asked me what I thought the best means of saving France.  I opened my heart to him:  my confidence called for his.  ‘Liberty is gone,’ he replied, ’if we do not speedily disconcert the plots of the court.  La Fayette is meditating treason in the north:  the army of the centre is systematically disorganised:  in six weeks the Austrians will be at Paris.  Have we then laboured at the most glorious of revolutions for so many years to see it overthrown in a single day?  If Liberty dies in France, it is lost for ever to the rest of the world!—­all the hopes of philosophy are deceived—­prejudices and tyranny will again grasp the world.  Let us prevent this misfortune, and if the north is subjected, let us take Liberty with us into the south, and there form a colony of free men.’  His wife wept as she listened to him, and I myself wept as I looked at her.  Oh! how much the outpourings of confidence console and fortify minds that are in desolation.  I drew a rapid sketch of the resources and hopes of Liberty in the south.  A serene expression of joy spread over Roland’s brow:  he squeezed my hand, and we traced on a map of France the limits of this empire of Liberty, which extended from the Doubs, the Ain, and the Rhone to La Dordogne, and from the inaccessible mountains of Auvergne to Durance and the sea.  I wrote, by dictation of Roland, to request from Marseilles a battalion and two pieces of cannon.  These preliminaries agreed upon, I left Roland with feelings of deep respect for himself and his wife.  I have seen them subsequently, during their second ministry, as simple minded as in their humble retreat.  Of all the men of modern times, Roland seems to me most to resemble Cato; but it must be owned that it is to his wife that his courage and talents are due.”

Thus did the original idea of a federative republic arise in the first interview between Barbaroux and Madame Roland.  What they dreamed of as a desperate measure of Liberty, was afterwards made a reproach to them for having conspired as a plot.  This first sigh of patriotism of two young minds who met and understood each other, was their attraction and their crime.

VIII.

From this day the Girondists, disengaged from every obligation with the king and ministers, conspired secretly with Madame Roland, and publicly in the tribune, for the suppression of the monarchy.  They appeared to envy the Jacobins the honour of giving the throne the most deadly blows.  Robespierre as yet spoke only of the constitution, limiting himself within the law, and not going a-head of the people.  The Girondists already spoke in the name of the republic, and motioned with gesture and eye the republican coup d’etat, which every day drew nearer.  The meetings at Roland’s multiplied and enlarged:  new men joined their ranks.  Roland, Brissot, Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne, Condorcet, Petion, Lanthenas, who in the hour of danger betrayed them; Valaze, Pache,