Roland had now given a handle to misconstruction, of which his enemies were not slow to avail themselves. The documents turned out most compromising to the King at this critical juncture, showing, as they did, that he had never entertained serious intentions of conforming to the Constitution; that he was entirely in the hands of fanatic priests, leaders of the Counter-revolution; that he sought to reign by a system of corruption; that the men he hated most were precisely those who would have saved his throne—Necker, Mirabeau, and Lafayette; and that he had secretly negotiated with the Cabinets of Europe for the invasion of France.
Denunciations and libels of Roland became the order of the day. The rabid Chabot announced with a consequential air in the Convention that a certain Viard had discovered a conspiracy of Royalists in England, who counted on saving the King and re-establishing the Monarchy with the assistance of Roland and Fauchet! Shouts and laughter answered him. No one—certainly not Danton nor Robespierre,—believed in the long-winded tale of this unknown Viard, whom the Committee of Surveillance had dragged from obscurity to pit him against a man who, whatever his shortcomings, was the soul of honour. After Roland had been called, and declared that he had never seen or had any relations whatever with the persons with whom he was pretended to be in correspondence, it was deemed advisable that, as her name had been dragged in, Madame Roland should be cited to the bar.
Here, on this circumscribed arena, shaken by such fierce debates, all members turning towards her—Madame Roland might distinguish amid a confused
