MME. ROLAND.*
Has. POPE-HENNESSY has not seen Mme. Roland through the eyes of a hero-worshipper. She has given us a very human picture of a woman who managed to weave a reasonably happy lib for • Mine. Ryland a Study in Revolution. By Mrs. Pepe-Hennessy (Una Birch). Ondon: J. Nisbet and Co. [162. net]
herself out of a lot first dull and arduous, and then extremely tragic. This by the magic of her own self-complacency :- " Mme. Roland's character was a compact edifice of virtues and follies in which humility found no place. . . . To her half the value of life lay in watching the development of her own character. . . . Many people pass through an introspective phase in youth ; few keep up their interest in themselves in middle life. Mme. Roland's interest in herself never flagged, she was always on the alert to discover the purpose of her destiny."
Mrs. Pope-Hennessy vindicates Mme. Roland's morals, but leaves the reader with a profound pity for that poor " acrimonious," virtuous, and selfish bureaucrat, Roland. Office brought home to him a complete realization of every aspect of his own limitations. He lived to alienate the friendship—it had never been more— of the wife whose brains he had so unmercifully picked. The poor soul leaves the stage absolutely stripped !—revealed to himself and the world a mere bundle of yellowing parchment. Unfortunately, the time of the Rolands' glory, when " Marion " reigned at the Ministry of the Interior, has been treated rather shortly. The reader has a sense of battling to see the real Mme. Roland through a maze of Roland's public acts. We feel a little cheated of our meed of trivialities. We could focus our oyes more easily on this most interesting phase if we had a little more foreground detail to lead up to the main composition. We want to know more, in the words of Mr. Kipling, of what the crocodile had for dinner " during those momentous months. Also, why has Mrs. Pope-Hennessy been so parsimonious with her dates ? They might be ingredients in a 1918 pudding ! May we plead for date and ago at the top of each page when she brings out her second edition ? The picture of the Girondin party with its fatal mediocrity and excellent intentions is quite admirably presented, and the account of Mme. Roland's last weeks in prison is as sympathetic as that of the September massacres is coldly appalling. The last, read by the light of Russia's new torch of liberty, is ominously sinister and dramatic.
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