There are a number of traits of Mme. Roland which should be considered before giving a final estimate of her character, of her role in French history, and of her right to be ranked among the most illustrious women of France.  Critics in general seem to show her a marked hostility; such men as Caro assert that she had no modesty, that she lacked sentiment, delicacy, and reserve.  M. Saint-Amand said that she reflected the vices and virtues of her age, summing up the passions and illusions, being intellectually and morally the disciple of Rousseau, but socially personifying the third estate, which in the beginning asked for nothing, but later demanded all.  Politics made her cruel at times, although by nature she was good and sensible.  He declared that with her acquaintance with Buzot began her career of love and ambition.  In love, she believed herself a patriot, but all the various phases of her public career were simply the results of her emotions.  Thus, for example, in order to see Buzot, she persuaded her husband to return to Paris to seek his fortune and make the realization of her dreams possible.  She desired to play a role for which her origin had not destined her, which made her actions appear theatrical and affected.  It is evident that she hated both the king and the queen, and at the council for the Girondist ministry demanded the death of the royal couple.  And yet, Saint-Amand cites her as the most beautiful of that group of martyrs who lost their lives in the first heat of the Revolution—­as the genius among them by her force, purity, and grace—­the brilliant and austere muse in all the saintliness of martyrdom.

The two maxims which Mme. Roland followed throughout her career had much to do with her fall:  security is the tomb of liberty; indulgence toward men in authority is the means of pushing them to despotism.  These maxims as her motto or impulse, united with the spirit of push, energy, and at times rashness and impropriety, naturally led her to her ruin in those days of revolutionary ideas.  She was a woman of powerful passion controlled by reason, and with frankness, devotion, courage, and fidelity as forces impelling her to activity.  But there was one great defect which was at the bottom of her misfortunes,—­a too great ambition, which often led her into perilous paths, even to the scaffold, which, in its turn, covered her errors.

She is said to have married M. Roland more as a theory than as a husband, for her ideas of marriage were such as to make pure, disinterested love impossible.  Her husband was in many respects her intellectual superior, but she excelled him in versatility.  Being her senior by twenty years, when he grew old and infirm he depended upon her for a great deal, all of which contributed to her restlessness and unhappiness.  Then there developed in her that terrible struggle between loyalty to her husband and passion for Buzot, in which reason conquered.  This devotion to duty