Marie-Jeanne 'Manon' Roland de la Platiere, born Marie-Jeanne Phlipon, and best known under the name Madame Roland, was a French revolutionary, salonniere and writer.
91 Facts About Madame Roland
2.
Madame Roland became interested in politics only when the French Revolution broke out in 1789.
3.
Madame Roland spent the first years of the revolution in Lyon, where her husband was elected to the city council.
4.
In 1791 the couple settled in Paris, where Madame Roland soon established herself as a leading figure within the political group the Girondins, one of the more moderate revolutionary factions.
5.
Madame Roland was known for her intelligence, astute political analyses and her tenacity, and was a good lobbyist and negotiator.
6.
Unlike the feminist revolutionaries Olympe de Gouges and Etta Palm, Madame Roland was not an advocate for political rights for women.
7.
Madame Roland believed that women should play a very modest role in public and political life.
8.
Madame Roland had control over the content of ministerial letters, memorandums and speeches, was involved in decisions about political appointments, and was in charge of a bureau set up to influence public opinion in France.
9.
Madame Roland was both admired and reviled, and particularly hated by the sans-culottes of Paris.
10.
Madame Roland wrote her memoirs while she was imprisoned in the months before her execution.
11.
Madame Roland's father ran a successful business and the family lived in reasonable prosperity on the Quai de l'Horloge in Paris.
12.
Madame Roland was the couple's only surviving child; six siblings died in infancy.
13.
Madame Roland's father taught her drawing and art history, an uncle who was a priest gave her some Latin lessons and her grandmother, who had been a governess, took care of spelling and grammar.
14.
Madame Roland read books on all subjects: history, mathematics, agriculture and law.
15.
Madame Roland was not impressed by the self-serving behavior of the aristocrats she met.
16.
Madame Roland found it remarkable that people were given privileges because of their family of birth rather than on merit.
17.
Madame Roland immersed herself in philosophy, particularly in the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau; his democratic ideas strongly influenced her thinking about politics and social justice.
18.
Madame Roland later said that his books had shown her how to lead a happy and fulfilled life.
19.
Madame Roland was dissatisfied with the opportunities available to her as a woman and wrote to friends that she would have preferred to have lived in Roman times.
20.
Madame Roland corresponded with a number of erudite older men - mainly clients of her father's - who acted as intellectual mentors.
21.
Madame Roland started writing philosophical essays herself which she circulated in manuscript among her friends under the title Oeuvre des loisirs.
22.
Madame Roland received at least ten proposals of marriage, but rejected all of them.
23.
Madame Roland had a brief romance with the writer Pahin de la Blancherie, which for her ended in a painful disappointment.
24.
Madame Roland hinted to him that she might consider a platonic marriage, but nothing of the sort came about.
25.
Madame Roland was Inspector de Manufactures in Picardy and as such charged with quality control of the products of local manufacturers and craftsmen.
26.
Madame Roland was an expert in the field of production, trade and economic policy, especially of the textile industry.
27.
Madame Roland was intelligent, well-read and well-traveled, but he was known as a difficult human being: reluctant to take into consideration any opinions but his own and easily irritated.
28.
The Madame Roland family had once belonged to the lower nobility, but by the end of the 18th century no longer held a title.
29.
The wedding plans were initially kept secret because Madame Roland expected objections from his family.
30.
Unusual for that time - but entirely in line with Rousseau's theories - Madame Roland breastfed her daughter herself instead of hiring a wet nurse.
31.
Madame Roland wrote a particularly detailed and candid report of the birth and the problems with breastfeeding, and is one of the first women of this time to write openly about such matters.
32.
In Paris, Madame Roland had already supported her husband in his work and their cooperation now developed further.
33.
In 1784, Madame Roland visited Paris for a few weeks to acquire a peerage for her husband.
34.
Madame Roland discovered that she had a talent for lobbying and negotiating.
35.
Madame Roland did manage to obtain an appointment for him in Lyon that was less demanding than his post in Amiens and better paid.
36.
Madame Roland focused on the education of her daughter Eudora, who to her great disappointment turned out to be less interested in books and acquiring knowledge than she herself had been at that age.
37.
In 1787 the couple made a trip to Switzerland, where, at the request of Madame Roland, they visited sites that had played a role in the life of Rousseau.
38.
Madame Roland was no longer interested in societal reform, but advocated revolution.
39.
Madame Roland was not inclined to compromise on anything; to achieve her revolutionary ideals she found the use of force, and even civil war, acceptable.
40.
Madame Roland soon became convinced that a counter-revolution was being plotted.
41.
Madame Roland tried to mobilize her friends through her letters, not hesitating to spread unfounded rumors about events and about people she did not agree with.
42.
Madame Roland did not publicly take part in political discussions, but still managed to gain political influence during this period.
43.
Madame Roland corresponded with a network of publicists and politicians, including the Parisian journalist Jacques Pierre Brissot, the future leader of the Girondins, and the lawyer Jean-Henri Bancal d'Issarts.
44.
Madame Roland was one of the few female correspondents in the revolutionary press.
45.
In 1790 Jean-Marie Madame Roland was elected in the city council of Lyon where he advocated a moderate revolutionary administration.
46.
