It was not many months before their exasperation had reached such a pitch that they were convinced that civil war was necessary, and they began to look about for reasons with which to alarm and push on the people to it. The only adequate one they found was to persuade the country that the King was plotting with the _émigrés_ on the border, and that they and the Austrians were watching for a chance to attack France, overturn the new government, and restore the old régime. On June 22d an event occurred which in Madame Roland’s opinion was ample proof of the truthfulness of their opinions. On the morning of that day Madame Roland opened a letter written the day before to Bancal to say: “The King and Queen have fled, the shops are closed, the greatest tumult reigns. It is almost impossible that Lafayette should not be an accomplice.”
For twenty-four hours she was in an ecstasy of patriotic hopefulness. The flight of the King was a renunciation of the contract he had made with his people in taking the oath to support the constitution. The evident duty of the country was to declare him dethroned and to establish a republic. She was so excited she could not stay at home, but went among her friends, urging them to immediate action.
Her fixed principle that a woman should take no part in public proceedings was laid aside now. “As long as peace lasted,” she wrote her friend, “I played a peaceable rôle and exerted that kind of influence which seems to me suitable to my sex. Now that the flight of the King has declared war, it seems to me that every one must devote himself without reserve. I have joined the fraternal societies, because convinced that zeal and a good thought may sometimes be useful in a time of crisis.”
Her joy was short. The tumult which threatened in Paris was promptly quieted by Lafayette, at the head of the National Guards. The citizens were exhorted to calm, to vigilance, to confidence in the Assembly. Madame Roland writhed under this attitude. “Is this the place to be tranquil and contented?” she cried. She and her friends, convinced that the measures to prevent a riot and restore order were directed especially at themselves, gathered at Robespierre’s, where they considered ways of driving the people to an action of which the Assembly was incapable.