Page:Madame Rolland (Blind 1886).djvu/93

Rh pursuits so congenial to her. Owing to her mother-in-law's great age, the entire charge of a large household devolved upon her; and this household had to be ordered, not in conformity to her own tastes, but in every minutest particular according to the whims and crotchets of a terrible octogenarian lady, whose tongue and temper more than equalled that of the typical mother-in-law. The brothers, too, did not hit it off very amicably, the elder having as great a passion for domineering as the younger for independence. However, Madame Roland did her best to bring these discordant elements into harmony. Her first care in the morning was her child's and her husband's breakfast; then, leaving them both at work in their respective ways, she went to see after her household affairs. At the stroke of noon the dinner was bound to be on the table and they to be dressed for it, or woe betide! This latter formality, however, was accomplished by Madame Roland in about ten minutes, after which she would sit and talk with her amiable mother-in-law till the arrival of visitors—for the old lady was passionately addicted to company. When thus set at liberty, she retired to her husband's study, where she helped him with his literary work, and collected materials for his articles in the Encyclopédie Nouvelle to which Roland largely contributed, and for which her beautiful hand penned many a page on such unattractive subjects as "Peat," "Furs," "Manure," &c. &c.

This was no doubt a monotonous, sober, if not sombre, kind of existence for such a glowing nature as Madame Roland's. Sometimes she must have yearned for a richer life or even for the golden leisure of the little closet on the Quai de l'Horloge, when she could revel at will in the classics or in the pages