Roland, an estimable but morose old man, had the exactions of weakness without having its gratitude or indulgence towards his partner.  She remained faithful to him, more from respect to herself than from affection to him.  They loved the same cause—­Liberty; but Roland’s fanaticism was as cold as pride, whilst his wife’s was as glowing as love.  She sacrificed herself daily at the shrine of her husband’s reputation, and scarcely perceived her own self-devotion.  He read in her heart that she bore the yoke with pride, and yet the yoke galled her.  She paints Buzot with complacency, and as the ideal of domestic happiness.  “Sensible, ardent, melancholy,” she writes, “a passionate admirer of nature, he seems born to give and share happiness.  This man would forget the universe in the sweetness of private virtues.  Capable of sublime impulses and unvarying affections, the vulgar, who like to depreciate what it cannot equal, accuse him of being a dreamer.  Of sweet countenance, elegant figure, there is always in his attire that care, neatness, and propriety, which announce respect of self as well as of others.  Whilst the dregs of the nation elevate the flatterers and corrupters of the people to station—­whilst cut-throats swear, drink, and clothe themselves in rags, in order to fraternise with the populace, Buzot possesses the morality of Socrates, and maintains the decorum of Scipio:  so they pull down his house and banish him, as they did Aristides.  I am astonished they have not issued a decree that his name should be forgotten.”  The man of whom she speaks in such terms from the depths of her dungeon, on the evening before her death, exiled, wandering, concealed in the caves of St. Emilion, fell as though struck by lightning, and remained several days in a state of phrenzy, on learning the death of Madame Roland.

Danton, whose name began to rise above the crowd, when his fame was but slight until now, sought at this period Madame Roland’s acquaintance.  All inquired what was the secret of the growing ascendency of this man?  Where he came from?  Who he was?  Whither he was advancing?  They sought his origin; his first appearance on the stage of the people; his first connection with the celebrated personages of his time.  They sought in mysteries the cause of his prodigious popularity.  It was pre-eminently in his nature.

X.

Danton was not merely one of those adventurers of demagogism who rise, like Masaniello, or like Hebert,[23] from the boiling scum of the masses.  He was one of the middle classes, the heart of the nation.  His family, pure, honest, of property, and industrious, ancient in name, honourable in manners, was established at Arcis-sur-Aube, and possessed a rural domain in the environs of that small town.  It was of the number of those modest but well-esteemed families, who have the soil for their basis, and agriculture as their main occupation, but who give their sons