Madame Roland

Marie-Jeanne Roland de la Platière (March 17, 1754 – November 8, 1793), born Marie-Jeanne Phlipon, more famous simply as Madame Roland, was, together with her husband Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière, a supporter of the French Revolution. She was an influential member of the Girondist faction which fell out of favor during the Reign of Terror and died on the guillotine.

O Liberty, how many crimes are committed in thy name!

Quotes

• O Liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom!
  • O Liberty, how many crimes are committed in thy name!
    • On being led to her execution, sometimes stated to have been directed at a specific statue of Liberty, in Memoirs, Appendix; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), and in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922); used by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essay on Mirabeau.
  • Variants:
  • O liberté, comme on t'a jouée!
    • O Liberty, how thou hast been played with!
      • As quoted in Letters Containing a Sketch of the Politics of France (1795) by Helen Maria Williams, Vol. 1, p. 201

Quotes about Madame Roland

• I have been reading Madame Roland's memoirs and have come to the conclusion that she was a very over-rated woman; snobbish, vain, sentimental, envious — rather a German type. Her last days before her execution were spent in chronicling petty social snubs or triumphs of many years back. She was a democrat chiefly from envy of the noblesse.
  • Bertrand Russell, in a letter to his brother Frank (1918).