ROHTAK 



books, of which the best known are 

 Reise durch Marokko. 1868 ; Land 

 und Volk in Afrika, 1870 ; Reise 

 von Tripolis nach der Oase Kufra, 

 1881. He died June 2, 1896. 



Rohtak. Dist. and town of the 

 Punjab, India, in the Ambala 

 division. The dist. lies W. of the 

 Jumna and N.W. of Delhi ; the 

 Sonepat subdivision was added to 

 the dist. on the partition of the 

 Delhi division. The chief tribesmen 

 are Jats. The rainfall is 29 ins. per 

 annum, and the chief crops are 

 native food grains, as bajra, al- 

 though some cotton and sugar- 

 cane are grown. Its area is 

 1,800 sq. m. The town, which 

 is of great antiquity, occupies a 

 central position in the dist. and is 

 on the rly. N.W. from Delhi. Pop., 

 dist., 541,000; town, 20,400. 



Roi Faineant (Fr., do-nothing 

 King). Term applied to the last 

 seven Frankish kings of the Mero- 

 vingian dynasty. They were so 

 called because the officials known 

 as the mayors of the Palace, at first 

 servants of the king, had gradually 

 assumed all the power of their 

 nominal masters. See Franks ; 

 Merovingians. 



Roisel. Village of France, in the 

 dept of Somme. It is 9 m. E. of 

 Peronne (q.v.), on the Cologne 

 river. It was reached and entered 

 by British cavalry in March, 1917, 

 following the German retreat on 

 the Somme. In Nov., 1917, the 

 Lancashire 55th div. bore the brunt 

 of the German counter-attack, 

 after the initial British success at 

 Cambrai, and here the Americans 

 first appeared in the Allied battle 

 line. In March, 1918, the British 

 66th div. made a great stand at 

 Roisel. Roisel was recovered by 

 the Allies in the autumn of 1918. 

 See Somme, Battles of the. 



Rokeby. Village of Yorkshire 

 (N.R.), England. It stands where 

 the Greta falls into the Tees, 3 m. 

 from Barnard Castle. It owes its 

 fame to Scott's poem. S. Mary's 

 Church is the chief building. A 

 Roman road ran through it and 

 Roman remains have been found. 

 The family of Rokeby, who gave 

 their name to the place, had their 

 castle at Mortham in the parish. 

 Pop. 150. 



Rokeby. Romantic narrative 

 poem, by Sir Walter Scott, pub- 

 lished in 1813. The scene is Rokeby 

 in Yorkshire, where the poem was 

 written, and the period is July, 

 1644, immediately after the battle 

 of Marston Moor. 



Roland. Trade name applied to 

 aeroplanes built by the Luftfahr- 

 zeug Gesellschaft/ of Adlershof, 

 near Berlin. Roland aircraft were 

 built in large numbers during the 

 Great War, and were used by the 



6668 



enemy on the W. front, mostly in 

 the form of single-seater fighting 

 ^machines. 



Roland. Masculine Christian 

 name. Of Teutonic origin, it means 

 fame of the land. An Anglo-Welsh 

 variant is Rowland, while the 

 Italian form is Orlando. 



Roland. Frankish soldier, cele- 

 brated in legend as the greatest of 

 Charlemagne's paladins. The 

 historic Roland or Hruodland was 

 an obscure warden of the Breton 

 marches, who was slain by the 

 Basques when they overwhelmed 

 the rearguard of Charlemagne's 

 army on its return from an ex- 

 pedition against the Moors of Spain . 

 in 778. The attack, which was made j 

 at Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees, I 

 was in retaliation for the wanton I 

 capture of Pampeluna. Popular I 

 tradition, embodied in the Song of I 

 Roland and other poems, trans- 

 formed Roland into a national 

 hero, the nephew of Charlemagne, 

 and his assailants into Saracens. 

 As Orlando, Roland is the hero of 

 Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and 

 Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato. 



Roland, SONG OF (Fr. Chanson 

 de Roland). National French epic, 

 the oldest and finest of the extant 

 chansons degeste (q.v.). Written pro- 

 bably by a Norman, between 1066 

 and 1099, it consists of 4,001 ten- 

 syllabled lines, grouped by asson- 

 ance into sections. Based on dis- 

 torted memories of the disaster at 

 Roncesvalles, it is thoroughly 

 heroic in spirit, and its austere, 

 direct style, devoid of superfluous 

 ornament, has little in common 

 with the romantic manner of later 

 poems. It tells how Charlemagne, 

 after conquering Spain, accepts the 

 feigned submission of the Saracen 

 king, Marsile. See Charlemagne; 

 consult also ed. with modern French 

 version by L. Gautier, Eng. trans. 

 Scott-Moncrieff, 1920. 



Roland de la Platiere, MARIE 

 JEANNE PHLIPON( 1754-93). French 

 memoir and letter writer and 

 revolutionary leader. She was the 

 daughter of an engraver named 

 Phlipon, was born in Paris, March 1 

 18, 1754, and in 1780 married 



ROLFE 



Roland de la Platiere, husband 

 and wife becoming prominent 

 among the Girondist leaders. 

 Madame Roland's letters and 

 memoirs throw much light on the 

 period, and reveal her as one of the 

 finest characters and one of the 

 most brilliant intellects of her time. 

 She was guillotined in Paris, Nov. 

 8, 1793. Her last words have be- 



Madame Roland de la Platiere. From 



a drawing made at the Conciergerie 



prison, while she was awaiting 



execution 



Rokeby, Yorkshire. The old hall where Sir Walter 

 Scott conceived the idea of his poem 



Frith 



come famous : " Oh, Liberty, what 

 crimes are committed in thy name !" 

 Her Memoires, first published in 

 1820, and her Lettres, 1867, have 

 been many times reissued. There 

 was a new edition of the letters, 

 edited by C. Perroud, 1900-2, and 

 of the Memoires, 1905. See Madame 

 Roland, M. Blind, 1886; Four 

 Frenchwomen, A. Dobson, 1890 ; 

 Madame Roland, I. M. Tarbell, 

 1896; Life of Madame Roland, 

 I. A. Taylor, 1911. 



Rolfe, WILLIAM JAMES (1827- 

 1910). American scholar. Born at 

 Newburyport, Massachusetts, he 

 was headmaster of several schools, 

 but is chiefly remembered for his 

 editions of the poets, especially 

 of Shakespeare, 40 vols., 1870-83, 

 new ed. 1903-7 ; and Tennyson, 

 12 vols., 1895-98. His Shake- 

 speare the Boy, 

 1896, was followed 

 in 1904 by a Life 

 of the poet, and 

 in 1908 by Shake- 

 speare Proverbs. 

 His son, John 

 Carew -\ Rolfe (b. 

 1859),* 1 is known 

 as a classical 

 scholar, and held 

 professorships at 

 Harvard and at the 

 American School of 

 Classical Studies in 

 Rome. 



