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ROL the exiles recalled, and the protestants who had been condemned to the galleys released. Since it was found impossible either to intimidate or seduce this indomitable and trusty chief, recourse was had to treason; and one of his most intimate confidants, named Malarte, having been gained over by a bribe to betray him, a party of soldiers, on the night of 14th March, 1704, surrounded the chateau of Castelnau, near Uzes, in which the intrepid Camisard was sleeping. He succeeded in gaining the open country, but was surrounded and shot by the soldiers after a fruitless attempt to take him alive.—J. T.  ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE, : this celebrated Girondist heroine of the French revolution was born at Paris in 1756. Her maiden name was Philipon. Her father was an engraver and painter in enamel, possessed of only moderate talent; her mother, however, was a woman of energy and superior understanding, united with a most amiable temper. From the earliest period Manon loved to cultivate her intellect, and she read with insatiable avidity whatever came in her way. In girlhood she passed at her own request a year in a convent, but the intense religious fervour which at that time appears to have inspired her speedily produced a sceptical reaction, fostered doubtless by the strangely diversified character of the works she perused. Plutarch's Lives, the "Bible of heroes," was her special favourite, and produced a deep and lasting impression on her mind. She herself tells us that she "carried it to church as if it had been a prayer-book," and when she was just fourteen she used to weep at the thought that she was not a Roman or a Spartan woman. At the age of twenty-five she became the wife of M. Roland, a man twenty years her senior, but whom she appears always to have sincerely loved. He was a native of Villefranche, near Lyons, and although born of a reduced family, had risen by industry, intelligence, and excellent moral conduct, to high and profitable appointments. At the time of his marriage in 1780, he held the office of inspector-general of manufactures. On the outbreak of the Revolution Madame Roland threw herself, as might have been anticipated from her character and tendencies, with all her heart into the movement, and thenceforward she was in reality the inspiring soul of the republican party of the Gironde, to which she and her husband were devoted. During the administration of that party M. Roland was chosen minister of the interior, and in the composition of his public papers he was largely assisted by the genius of his wife, who was the real author of the famous letter addressed to Louis XVI. in May, 1792. We need not dwell on the subsequent events of the Reign of Terror. The atrocious September massacres were denounced by Roland; but the faction of Marat, Danton, and Robespierre had now acquired ascendancy, the star of the Gironde waned before its fiercer influence, and the doom of Roland, a man of honesty and respectability—and but little else, for he mainly shone with the reflected glory of his far more gifted helpmate—was as a natural consequence decreed. Of course she shared in the condemnation. Her husband evaded the threatened storm by quitting Paris. Madame Roland preferred to remain, and on the 31st of May, 1793, she was arrested by the jacobins and thrown into the prison of the Abbaye. During her confinement she never lost her firmness, cheerfulness, and heroism—not even when removed to St. Pelagie, a prison of a lower class than the Abbaye, and there shut up with the basest of her sex. On the 8th of November she was brought before the revolutionary tribunal, and sentenced to the guillotine. Next day the execution took place. The courage and dignity with which she encountered death are well known, as is also her last exclamation before the statue of liberty—"liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!" Her husband did not long survive her. On the 16th of November he was found about five leagues from Rouen on the high road to Paris, having committed suicide by passing a cane sword through his heart. Madame Roland's "Memoirs," written during her imprisonment, are full of the liveliest interest, and in many respects models of composition. Of herself we may with justice affirm that she was essentially one of the queenly women; nor do we use unadvisedly the words. The regal faculty was in her predominant. A born empress of men's hearts, no less by the force of her rare genius than by the beauty of her person and the singular fascination of her manners, she seems to have subjugated every one with whom she came in contact—the very gaolers at St. Pelagie she converted into friends. Throughout her whole career her conduct, although not unfrequently marked by errors that her warmest admirers must regret, bore the distinctive stamp of extraordinary decision and undeviating love of truth; while her temperament, naturally so fervid and impassioned, was kept in due restraint by the vigour of a well-poised intellect. With the single exception of Madame de Staël, she is said to have been the greatest and most eloquent talker of modern times. This may be exaggeration, but there is no doubt that her conversational ability was remarkable. Madame Roland had one daughter, to whom she was tenderly attached.