The tears glistened in the eyes of his wife as she listened to this bold proposal, so heroic in its conception, so full of hazard, and demanding such miracles of self-sacrifice and devotion. Madame Roland, who perhaps originally suggested the idea to her husband, urged it with all her impassioned energy. Barbaroux was just the man to have his whole soul inflamed by an enterprise of such grandeur. He drew a rapid sketch of the resources and hopes of liberty in the south, and, taking a map, traced the limits of the republic, from the Doubs, the Aire, and the Rhone, to La Dordogne; and from the inaccessible mountains of Auvergne, to Durance and the sea. A serene joy passed over the features of the three, thus quietly originating a plan which was, with an earthquake's power, to make every throne in Europe totter, and to convulse Christendom to its very center. Barbaroux left them deeply impressed with a sense of the grandeur and the perils of the enterprise, and remarked to a friend, "Of all the men of modern times, Roland seems to me most to resemble Cato; but it must be owned that it is to his wife that his courage and talents are due." Previous to this hour the Girondists had wished to sustain the throne, and merely to surround it with free institutions. They had taken the government of England for their model. From this day the Girondists, freed from all obligations to the king, conspired secretly in Madame Roland's chamber, and publicly in the tribune, for the entire overthrow of the monarchy, and the establishment of a republic like that of the United States. They rivaled the Jacobins in the endeavor to see who could strike the heaviest blows against the throne. It was now a struggle between life and death. The triumph of the invading army would be the utter destruction of all connected with the revolutionary movement. And thus did Madame Roland exert an influence more powerful, perhaps, than that of any other one mind in the demolition of the Bourbon despotism.
Her influence over the Girondist party was such as no _man_ ever can exert. Her conduct, frank and open-hearted, was irreproachable, ever above even the slightest suspicion of indiscretion. She could not be insensible to the homage, the admiration of those she gathered around her. Buzot adored Madame Roland as the inspiration of his mind, as the idol of his worship. She had involuntarily gained that entire ascendency over his whole being which made her the world to him. The secret of this resistless enchantment was concealed until her death; it was then disclosed, and revealed the mystery of a spiritual conflict such as few can comprehend. She writes of Buzot, "Sensible, ardent, melancholy, he seems born to give and share happiness. This man would forget the universe in the sweetness of private virtues. Capable of sublime impulses and unvarying affections, the vulgar, who like to depreciate what it can not equal, accuse him of being a dreamer. Of sweet countenance, elegant figure, there is always in his attire that care, neatness, and propriety which announce the respect of self as well as of others. While the dregs of the nation elevate the flatterers and corrupters of the people to station--while cut-throats swear, drink, and clothe themselves in rags, in order to fraternize with the populace, Buzot possesses the morality of Socrates, and maintains the decorum of Scipio. So they pull down his house, and banish him as they did Aristides. I am astonished that they have not issued a decree that his name should be forgotten."