrath of the gods,” the “righteous indignation” of the moralist.