Makers of History

 Madame Roland

 BY

 JOHN S. C. ABBOTT

 WITH ENGRAVINGS

 NEW YORK AND LONDON

 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

 1904

 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty, by

 HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. 

 Copyright, 1878, by JANE W. ABBOTT. 

[Illustration: MADAME ROLAND. ]

PREFACE. 

The history of Madame Roland embraces the most interesting events ofthe French Revolution, that most instructive tragedy which time hasyet enacted. There is, perhaps, contained in the memoirs of no otherwoman so much to invigorate the mind with the desire for highintellectual culture, and so much to animate the spirit heroically tomeet all the ills of this eventful life. Notwithstanding herexperience of the heaviest temporal calamities, she found, in theopulence of her own intellectual treasures, an unfailing resource. These inward joys peopled her solitude with society, and dispelledeven from the dungeon its gloom. I know not where to look for a careermore full of suggestive thought. 

CONTENTS. 

 Chapter Page

 I. CHILDHOOD 13

 II. YOUTH 33

 III. MAIDENHOOD 57

 IV. MARRIAGE 80

 V. THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 105

 VI. THE MINISTRY OF M. ROLAND 130

 VII. MADAME ROLAND AND THE JACOBINS 155

 VIII. LAST STRUGGLE OF THE GIRONDISTS 178

 IX. ARREST OF MADAME ROLAND 201

 X. FATE OF THE GIRONDISTS 224

 XI. PRISON LIFE 252

 XII. TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF MADAME ROLAND 277

ENGRAVINGS. 

 Page

 MADAME ROLAND _Frontispiece. _

 THE VISIT 40

 LA PLATIÈRE 97

 ROBESPIERRE 116

 THE LIBRARY 145

 EXECUTION OF THE GIRONDISTS 247

 MADAME ROLAND IN PRISON 259

 EXECUTION OF MADAME ROLAND 301

MADAME ROLAND

CHAPTER I. 

CHILDHOOD. 

1754-1767

Characters developed by the French Revolution. --Madame Roland. --GratienPhlippon. --His repinings at his lot. --Views of Phlippon. --His hostilityto the Church. --Origin of the French Revolution. --Character of MadamePhlippon. --Birth of Jane Maria. --Adored by her parents. --Discontentof Phlippon. --His complainings to his child. --Early traits ofcharacter. --Love of books. --Jane's thirst for reading. --Herlove of flowers. --Jane's personal appearance. --Thirst forknowledge. --Intellectual gifts. --A walk on the Boulevards. --Phlippon'stalk to his child. --Youthful dreams. --Influence of Jane's parentsover her. --Education in convents. --Jane sent to a convent. --Partingwith her mother. --Madame Roland's account of her first night inthe convent. --Jane's books of study. --Her proficiency in music anddrawing. --Scenes in the convent. --Impressions made by them. --Poeticenthusiasms. --Taking the veil. --Taking the black veil. --Effect uponJane. --Lofty aspirations. --Remark of Napoleon. --Jane's contempt ofease and luxury. --Her self-denial. 

Many characters of unusual grandeur were developed by the FrenchRevolution. Among them all, there are few more illustrious, or moreworthy of notice, than that of Madame Roland. The eventful story ofher life contains much to inspire the mind with admiration and withenthusiasm, and to stimulate one to live worthily of thosecapabilities with which every human heart is endowed. No person canread the record of her lofty spirit and of her heroic acts without ahigher appreciation of woman's power, and of the mighty influence onemay wield, who combines the charms of a noble and highly-cultivatedmind with the fascinations of female delicacy and loveliness. Tounderstand the secret of the almost miraculous influence she exerted, it is necessary to trace her career, with some degree of minuteness, from the cradle to the hour of her sublime and heroic death. 