—J. J.  ROLANDINO, chronicler, and as seems probable, grammatical professor in the Paduan university; flourished in the thirteenth century. He carried on and revised a Latin chronicle, commenced by his father, of events occurring in their own day, which, when completed, was formally sanctioned by the university of Padua.—C. G. R.  ROLLE,, an English lawyer, was born at Heanton in Devonshire in 1589, represented Kellington, Cornwall, in parliament, was made a sergeant-at-law in 1640, and became chief justice of the king's bench in 1648. He resigned that office some time before his death, which occurred in 1656. He wrote some law books.—W. J. P.  ROLLI,, poet, born in Rome in 1687; died at Todi in Umbria, 1767. Under noble patronage he visited England, was appointed Italian court teacher, and in 1747 returned to enjoy in his own country the fruit of his labours. He produced in his native tongue a metrical version of Milton's Paradise Lost, translated Newton's Ancient Chronology, and published several other works, including original poems.—C. G. R.  ROLLIN,, historian, was born at Paris, January 30, 1661. The second son of a cutler, and intended to follow the same trade, he fortunately attracted the attention of a benedictine monk, who placed him at the college of Plessis with an allowance. Distinguishing himself by zeal and ability, he was selected by the minister Le Peletier as the companion of his two sons. After three years spent in the study of theology at the Sorbonne, he was, in 1683, appointed assistant to Hersan, the professor of rhetoric at Plessis, and succeeded to the professorship in 1687. Professor of eloquence in the Royal college in 1688, he fulfilled the promise of his youth, and imparted fresh charm and attraction to every branch of knowledge which he undertook to teach; whilst his virtue and amiability made him the favourite of a host of friends, many amongst whom were more gifted than himself. After acting as rector of the university from 1694 to 1696, he undertook the education of the nephews of Cardinal Noailles, and resigned most of his offices to devote himself with greater energy to his new employment. He subsequently acted as coadjutor in the college of Beauvais, and in 1720 again became rector of the university, which office he was compelled to forfeit on becoming suspected of a tendency towards Jansenism. In 1726 he published his "Traité de la Manière d'Étudier et d'Enseigner les Belles Lettres;" and his "Histoire Ancienne," extending to the period of Augustus, was comprised in thirteen volumes, which appeared successively in the years between 1730 and 1738. His best work was a "History of Rome." Rollin, who was much harassed in his latter years on account of his jansenist predilections, died on the 14th September, 1741, at the ripe old age of eighty. Almost worthless in a critical point of view, his works have nevertheless a certain charm of style which renders them very popular with the young.—W. J. P.  ROLLO or HROLF, the of the Norman writers, and the famous ancestor of the dukes of Normandy, was the son of Rognevald, one of the jarls of Harold the Fair-haired, king of Norway. According to the Icelandic sagas he was so tall and so robust that no horse could carry him, and hence the appellation of "Gangr" or the "Walker." Banished from his country for some piratical act, he collected a numerous body of followers—the rank of his family and his own personal prowess alike contributing to make him popular—and sailed in true viking fashion for the coast of France. There is much confusion of dates as to the period of his actual arrival there; but it is at least certain that from the year 896 his name and achievements fill the page of French history, and that from that year also must be reckoned the rapid and decisive successes which achieved his future greatness. Having previously seized Rouen, which he fortified and made the basis of his subsequent operations, he advanced his arms on both sides of the Seine, took Bayeux, Evreux, Nantes, and many other places, and was almost uniformly victorious in the battles which he fought. Unable to resist the invader, who was continually reinforced by shoals of his Scandinavian 