a frivolous presuming man, finding in his look, smile, and tone of voice that audacity of success towards her sex which betrayed, according to her estimation, the free conduct of the females amongst whom he had lived, and which offended her decorum.  There was more of the courtier than the patriot in Dumouriez.  This French aristocracy of manners displeased the engraver’s humble daughter; perhaps it reminded her of her lowly condition, and the humiliations of her childhood at Versailles.  Her ideal was not the military, but the citizen; a republican mind alone could acquire her love.  Besides, she saw at a glance that this man was too great to remain long on the level of her party; she suspected his genius in his politeness, and his ambition beneath his familiarity.  “Have an eye to that man,” she said to her husband after their first interview; “he may conceal a master beneath the colleague, and drive from the cabinet those who introduced him there.”

IX.

Roland, too happy at being in power, did not foresee his disgrace, and encouraging his wife, trusted more and more to the admiration which Dumouriez feigned for him.  He thought himself the statesman of the cabinet, and his gratified vanity lent itself credulously to the advances of Dumouriez, and even made him better disposed towards the king.  On his entry to the ministry Roland had affected in his costume the bluntness of his principles, and in his manners the rudeness of his republicanism.  He presented himself at the Tuileries in a black coat, with a round hat, and nailed shoes covered with dust.  He wished to show in himself the man of the people, entering the palace in the plain garb of the citizen, and thus meeting the man of the throne.  This tacit insolence he thought would flatter the nation and humiliate the king.  The courtiers were indignant; the king groaned over it; Dumouriez laughed at it.  “Ah, well then, really, gentlemen,” he said to the courtiers, “since there is no more etiquette there is no more monarchy.”  This jocose mode of treating the thing had at once removed all the anger of the court, and all the effect of the Spartan pretensions of Roland.

The king no longer regarded the discourtesy, and treated Roland with that cordiality which unlocks men’s hearts.  The new ministers were astonished to feel themselves confiding and moved in the presence of the monarch.  Having arrived suspicious and republican to their seats in the cabinet, they quitted it almost royalists.

“The king is not known,” said Roland to his wife:  “a weak prince, he is one of the best of men; he does not want good intentions, but good advice:  he does not like the aristocracy, and has strong affection for the people:  perhaps he was born to serve as the medium between republic and monarchy.  By rendering the constitution easy to him we shall make him like it, and the popularity he will re-acquire by following our counsels will