In the year 1754, there was living, in an obscure workshop in Paris, on the crowded Quai des Orfevres, an engraver by the name of GratienPhlippon. He had married a very beautiful woman, whose placidtemperament and cheerful content contrasted strikingly with therestlessness and ceaseless repinings of her husband. The comfortableyet humble apartments of the engraver were over the shop where heplied his daily toil. He was much dissatisfied with his lowlycondition in life, and that his family, in the enjoyment of frugalcompetence alone, were debarred from those luxuries which were soprofusely showered upon others. Bitterly and unceasingly he murmuredthat his lot had been cast in the ranks of obscurity and of unsparinglabor, while others, by a more fortunate, although no better meriteddestiny, were born to ease and affluence, and honor and luxury. Thisthought of the unjust inequality in man's condition, which soon brokeforth with all the volcanic energy of the French Revolution, alreadybegan to ferment in the bosoms of the laboring classes, and no onepondered these wide diversities with a more restless spirit, ormurmured more loudly and more incessantly than Phlippon. When theday's toil was ended, he loved to gather around him associates whosefeelings harmonized with his own, and to descant upon their owngrievous oppression and upon the arrogance of aristocratic greatness. With an eloquence which often deeply moved his sympathizing auditory, and fanned to greater intensity the fires which were consuming his ownheart, he contrasted their doom of sleepless labor and of comparativepenury with the brilliance of the courtly throng, living in idleluxury, and squandering millions in the amusements at Versailles, andsweeping in charioted splendor through the Champs Elysée. 

Phlippon was a philosopher, not a Christian. Submission was a virtuehe had never learned, and never wished to learn. Christianity, as hesaw it developed before him only in the powerful enginery of the RomanCatholic Church, was, in his view, but a formidable barrier againstthe liberty and the elevation of the people--a bulwark, bristling withsuperstition and bayonets, behind which nobles and kings were securelyintrenched. He consequently became as hostile to the doctrines of theChurch as he was to the institutions of the state. The monarch was, in his eye, a tyrant, and God a delusion. The enfranchisement of thepeople, in his judgment, required the overthrow of both the earthlyand the celestial monarch. In these ideas, agitating the heart ofPhlippon, behold the origin of the French Revolution. They werediffused in pamphlets and daily papers in theaters and _cafés_. Theywere urged by workmen in their shops, by students in their closets. They became the inspiring spirit of science in encyclopedias andreviews, and formed the chorus in all the songs of revelry andlibertinism. These sentiments spread from heart to heart, throughParis, through the provinces, till France rose like a demon in itswrath, and the very globe trembled beneath its gigantic and indignanttread. 

Madame Phlippon was just the reverse of her husband. She was a womanin whom faith, and trust, and submission predominated. She surrenderedher will, without questioning, to all the teachings of the Church ofRome. She was placid, contented, and cheerful, and, though uninquiringin her devotion, undoubtedly sincere in her piety. In every event oflife she recognized the overruling hand of Providence, and feelingthat the comparatively humble lot assigned her was in accordance withthe will of God, she indulged in no repinings, and envied not the morebrilliant destiny of lords and ladies. An industrious housewife, shehummed the hymns of contentment and peace from morning till evening. In the cheerful performance of her daily toil, she was ever pouringthe balm of her peaceful spirit upon the restless heart of her spouse. Phlippon loved his wife, and often felt the superiority of herChristian temperament. 

Of eight children born to these parents, one only, Jeanne Manon, or_Jane Mary_, survived the hour of birth. Her father first received herto his arms in 1754, and she became the object of his painful and mostpassionate adoration. Her mother pressed the coveted treasure to herbosom with maternal love, more calm, and deep, and enduring. And nowJane became the central star in this domestic system. Both parentslived in her and for her. She was their earthly all. The mother wishedto train her for the Church and for heaven, that she might become anangel and dwell by the throne of God. These bright hopes gilded aprayerful mother's hours of toil and care. The father bitterlyrepined. Why should his bright and beautiful child--who even in theseher infantile years was giving indication of the most brilliantintellect--why should she be doomed to a life of obscurity and toil, while the garden of the Tuileries and the Elysian Fields were throngedwith children, neither so beautiful nor so intelligent, who werereveling in boundless wealth, and living in a world of luxury andsplendor which, to Phlippon's imagination, seemed more alluring thanany idea he could form of heaven? These thoughts were a consumingfire in the bosom of the ambitious father. They burned withinextinguishable flame. 

