aspired to the abolition of the throne and the establishment of a republic; they wished to overthrow the altar; they promised, vaguely, to wreak upon the rich and titled full revenge for the wrongs of the poor and lowly.  Every political and social dream which had found expression for twenty years, every skeptical attack upon things ancient and holy, found in this body of men a party and an exponent.  Up to a certain point both of these parties necessarily made common war upon the old order of things.  But, beyond that point, it was equally certain that they would attack each other.  The Girondists would wish to stop, and the Jacobins would wish to go on.

During the session of this assembly the influence of Madame Roland on men of all modes of thought became most marked.  Her parlors were the rendezvous of eminent men, and men destined to become eminent.  It is impossible to discover, from the carping records of that time, that she asserted her powers by an unwomanly effort.  Men felt in her presence that they were before a great intellectual being—­a creative and inspiring mind—­and it shone upon them without effort, like the sun.  Among these visitors was Maximilien Robespierre, who afterwards took her life.  He was then obscure, despised, and had been coughed down when he rose to speak.  She discerned his talents, and encouraged him.  He said little, but was always near her, listening to all she said; and in his after days of power, he reproduced, in many a speech, what he had heard this wondrous woman say.  In this time of his unpopularity she unquestionably saved him from the guillotine by her own personal and persistent intercession with men in power.

By the time that the session of this assembly drew near its close the ground-swell began to be felt of that tempest of popular wrath which eventually swept over France, and which the Jacobins rode and directed until it dashed even them upon the rocks.  Squalor came forth and consorted with cleanliness; vice crept from its dens and sat down by the side of purity in high places; atheism took its stand at the altar, and ministered with the priest.

This assembly adjourned, and the Rolands returned, for a short time, to Platiere.  By this time it was evident that the monarchy could not stand against the attacks of both its enemies; the king was compelled to yield; he threw himself into the arms of the Girondists, as his least obnoxious foes.  He formed a new cabinet, and to Roland was given the ministry of the interior.  It was a very great office.  Its incumbent had administrative charge of all the internal affairs of France.  The engraver’s daughter was now the mistress of a palace.  From the lowly room where she had read Plutarch until her mind was made grand with ideas of patriotic glory, until she loved her country as once she loved her God, she had gone by no base degrees to an eminence where her beloved France, with all its hopes and woes and needs and resources, lay like a map beneath her—­a map for her and hers to change.