Jean-Marie Roland, vicomte de la Platière
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Vicomte Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière (February 18, 1734 – November 10, 1793) was a French statesman and Girondist during the French Revolution. He served as a minister of the interior in King Louis XVI's Girondist cabinet of spring 1792.
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[edit] Early life
Roland de la Platière was born at Thizy and was a studious child, who received a thorough education. Aiming to seek his fortune abroad, he walked to Nantes, but was struck down by an illness that forced him to change his plans. For some years he worked as a clerk, and then moved to Amiens, where he quickly rose to the position of manufacture inspector, employed by one of his relatives. He developed his entrepreneurial skills, and became familiar with the state of French commerce.
In 1781, he married Manon Jeanne Phlipon, who soon became famous as "Madame Roland". For the first four years of their marriage, Roland continued to live at Amiens and work as a factory inspector. His knowledge of commercial affairs enabled him to contribute articles to the Encyclopédie Nouvelle, in which, as in all his literary work, he was assisted by his wife.
[edit] Lyon
When they moved to Lyon, their influence grew and their political ambitions became notorious. From the beginning of the Revolution, they affiliated with liberal forces. The articles they contributed to the Courrier de Lyon came to the attention of Parisian press; although Roland signed them, it was Madame Roland who wrote them. As a result, a correspondence began between Roland, Jacques Pierre Brissot and other supporters of the Revolution in Paris.
Roland was elected a member of the Lyon municipality, and subsequently deputised by the Lyon council to ask the National Constituent Assembly to regard Lyon's municipal debt – which had been contracted for the benefit of the state – as part of the national debt. Accompanied by his wife, Roland arrived in Paris during February 1791, and remained there until September. They frequented the Society of the Friends of the Constitution, entertaining deputies who later became leading Girondists, and taking an active part in the political discussions.
[edit] Paris
In September 1791, Roland's mission completed, he and Madame Roland returned to Lyon. By then, however, inspectorships of manufacture had been abolished, so they quickly decided to return to Paris. Roland became a member of the Jacobin Club, and their influence continued to grow, Madame Roland's salon becoming the rendezvous of Brissot, Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve, Maximilien Robespierre, and other leaders of the popular movement - especially François Nicolas Leonard Buzot.
When the Girondists assumed power, Roland found himself appointed minister of the interior on March 23, 1792, displaying both his administrative ability and what the Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh Edition, 1911) characterized as "a bourgeois brusqueness". His wife's influence on his declarations of policy was particularly strong in this period: as Roland was ex officio excluded from the Legislative Assembly, these declarations were in writing, and so most prone to exhibit Madame Roland's personal beliefs.
Decrees against émigrés and the non-juring clergy still remained under the veto of the king. Madame Roland therefore wrote a letter addressing the royal refusal to sanction the decrees and the role of the king in the state, which her husband addressed and sent to Louis XVI. As it remained unanswered, Roland read it aloud in full council and in the king's presence. Judged inconsistent with a minister's position and disrespectful in tone, the incident led to Roland's dismissal. However, he then read the letter to the Assembly, which ordered it printed and circulated. It became the manifesto of disaffection, and the Assembly's subsequent demand that Roland and other dismissed ministers be reinstated became the prelude to the king's dethronement.
After the insurrection of August 10, Roland was recalled to power, but was dismayed by what he saw as the lack of progress made by the Revolution. As a provincial, he opposed the Montagnards who aimed at supremacy not only in Paris but in the government as well. His hostility to the Paris Commune prompted him to propose transferring the government to Blois; and his attacks on Robespierre and his associates made him very unpopular. After failing to seal the iron chest found in the Tuileries Palace to contain documents that indicated Louis XVI's relations with France's enemies, he was accused of destroying some of the evidence within. Finally, during the trial of the king, he and the Girondists demanded that the sentence should be decided by a poll of the French people rather than the National Convention. Two days after the king's execution, he resigned his office.
[edit] Death
Although now extremely unpopular, the Rolands remained in Paris, the victims of abuse and slander, especially from Jean-Paul Marat. When Roland heard that his wife had been sentenced to the guillotine, he wandered some miles from his refuge in Rouen and wrote a few words expressing his horror at the Reign of Terror: "...from the moment when I learned that they had murdered my wife, I would no longer remain in a world stained with enemies."
He attached the paper to his chest, then killed himself with a sword-stick.
[edit] References
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. The Britannica gives the following references in turn:
- Madame Roland's Mémoires, first printed in 1820, subsequently edited by (amongst others) P. Faugere (Paris, 1864); C. A. Dauban (Paris, 1864); Jules Claretie (Paris, 1884); and C. Perroud (Paris, 1905). Some of her Lettres inédites have been published by C. A. Dauban (Paris, 1867); and a critical edition of her Lettres by C. Perroud (Paris, 1900-1902).
- Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière, De la Liberté du Travail (Paris, 1830).
- C. A. Dauban, Etude sur Madame Roland et son temps (Paris, 1864).
- V. Lamy, Deux femmes célèbres, Madame Roland et Charlotte Corday (Paris, 1884).
- C. Bader, Madame Roland, d'après des lettres et des manuscrits inédits (Paris, 1892).
- A. J. Lambert, Le menage de Madame Roland, trois années de correspondance amoureuse (Paris, 1896).
- Austin Dobson, Four Frenchwomen (London, 1890)
- Articles by C. Perroud in the review La Revolution française (1896-99).
