self in the house of a friend. Sickening to know the result of the sitting of the Convention, she returned to the Tuileries, but found the Assembly dispersed. A group of cannoneers told her, with accents of joy, that the Girondists were beaten; and that, no doubt, on the next day the Girondists would be accused by a decree of accusation. How must the blood have run back to her heart on hearing this chilling intelligence! She required not to be told that her fall and death must accompany that of the Girondists. Oh, how ardently she embraced her sleeping daughter on her return home! Conscious of the innocence of her life and the purity of her motives, she disdained to flydeath should have for her no terrors in the exercise of duty. Just as she was yielding to the repose which she so much needed, her servant awoke her to say that some armed men desired to see her. Madame Roland expressed no surprise-it was no more than she had expected-knowing the violence of her enemies. Dressing herself carefully before she presented herself to her visitors, who showed her a warrant for her apprehension, she did not even question the right of the arrest, knowing all objections of that nature would have been overruled. It was not a question of right, but a question of force. Having, with commendable forethought, provided for the safety of her daughter, she simply asked permission to make a few needful preparations, which were accomplished with the utmost calmness and quiet. These completed, at seven in the morning she bade her daughter and servants, who were dissolved in tears, a sad and a last farewell, even then not forgetting to urge them to resoluteness, and to that brave resignation which would become them and honour her. This tender scene touched one of the men conveying her to prison, and who was the more astonished as he had been taught to believe that Madame Roland was an hideous and a detestable woman. "How you are beloved!" he exclaimed. "Because I love," said Madame Roland in reply. As the carriage moved from the door, a crowd of miserable people, amongst whom-to their shame -were a number of women, who cried out, "To the guillotine!" "Shall we draw down the blinds?" asked the commissioner. "No," said Madame Roland, "oppressed innocence should not take the attitude of crime and shame: I am not afraid of the looks of good men, and I defy those of my enemies." "You have more strength of mind than most men, and you will wait patiently for justice." "Justice!" replied Madame Roland; "were justice done to me, I should not be here to-day; but I shall walk as calmly to the scaffold as I now proceed to prison." In prison Madame Roland was as brave as when she was out. After making every effort to obtain her release, but failing in the efforts, she did not permit the disappointments to sour her temper, or to take from her that happiness which is found in quiet and serenity. Her companions in her solitude were Thomson, Plutarch, and Tacitus, from whose pages she drew the needed consolation and inspiration to meet her fate nobly. Reading and meditation_she varied with drawing the flowers presented by her friends on their visits. Twenty-four days had thus passed, when-oh! glad and joyous words-the order for her liberation came, which stated there was "nothing against her." Quickly did she fly to her home, to embrace Her once more her loved daughter; but there, on the very door-steps of her house, waiting for her, knowing that she would come, stood the satellites of the Commune again to arrest her. No; all her prayers and importunity were vain-she must see her child no more! captors hurried her away to Sainte-Pélagie, the prison devoted to women of abandoned lives. This trial of coming into contact with so much impurity was indeed severe. But her composure gradually came back, and she was then offended at herself for her want of philosophy to bear her changed position. Madame Bonchaud, the gaoler's wife, touched with her resignation, had her removed to another room, and supplied with a few comforts to make life bearable. Here it was that by stealth she commenced her "Memoirs" on the 9th day of August 1793. The fragments of her life thus written were confided to her friend Bose, the manager of the Jardin des Plantes, who concealed the treasure under his cloak. These "Memoirs," all the circumstances taken into consideration, their author living under the daily prospect of death, are very wonderful. Amongst her visitors at last came her daughter, who, afterwards recording the incidents of the visit, said, "Her soul, superior to circumstances, retained its accustomed serenity, and she conversed with the same animated cheerfulness in her little cell as she used to do in the hotel of the minister. She had provided herself with a few books, and I found her reading Plutarch. She told me that she expected to die; and the look of placid resignation with which she said it, convinced me that she was prepared to meet her death with a firmness worthy of her exalted character. When, K after, her daughter, an only child of twelve years of age, came to see her, she burst into tears; and at the overwhelming recollection of her husband and child the courage of the victim of liberty was lost in the feelings of the wife and the mother." "During her imprisonment several offers of escape had been made to her. One of these offers actually came from the wife of the gaoler, which she firmly refused. One of her former friends in the convent, Henriette Cannet, offered to take her place in the prison, and so enable her to escape. I was a widow,' said Henriette, and I had no children; Madame Roland, on the contrary, had a husband advanced in years, and a lovely little girl: both needed her utmost care. What could be more natural than for me to expose my useless life in order to save hers, so precious to her family? I wanted her to exchange her attire for mine, and to endeavour to escape whilst I remained behind. But neither prayers nor tears availed. They would kill thee, my good Henriette,' she unceasingly repeated: thy blood would ever fall on me. Sooner would I suffer death a thousand times than reproach myself with thine! Seeing that nothing could move her, I bade her farewell, to behold her no more." On the 31st October 1793, the day when the twenty-two Girondists were publicly murdered, Madame Roland was taken to the Conciergerie, which the Girondists had just left. Her cell was a damp and gloomy dungeon, in which she had no bed or clothing, although the weather was severely cold. But even here, surrounded by circumstances so adverse, she forgot not herself. Her journal and life were |