Madame Roland’s departure for the scaffold in November 1793, during the Reign of Terror

A leading figure of the French Revolution, Manon Roland (1754–1793) played a major role within the Girondin political party.
She is described as “beautiful, with a firm yet graceful demeanour”, and a smile that was “tender and seductive”. A feminist ahead of her time, she wrote of her marriage: “By focusing solely on my partner’s happiness, I realised that something was missing from my own.”
From 1791, as a member of the Jacobin Club, Manon Roland welcomed influential politicians to her salon, including Robespierre. Later, Manon Roland became the muse of the Girondin party alongside her husband, then Minister of the Interior.
In May 1793, during the Reign of Terror which saw the Girondins outlawed, she was arrested. During her long imprisonment, she wrote her Memoirs and impressed her jailers with her courage and dignity.
On 8 November 1793, the Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced her to death. Madame Roland was guillotined that very day. When news of her death reached them, her husband and her lover took their own lives.
In the 19th century, through the writings of Lamartine, Stendhal and Michelet, Manon Roland became a romantic figure, the ‘heroine of the Revolution and martyr of liberty’.