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128 year of the Revolution, it became necessary to solicit assistance; and, as was natural, the ablest citizen of Lyons was sent as extraordinary deputy to the National Assembly to make it aquainted with this state of affairs. So Roland and his wife left for Paris, where, on the 20th of February 1791, they installed themselves in the Appartement of an unpretending house in the Rue Guénégaud, near the Pont Neuf.

No sooner had Madame Roland set foot in her native city than she "ran to the sittings of the Assembly." Keenly, we may believe, did she scrutinise its members. "I saw," she says, "the powerful Mirabeau, the astonishing CazalésCazalès [sic], the bold Maury, the astute Lameths, and the little Barnave, with his little voice and little reasons, cold as a lemon fricassed in snow, to use the pleasing expression of a woman of another century; I observed with annoyance on the side of the Blacks that species of superiority which in public assemblies belongs to men accustomed to personal display, to purity of language, and to distinguished manners. Nevertheless the logic of reason, the daring of honest worth, the enlightenment of philosophy, the fruits of study, and the readiness acquired at the Bar, must have assured the victory to the patriots of the Left, if they were all incorruptible and could remain united." Could remain united! aye, there was the stumbling-block.

The Right, or Blacks—so called because the emigrant princes and nobles wore black—then represented the party of the Moderates, who, so far from wishing to move another step in the direction of progress, were only anxious to stop still, or, if possible, to retrograde gently. In the Left there were (as yet indiscriminately mingled) men destined in the lapse