Page:Madame Rolland (Blind 1886).djvu/186

176 prodigious facility" (as worded in Amar's subsequent indictment). Yet, judging from her previous life, and her own assertions, she had not that last infirmity of noble minds, the thirst for fame, but was impelled to action by zeal for the Revolution, and because, as she admits, there was no part that pleased her so well as to be a kind of human Providence.

When the trial of Louis XVI. was preparing, a strange disclosure, which contributed not a little to excite and envenom opinion, was made to the Minister of the Interior. A locksmith, formerly in the King's confidence, acquainted Roland with the existence of an iron chest containing important State papers. To hurry to the Tuileries, empty the contents of the chest into a napkin, carry them home to his wife and examine them with her, was the Minister's first care. In this step one seems to recognise Madame Roland's impulsiveness, and nothing could have been more imprudent. Instead of calling together a commission legally empowered to make a report on these documents, Roland first carefully looked them over, docketed and affixed his seal to each bundle, and not till then handed them over to the Convention. This arbitrary proceeding cannot be justified, though he may have feared that these papers would be tampered with by unscrupulous Committees, capable of interpolating some documentary evidence to serve their private animosity. Had not some vindictive opponent sought to ruin Brissot by the trifling forgery of one letter in a name resembling his, which would have convicted him of traitorous designs? Although Brissot, concious of rectitude, always scorned to defend himself against the vile charges which undermined his reputation.