Manon Jeanne Philion, the great heroine of the French Revolution, was the only surviving child of Philion, an engraver, and was born at Paris in 1754. In her quiet home on the Quai des Orfèvres, and amid the routine of humble household duties, the young girl began to develop her earnest nature. The budding beauty of her person was but a faint shadow of the serene and noble spirit that was moving within. She sought after truth with all the devoted affection of a lover. Through history, theology, philosophy, and the sciences her vigorous mind wandered, fixing upon whatever gratified her pure and elevated tastes. Especially did her attention love to rest upon the ancient ages as portrayed in Plutarch's Lives. Dwelling in spirit in those great times, her conduct became imbued with the severe magnanimity of an old Greek or Roman. She abjured everything but what was true and uprightly noble. The rites of the priests seemed hollow mockeries, and she abandoned the Christian religion. The gilded vices of the aristocracy roused her indignation; and she turned a confirmed republican. Nor did she act less consistently when, about the age of twenty, she began to be assailed by offers of marriage. The crowd of volatile suitors who were attracted by her charms did not excite her vanity. She rejected the whole tribe, one after another, with unhesitating candour. In vain did her father remonstrate with her. "It is not a position," she said, "but a mind that I want." The only person that was able to affect her well-disciplined heart was Jean Marie Roland de la Platière, inspector of manufactures at Amiens, a grave, middle-aged philosopher, weather-beaten and thought-worn, coldly virtuous as a Spartan, and sternly patriotic as a Cato. She therefore gave him her hand about her twenty-fifth year, and thenceforth devoted herself entirely to his stern will.

Madame Roland was in Paris in the early part of 1792, occupying a prominent place among the revolutionists. Her husband had been deputed to the Constituent Assembly by the city of Lyons. His honest patriotism had raised him to a high place among the reformers; and when a Girondist cabinet had been forced upon the royal choice, he had been appointed minister of the Interior. Accordingly she was now living in the official saloon, and giving ministerial dinners twice a week. On these occasions she was wont to exercise all the spontaneous power of a queen. No sooner had her guests entered than they felt the captivating effect of her mature beauty and flashing genius. As they sat at table they could not help being inspired with her noble enthusiasm and wise political views. When the cloth had been removed they were still sensible of her influence, although she sat silently apart at her work-table; and they were ready to moderate their hot discussions whenever she prudently interposed. In fact, she was the very soul of the Girondist party.

The spirit of Madame Roland appeared in all its serene greatness when, on the fall of her faction, she was cast into prison by the triumphant Jacobins. The remorseless gripe of her enemies, the axe ready at any moment to fall upon her head, and the unknown gulf on the other side of death, did not daunt her soul. Her mind, like that of a brave pagan, dwelt upon the grand vision of human magnanimity. She lived over again, and recorded, in a series of Memoires, her previous life of self-sacrifice and patriotism. She also summoned up from the pages of her favourite Plutarch the great deeds and death-scenes of the past. It is true that the thought of her little girl, left so early without a mother's care, of her infirm husband fleeing before his blood-thirsty enemies, and of herself doomed to a premature and unjust end, sometimes proved too strong for her womanly heart, and made her burst into tears. Yet at other times, looking through the grating of her window, she addressed the prisoners in the court-yard of the Conciergerie, and, like a very angel of liberty, spoke with an eloquence so refined and musical that the poor doomed victims of the Revolution stood charmed on the spot for hours together, and then went away to their cells shouting "Vive la Republique."

On the 8th November 1793, the last day of her life, the demeanour of the brave Roland was more heroically subdued than ever. After hearing herself sentenced to be guillotined, she thanked her judges that they had sent her to share the same fate as those brave men whom they had recently murdered. She then ran down stairs from the judgment-hall to her cell as if making haste to be gone. The preparation was soon over; and she appeared in the condemned cart calm and beautiful, a perfect statue of innocence, clad in white, and with her raven hair flowing down in thick ringlets to her girdle. As the vehicle rumbled onwards to the Place de la Concorde, she stooped down amid the insults of the mob to cheer her fellow-victim, an old man, who was crying like a child. Nor did her self-possession fail when she arrived in front of the guillotine. She asked for a pen to write down "the strange thoughts that were arising within her." Then mounting the scaffold, she turned to the statue of Liberty which stood close by, and exclaimed, "O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name." These were her last words, and in a few moments afterwards her head fell into the basket.

Several days after the death of Madame Roland, the dead body of her husband was found in an avenue near Rouen, pierced through the heart with a long stiletto. On a scrap of paper beside it were these words:—"After my wife's murder, I would not remain any longer in a world so stained with crimes." (See Memoires de Madame Roland, 2 vols., Paris, 1821; Lamartine's Girondists; and Carlyle's French Revolution.)