The fond parent made the sprightly and fascinating child his dailycompanion. He led her by the hand, and confided to her infantilespirit all his thoughts, his illusions, his day-dreams. To herlistening ear he told the story of the arrogance of nobles, of thepride of kings, and of the oppression by which he deemed himselfunjustly doomed to a life of penury and toil. The light-hearted childwas often weary of these complainings, and turned for relief to theplacidity and cheerfulness of her mother's mind. Here she foundrepose--a soothing, calm, and holy submission. Still the gloom of herfather's spirit cast a pensive shade over her own feelings, andinfused a tone of melancholy and an air of unnatural reflection intoher character. By nature, Jane was endowed with a soul of unusualdelicacy. From early childhood, all that is beautiful or sublime innature, in literature, in character, had charms to rivet her entrancedattention. She loved to sit alone at her chamber window in the eveningof a summer's day, to gaze upon the gorgeous hues of sunset. As herimagination roved through those portals of a brighter world, whichseemed thus, through far-reaching vistas of glory, to be opened toher, she peopled the sun-lit expanse with the creations of her ownfancy, and often wept in uncontrollable emotion through the influenceof these gathering thoughts. Books of impassioned poetry, anddescriptions of heroic character and achievements, were her especialdelight. Plutarch's Lives, that book which, more than any other, appears to be the incentive of early genius, was hid beneath herpillow, and read and re-read with tireless avidity. Those illustriousheroes of antiquity became the companions of her solitude and of herhourly thoughts. She adored them and loved them as her own mostintimate personal friends. Her character became insensibly molded totheir forms, and she was inspired with restless enthusiasm to imitatetheir deeds. When but twelve years of age, her father found her, oneday, weeping that she was not born a Roman maiden. Little did she thenimagine that, by talent, by suffering, and by heroism, she was todisplay a character the history of which would eclipse the proudestnarratives in Greek or Roman story. 

Jane appears never to have known the frivolity and thoughtlessness ofchildhood. Before she had entered the fourth year of her age she knewhow to read. From that time her thirst for reading was so great, thather parents found no little difficulty in furnishing her with asufficient supply. She not only read with eagerness every book whichmet her eye, but pursued this uninterrupted miscellaneous reading tosingular advantage, treasuring up all important facts in her retentivememory. So entirely absorbed was she in her books, that the onlysuccessful mode of withdrawing her from them was by offering herflowers, of which she was passionately fond. Books and flowerscontinued, through all the vicissitudes of her life, even till thehour of her death, to afford her the most exquisite pleasure. She hadno playmates, and thought no more of play than did her father andmother, who were her only and her constant companions. From infancyshe was accustomed to the thoughts and the emotions of mature minds. In personal appearance she was, in earliest childhood and throughlife, peculiarly interesting rather than beautiful. As mature yearsperfected her features and her form, there was in the contour of hergraceful figure, and her intellectual countenance, that air ofthoughtfulness, of pensiveness, of glowing tenderness and delicacy, which gave her a power of fascination over all hearts. She sought notthis power; she thought not of it; but an almost resistless attractionand persuasion accompanied all her words and actions. 

It was, perhaps, the absence of playmates, and the habitual conversewith mature minds, which, at so early an age, inspired Jane with thatinsatiate thirst for knowledge which she ever manifested. Books wereher only resource in every unoccupied hour. From her walks with herfather, and her domestic employments with her mother, she turned toher little library and to her chamber window, and lost herself in thelimitless realms of thought. It is often imagined that character isthe result of accident--that there is a native and inherent tendency, which triumphs over circumstances, and works out its own results. Without denying that there may be different intellectual gifts withwhich the soul may be endowed as it comes from the hand of theCreator, it surely is not difficult to perceive that the peculiartraining through which the childhood of Jane was conducted wascalculated to form the peculiar character which she developed. 

