New-York tribune., 1901-01-19
MADAME ROLAND.
AN ENGLISH VERSION OF HER AUTO
BIOGRAPHY.

AoACbtN<Ai -
THE PRIVATE MEMOIRS OF MADAME Ro-
LAND. Edited. with an INTRODUCTION, by Ed
ward Gilpin Johnson. l6mo, PIP. SSl. a T. NC
Clurg & co.
Nine Roland wrote this touching autobiog-
raphy while in prison and aware that death by
the guilIotine fast approaching. The calm
ness and resolution displayed in its pages prove
that the brilliant Girondist was indeed worthy
Of her fame and that the smiling intrepidity
with which she went to the scaffold was no his
trionic assumption. There is something of senti-
mental and picturesque pose in these memoirs.
ii must be ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS more than her
race her period and her unhappy situation ac-
count for. and it cannot blind us to the real
greatness of soul that lay beneath. IT, in set
ting down the story of her life, she strives to
persuade the reader that from babyhood she was
invariably right and wise (and charmng), II is
surely a vanity pardonable in one who. on the
verge of death, sees herself traduced with al
most incredible baseness and brutality.
Deeply interesting a revelation of feminine
character, these memoirs at the same time
of value as a picture OF French life before the
Revolution. 1t is bourgeois life that the
bourgeoise Marie Jeanne Phpon. daughter
Of a Partisan engraver. describes therein;
but the talents of the girl led her into
occasional associations with people Of a higher
class, and of these her "reminiscences are
mostly satirically disenchanting. Her resent
ment of the social Sights which the commoner
had to bear under the old regime was keen to
the last degree; but making due allowance for
this feeling, we see little ground for the often
made accusation that il the root OF Nine.
Roland's republican fervors. Hers was by
nature a powerful and logical mind, and il was
trained by an education rare for a woman any
where in the eighteenth century. Her study of
the greatest philosophical writings filled her
with longing for ideal justice and happiness in
the relations of mankind-a longing sincere
as it was enthusiastic; and it needed nothing
more in truth than her Unborn shrewdness and
refinement to make her conscious of the cruel
inconsistencies and vulgarities of the decaying
teudal system.
'Manon" Phlipon came into the world with a
very craze for learning. She tells us in her ac-
count of her childhood that 1t feast for
her to find new subject Of study. Rising at D
o'clock in the morning, when every one else in
the house was asleep, she would steal softly bare
foot and dressed for the night she was, to a
corner of her mothers chamber where, at the
table containing her lessons she worked with
passionate industry. She conquered the severest
tasks, and became she approached woman
hood a prodigy whom all her relatives extolled
her the domestic lore then thought most de-
sirable for a young female and Manon observes:
Il can prepare my own dinner handily as
Philopoemen cut his wood She adds with the
touch Of pose which we have called pardon
able: ''No one who me thus engaged would
think it a suitable employment for me" 1t
must be confessed that the portraits inserted
in this volume testify TO the fact that she was
made for something other than a contented
housewife absorbed in the concoction of the pot
au-feu. The fine brow the firm, clear cut mouth.
the splendid eyes, all the spirited expression
speak Of the Egeria, the dreamer Of Utoplan
visions.
Those who have been accustomed to think of
Nine Roland only in this character should make
the acquaintance in these pages of the merry
and affectionate girl seeing the humor we'll as
the misery of the life about her, rejoicing in the
quaint and whimsical personages who fell under
her observation, making fun of the many pre-
tenders TO her hand and her dowry, loving to
distraction the gentle mother mated TO a
Clown longing always for comprehension and
intellectual sympathy, but with a longing in no
sense morbid. The greater portion of the
memoirs deals with her youthful unmarried
days. The end came before she could paint in
more than a few hasty sentences her expert
ences as the wife of a Revolutionary Minister,
or set down in more than few sad and bitter
pages her disappointment at the passing Of all
her generous dreams Of happiness for mankind.
AT twelve years Old" she writes Il lamented
in the first expansions of my young heart that
I not born at Sparta or at Rome In the
French Revolution ! thought / saw the applica-
tion Of the principles in which my mind was
steeped. Splendid chimeras. Enchanting reveries
by which have been beguiled! The horror and
corruption Of one great city dispels you all"
This autobiography. for century one OF the
classics of French literature has long been un-
available in translation. We are glad TO well
come this carefully edited reprint Of the earliest
version. It comes in good time to meet a lately
reawakened interest m the period Of poor Manon
Roland's disillusionment and death.
OPATIOPY