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172 in her life, which at last seized upon her as with the accumulated force of years. In the clash and clang of the Revolution, when all the faculties were stimulated to the utmost, was born this bitter-sweet love, "heavy as remorse," inevitable as fate.

Madame Roland first met Buzot in 1791, and, after her return to La Platière, she had maintained a correspondence with both Robespierre and him, but more regularly with the latter. Their relations became more intimate after the meeting of the Convention in the autumn of 1792. In a description of his character, written by her on a circular, closely-folded sheet of paper, and which, cut to the size of Buzot's miniature, was carefully placed between its canvas and exterior cardboard, Madame Roland says, "Nature has endowed him with an affectionate heart, a proud spirit, and a lofty character. A tendency to melancholy was aggravated by griefs of the heart." In his public career he was ever staunch to his principles, for when danger attended the utterance of advanced political opinions, he did so as unflinchingly as Robespierre, and when it became equally dangerous to oppose the violent excesses of the Revolution, he had the daring to do so. Buzot was tall, handsome, and sensitive. By the scrupulous neatness of his dress he was a standing protest against the indecent neglect of appearance then in fashion. To him a Republic, if anything, meant the general lifting of the social standard, not its degradation to the lowest level.

Between these two natures—as, indeed, between all whose love has the inevitableness of fate—there was a "birth-bond." They thrilled with the same aspirations, the same hopes, and the same sorrows. To know each other's thoughts they had no need of