In a bright summer's afternoon she might be seen sauntering along theBoulevards, led by her father's hand, gazing upon that scene of gayetywith which the eye is never wearied. A gilded coach, drawn by the mostbeautiful horses in the richest trappings, sweeps along the streets--agorgeous vision. Servants in showy livery, and out-riders proudlymounted, invest the spectacle with a degree of grandeur, beneath whichthe imagination of a child sinks exhausted. Phlippon takes his littledaughter in his arms to show her the sight, and, as she gazes ininfantile wonder and delight, the discontented father says, "Look atthat lord, and lady, and child, lolling so voluptuously in theircoach. They have no right there. Why must I and my child walk on thishot pavement, while they repose on velvet cushions and revel in allluxury? Oppressive laws compel me to pay a portion of my hard earningsto support them in their pride and indolence. But a time will comewhen the people will awake to the consciousness of their wrongs, andtheir tyrants will tremble before them. " He continues his walk inmoody silence, brooding over his sense of injustice. They return totheir home. Jane wishes that her father kept a carriage, and liveriedservants and out-riders. She thinks of politics, and of the tyranny ofkings and nobles, and of the unjust inequalities of man. She retiresto the solitude of her loved chamber window, and reads of Aristidesthe Just, of Themistocles with his Spartan virtues, of Brutus, and ofthe mother of the Gracchi. Greece and Rome rise before her in alltheir ancient renown. She despises the frivolity of Paris, theeffeminacy of the moderns, and her youthful bosom throbs with thedesire of being noble in spirit and of achieving great exploits. Thus, when other children of her age were playing with their dolls, she wasdreaming of the prostration of nobles and of the overthrow ofthrones--of liberty, and fraternity, and equality among mankind. Strange dreams for a child, but still more strange in theirfulfillment. 

The infidelity of her father and the piety of her mother contended, like counter currents of the ocean, in her bosom. Her active intellectand love of freedom sympathized with the speculations of the so-calledphilosopher. Her amiable and affectionate disposition and her pensivemeditations led her to seek repose in the sublime conceptions and inthe soul-soothing consolations of the Christian. Her parents weredeeply interested in her education, and were desirous of giving herevery advantage for securing the highest attainments. The education ofyoung ladies, at that time, in France, was conducted almostexclusively by nuns in convents. The idea of the silence and solitudeof the cloister inspired the highly-imaginative girl with a blaze ofenthusiasm. Fondly as she loved her home, she was impatient for thehour to arrive when, with heroic self-sacrifice, she could withdrawfrom the world and its pleasures, and devote her whole soul todevotion, to meditation, and to study. Her mother's spirit of religionwas exerting a powerful influence over her, and one evening she fellat her feet, and, bursting into tears, besought that she might besent to a convent to prepare to receive her first Christian communionin a suitable frame of mind. 

The convent of the sisterhood of the Congregation in Paris wasselected for Jane. In the review of her life which she subsequentlywrote while immured in the dungeons of the Conciergerie, she says, inrelation to this event, "While pressing my dear mother in my arms, atthe moment of parting with her for the first time in my life, Ithought my heart would have broken; but I was acting in obedience tothe voice of God, and I passed the threshold of the cloister, tearfully offering up to him the greatest sacrifice I was capable ofmaking. This was on the 7th of May, 1765, when I was eleven years andtwo months old. In the gloom of a prison, in the midst of politicalstorms which ravage my country, and sweep away all that is dear to me, how shall I recall to my mind, and how describe the rapture andtranquillity I enjoyed at this period of my life? What lively colorscan express the soft emotions of a young heart endued with tendernessand sensibility, greedy of happiness, beginning to be alive to thebeauties of nature, and perceiving the Deity alone? The first night Ispent in the convent was a night of agitation. I was no longer underthe paternal roof. I was at a distance from that kind mother, who wasdoubtless thinking of me with affectionate emotion. A dim lightdiffused itself through the room in which I had been put to bed withfour children of my own age. I stole softly from my couch, and drewnear the window, the light of the moon enabling me to distinguish thegarden, which it overlooked. The deepest silence prevailed around, andI listened to it, if I may use the expression, with a sort of respect. Lofty trees cast their gigantic shadows along the ground, and promiseda secure asylum to peaceful meditation. I lifted up my eyes to theheavens; they were unclouded and serene. I imagined that I felt thepresence of the Deity smiling upon my sacrifice, and already offeringme a reward in the consolatory hope of a celestial abode. Tears ofdelight flowed down my cheeks. I repeated my vows with holy ecstasy, and went to bed again to taste the slumber of God's chosen children. "

