Manon Roland

Biography

It is the girl of Gratien Philipon (which one can also write Philippon), main engraver places Dauphine. As of its more young age, it shows great aptitudes for the studies and a sharp and enthusiastic spirit. It was mainly autodidact; and its love of the reading makes known to him Plutarque - a passion for this author who perdure throughout his life - then Bossuet, Massillon, and of the authors of the same vein, and finally Montesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau. With the maturation of its spirit, it gives up the idea to enter to the convent, and adheres to the enthusiasm of the republic which impregnated it since the beginning of its studies. It is inspired by its readings with cynicism and audacity.

The February 4th 1780, it marries the Viscount Jean Marie Roland of the Water-splash, twenty years its elder, its equal as well to the intellectual level as with that of the character. From this union was born Eudora Roland.

In the first times of their marriage, Mrs Roland writes political articles for the Courrier of Lyon . When the couple gains Paris, it starts to take a role even more active. Its living room of the street Guénégaud in Paris becomes the appointment of Brissot, Pétion, Robespierre and other elites of the popular movement, and especially Buzot, with which it maintains a platonic love. Mrs Roland is known to be a woman attracting without being beautiful; its ideas are clear and required, its calm manners, and its observations are particularly perspicacious. It is almost inevitable that itself is found in the center of political inspirations and chairs a group of the most talented men of progress. The rupture between the party of Of Gironde and the Jacobins did not occur yet. However, the Roland being raised against excesses of the Revolution, the couple became very awkward. Once, Mrs Roland appears personally with the Parliament to push back falsenesses of a charge, her ease and its dignity is worth the payment to him.

Nevertheless, the charges continue. In the morning of June 1st 1793, it is stopped and imprisoned in the prison of the Abbaye. Her husband escapes towards Rouen. Slackened during one hour of the Abbey, it again is stopped and placed at Holy-Pelagie. Finally, it is transferred to the Conciergerie. In prison, it is respected by the guards and certain privileges are granted to him. Thus, it can have material to write and can receive occasional visits of her devoted friends. Over there, she writes her Appel with the impartial posterity , her memories where she shows a strange alternation between personal praises and patriotism, between the unimportant one and sublimates it. She is shown royalist sympathies. In fact, it must be eliminated by the purging from Robespierre against the opposition of Gironde.

She is judged the November 8th 1793. The lawsuit proceeds between 9:00 and 14:30. The sentence is put at execution the evening even, on the place of the Revolution (renamed since Place of the Harmony). Passing in front of the statue of Freedom (installed in order to commemorate the day of August 10th, 1792), she would have exclaimed, little before do not fall the chopper from the Guillotine:

“O Freedom, that crimes one makes on your behalf! ”

Informed of the tragic death of his wife, Jean Marie Roland committed suicide the November 10th 1793.
His/her Eudora little girl, become orphan, was collected by Jacques Antoine Creuzé-Latouche. After the death of the latter in 1800, it was celebrates it mineralist and botanist Louis-Augustin Bosc d' Antic, large admiror of Manon Roland, which took care of education of small orphan. It fell in love with the Eudora young person then old fourteen years but moved away from it. She will marry, a few months later, another admiror of her mother.

Internal bonds

François Xavier Lanthenas

External bonds

the lawsuit of Mrs Roland

Random links: