Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière

Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière
Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière
	Robespierre
Spouse	Jeanne Manon Roland de la Platiere
Signature

Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière (French pronunciation:

Louis XVI

's government in 1792.

Early life

Roland de la Platière was born and baptized on 18 February 1734 in Thizy, Rhône. He was a studious child, who received a thorough education. At the age of 18 years, Roland was offered the choice of becoming either a businessman or a priest. But he declined both offers and took up studying manufacturing, leading him to the city of Lyons. Two years later, a cousin and inspector of manufactures offered Roland a position in Rouen. He gladly accepted the job. Roland then was transferred to Languedoc, where he became an enthusiastic economist but soon became ill from overwork. He was then offered the less stressful job of lead inspector of Picardy which was the third most important manufacturing province in France in 1781.

Later that year he married Marie-Jeanne Phlipon, better known simply as Madame Roland, the daughter of a Parisian engraver. Madame Roland was just as involved in Jean-Marie's work as he was, editing much of his writing and supporting his political goals. For the first four years of their marriage, Roland continued to live in Picardy and work as a factory inspector. His knowledge of commercial affairs enabled him to contribute articles to the Encyclopédie Méthodique, a three volume encyclopedia of manufacturing and industry, in which, as in all his literary work, he was assisted by his wife.

The Revolution

During the first year of the Revolution, the Rolands moved to

Society of the Friends of the Constitution

, entertaining deputies who later became leading Girondists, and taking an active part in the political landscape. Meanwhile, Madame Roland opened her first salon, helping her husband's name become better known in the capital.

In September 1791, Roland's mission was complete and he returned to Lyon. By then, however, inspectorships of manufacture had been abolished, so the Roland family decided to move and make their new home in Paris. Roland became a member of the

François Nicolas Leonard Buzot

.

When the

ex officio excluded from the Legislative Assembly

, these declarations were in writing, and so most prone to exhibit Madame Roland's personal beliefs.

King Louis XVI used his veto power to prevent decrees against émigrés and the non-juring clergy

. Madame Roland therefore wrote a letter addressing the royal refusal to sanction the decrees and the role of the king in the state, which her husband addressed and sent to the king. When it remained unanswered, Roland read it aloud in full council and in the king's presence. Judged inconsistent with a minister's position and disrespectful in tone, the incident led to Roland's dismissal. However, he then read the letter to the Assembly, which ordered it printed and circulated. It became a manifesto of dissatisfaction, and the Assembly's subsequent demand that Roland and other dismissed ministers be reinstated eventually led to the king's dethronement.

After the

Paris Commune prompted him to propose transferring the government to Blois; and his attacks on Robespierre and his associates made him very unpopular. After failing to seal the armoire de fer (iron chest) found in the Tuileries Palace, containing documents that indicated Louis XVI's relations with corrupt politicians, he was accused of destroying some of the evidence within. Finally, during the trial of the king, he and the Girondists demanded that the sentence should be decided by a poll of the French people rather than the National Convention

. Two days after the king's execution, he resigned his office.

Death

Not long after he resigned as minister, the Girondins came under attack and Roland was denounced as well. Roland fled Paris and went into hiding; in his absence, he was sentenced to death. Madame Roland remained in Paris, where she was arrested in June 1793 and executed on 8 November. When Roland learned belatedly of his wife's imminent death, he wandered away from his refuge in Rouen and wrote a few words expressing his horror at the Reign of Terror: "From the moment when I learned that they had murdered my wife, I would no longer remain in a world stained with enemies." He attached the paper to his chest, sat up against a tree, and ran a cane-sword through his heart on the evening of 10 November 1793.^[1]^[2]

References

^ Claude Perroud, "Note critique sur les dates de l'exécution de Mme Roland et du suicide de Roland", La Révolution française: revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, Paris: Société de l'histoire de la Révolution française, t. 22, 1895, pp. 15–26.
^ Siân Reynolds, Marriage and Revolution: Monsieur and Madame Roland, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 287–288.

Sources

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Roland, Jean Marie". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. The Britannica

External links

"Roland de la Platière, Jean Marie and Marie" . The American Cyclopædia
. 1879.

Political offices
Preceded by Bon-Claude Cahier de Gerville	Minister of the Interior March – June 1792	Succeeded by Jacques Augustin Mourgue
Preceded by Marguerite-Louis-François Duport-Dutertre	Minister of Justice March – April 1792	Succeeded by Antoine Duranton
Preceded by Clément Felix Champion de Villeneuve	Minister of the Interior August 1792 – January 1793	Succeeded by Dominique Joseph Garat

[1] Claude Perroud, "Note critique sur les dates de l'exécution de Mme Roland et du suicide de Roland", La Révolution française: revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, Paris: Société de l'histoire de la Révolution française, t. 22, 1895, pp. 15–26.

[2] Siân Reynolds, Marriage and Revolution: Monsieur and Madame Roland, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 287–288.

[1]

[2]

v t e Ministers of the French National Convention (10 August 1792 to 1 April 1794)
Foreign Affairs	Pierre Henri Hélène Marie Lebrun-Tondu François Louis Michel Chemin Deforgues
War	Joseph Marie Servan de Gerbey Jean-Nicolas Pache Pierre Riel de Beurnonville Jean Baptiste Noël Bouchotte
Justice	Georges Danton Dominique Joseph Garat Louis-Jérôme Gohier
Interior	Jean-Marie Roland, vicomte de la Platière Dominique Joseph Garat Jules-François Paré
Finance	Étienne Clavière Louis Grégoire Deschamps Destournelles
Navy and Colonies	Gaspard Monge Jean Dalbarade
Preceded by Ministers of Louis XVI of France • Followed by French Directory

Authority control databases
International	FAST ISNI VIAF
National	France BnF data Catalonia Germany Italy Israel Belgium United States Sweden Czech Republic Netherlands Poland Vatican
Academics	CiNii
People	Deutsche Biographie
Other	Historical Dictionary of Switzerland SNAC IdRef