I demand that we should have here a secretary of council to register our deliberations.

Responsible ministers should have a witness of their opinions.

If this witness existed, I should not now address your majesty in writing." The threat was no less evident than the treachery of this letter; and the last sentence indicated, in equivocal terms, the odious use which Roland meant one day to make of it.

The magnanimity of Vergniaud was excited against this step of the powerful Girondist minister: Dumouriez's military loyalty was roused by it: the king listened to the reading of it with the calmness of a man accustomed to put up with insult.

The Girondists were informed of it in the secret councils at Madame Roland's, and Roland kept a copy to cover himself at the hour of his fall.
XVII.
At this moment secret understandings, unknown to Roland himself, were formed by the three Girondist chiefs, Vergniaud, Guadet, and Gensonne and the chateau, through Boze, the king's painter.