Squalor came forth and
consorted with cleanliness; vice crept from its dens and sat down by the
side of purity in high places; atheism took its stand at the altar, and
ministered with the priest.
This assembly adjourned, and the Rolands returned, for a short time, to
Platiere. By this time it was evident that the monarchy could not stand
against the attacks of both its enemies; the king was compelled to
yield; he threw himself into the arms of the Girondists, as his least
obnoxious foes. He formed a new cabinet, and to Roland was given the
ministry of the interior. It was a very great office. Its incumbent had
administrative charge of all the internal affairs of France. The
engraver's daughter was now the mistress of a palace. From the lowly
room where she had read Plutarch until her mind was made grand with
ideas of patriotic glory, until she loved her country as once she loved
her God, she had gone by no base degrees to an eminence where her
beloved France, with all its hopes and woes and needs and resources, lay
like a map beneath her--a map for her and hers to change.
By this time the titled refugees had brought the Prussian armies to the
frontier; a majority of the clergy had identified themselves with the
reaction, were breaking down the revolution among the people, and were
producing a reversionary tendency to absolutism. The king was
vacillating and timid, but the queen had all the spirit and courage of
her mother, Maria Theresa.
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