Madame Roland soon became a well-known figure in political circles in Paris, especially thanks to Brissot, who introduced her everywhere.
47.
Madame Roland wrote most of her husbands official letters and regretted that she could not go to the new National Assembly herself to argue the case of Lyon: women were admitted only to the public gallery.
48.
Madame Roland never involved herself in the conversations going on around her but listened carefully.
49.
Madame Roland was known for her sharp political analyses and her ideological tenacity, and was widely recognized as one of the most important people in the group around Brissot.
50.
Madame Roland was always asked for advice on political strategy and she contributed to the content of letters, parliamentary bills and speeches.
51.
Madame Roland was described by contemporaries as a charming woman and a brilliant conversationalist.
52.
The name of Madame Roland is inextricably linked to the Girondins.
53.
Madame Roland herself took to the streets to lobby for the introduction of a republic; she became a member of a political club under her own name for the first time, despite her conviction that women should not have a role in public life.
54.
Madame Roland felt that at that point in time there was so much at stake that everyone - man or woman - had to fully exert themselves to bring about change.
55.
Madame Roland remained the driving force behind her husband's work.
56.
Madame Roland commented on all documents, wrote letters and memorandums, and had a major say in appointments, for example that of Joseph Servan de Gerbey as minister of war.
57.
Madame Roland was, as always, very firm in her views and convinced of her own infallibility.
58.
Madame Roland wrote a reproachful letter to Robespierre because he still opposed the idea.
59.
Madame Roland was able to convince her husband and the other ministers that the king was plotting to restore the ancien regime.
60.
When Louis XVI hesitated to sign this into law, Madame Roland sent him a disrespectful protest letter and published it before the king could respond.
61.
Madame Roland is rather vague in her memoirs as to whether she was merely involved in editing the letter, or whether she wrote the whole text.
62.
The Jacobins, the Montagnards and the Paris Commune viewed them with suspicion: that Madame Roland had served as minister under Louis XVI was seen as collaborating with the ancien regime.
63.
Madame Roland resented the uncouth Jacobin foreman Georges Danton, and did not respond to his overtures to cooperate with her.
64.
Madame Roland had her own office in the ministry and directed the work of the Bureau d'esprit public, which aimed to spread the revolutionary ideals among the population.
65.
The private life of Madame Roland was turbulent during this period.
66.
The rather sober dinners that Madame Roland gave twice a week were depicted as decadent events where politicians were seduced to join the 'Roland clique'.
67.
Madame Roland defended herself so well that the deputies applauded - the public gallery remained silent.
68.
Madame Roland slept with a loaded gun within reach; in case of an attack she wanted to be able to end her life, so as not to fall into the hands of the sans-culottes alive.
69.
Madame Roland's letters indicate that she too was against the death sentence.
70.
Madame Roland refused to flee or go into hiding; she even went to the Convention to personally protest against the attempted arrest of her husband.
71.
Madame Roland was the first prominent Girondin to be incarcerated.
72.
Madame Roland studied English and even had a piano in her cell for a while.
73.
Madame Roland spent the rest of her imprisonment in the harsher prison of Sainte Pelagie.
74.
Madame Roland was very concerned about the fate of Buzot, more than about Jean-Marie Roland.
75.
Madame Roland was hurt and angry that in his memoires her husband planned to hold Buzot responsible for the crisis in their marriage.
76.
Madame Roland was convinced that she would eventually be put to death but refused to cooperate with an escape plan organized by Roland which involved exchanging clothes with a visitor; she thought this too risky for the visitor.
77.
Madame Roland implored her friends not to put themselves at risk but Buzot, who reportedly always carried a miniature of Madame Roland and a lock of her hair with him, was involved in attempts to organise a revolt in Caen.
78.
Madame Roland defended herself in her customary self-assured, even haughty manner against the accusations, but argued in her defense that she was 'only a wife' and therefore could not be held responsible for the political actions of her husband.
79.
Madame Roland had no doubt that she would be sentenced to death and dressed that day in the 'toilette de mort' she had selected some time before: a simple dress of white-yellow muslin with a black belt.
80.
Madame Roland's beloved Buzot lived as a fugitive for several months and then ended his own life.
81.
Madame Roland is indignant that the Jacobin press compared her to the influential noble women from the ancien regime.
82.
Madame Roland provides a fairly reliable and accurate account of events, although she sometimes leaves out things that do not show her in the most favourable light.
83.
Madame Roland was certainly not neutral in her description of people she did not like.
84.
Madame Roland entrusted the manuscript of her memoirs to the journalist Luc-Antoine de Champagneux, who she knew from Lyon.
85.
Madame Roland wanted her words to be published after her death.
86.
Madame Roland regretted that she would not live long enough to write the complete history of the French Revolution.
87.
Only then did it become generally known who Madame Roland had been in love with during the last months of her life.
88.
Madame Roland paid ample attention to the role of Madame Roland, who he called the bravest of French women.
89.
Madame Roland stated that the time was not yet right for women to openly participate in public debate.
90.
Madame Roland's views are closer to those held by Louise de Keralio than the revolutionary feminists Etta Palm and Olympe de Gouges.
91.
The life of Madame Roland inspired writers, film makers and composers:.