Her thirst for knowledge was insatiate, and with untiring assiduityshe pursued her studies. Every hour of the day had its appropriateemployment, and time flew upon its swiftest wings. Every book whichfell in her way she eagerly perused, and treasured its knowledge orits literary beauties in her memory. Heraldry and books of romance, lives of the saints and fairy legends, biography, travels, history, political philosophy, poetry, and treatises upon morals, were all readand meditated upon by this young child. She had no taste for anychildish amusements; and in the hours of recreation, when the mirthfulgirls around her were forgetting study and care in those gamesappropriate to their years, she would walk alone in the garden, admiring the flowers, and gazing upon the fleecy clouds in the sky. Inall the beauties of nature her eye ever recognized the hand of God, and she ever took pleasure in those sublime thoughts of infinity andeternity which must engross every noble mind. Her teachers had butlittle to do. Whatever study she engaged in was pursued with suchspontaneous zeal, that success had crowned her efforts before othershad hardly made a beginning. 

In music and drawing she made great proficiency. She was even morefond of all that is beautiful and graceful in the accomplishments of ahighly-cultivated mind, than in those more solid studies which shenevertheless pursued with so much energy and interest. 

The scenes which she witnessed in the convent were peculiarlycalculated to produce an indelible impression upon a mind soimaginative. The chapel for prayer, with its somber twilight and itsdimly-burning tapers; the dirges which the organ breathed upon thetrembling ear; the imposing pageant of prayer and praise, with theblended costumes of monks and hooded nuns; the knell which tolled therequiem of a departed sister, as, in the gloom of night and by thelight of torches, she was conveyed to her burial--all theseconcomitants of that system of pageantry, arranged so skillfully toimpress the senses of the young and the imaginative, fanned to thehighest elevation the flames of that poetic temperament she soeminently possessed. 

God thus became in Jane's mind a vision of poetic beauty. Religion wasthe inspiration of enthusiasm and of sentiment. The worship of theDeity was blended with all that was ennobling and beautiful. Moved bythese glowing fancies, her susceptible spirit, in these tender years, turned away from atheism, from infidelity, from irreligion, as fromthat which was unrefined, revolting, vulgar. The consciousness of thepresence of God, the adoration of his being, became a passion of hersoul. This state of mind was poetry, not religion. It involved nosense of the spirituality of the Divine Law, no consciousness ofunworthiness, no need of a Savior. It was an emotion sublime andbeautiful, yet merely such an emotion as any one of susceptibletemperament might feel when standing in the Vale of Chamouni atmidnight, or when listening to the crash of thunder as the tempestwrecks the sky, or when one gazes entranced upon the fair face ofnature in a mild and lovely morning of June, when no cloud appears inthe blue canopy above us, and no breeze ruffles the leaves of thegrove or the glassy surface of the lake, and the songs of birds andthe perfume of flowers fill the air. Many mistake the highly poeticenthusiasm which such scenes excite for the spirit of piety. 

While Jane was an inmate of the convent, a very interesting younglady, from some disappointment weary of the world, took the veil. Whenone enters a convent with the intention of becoming a nun, she firsttakes the white veil, which is an expression of her intention, andthus enters the grade of a novice. During the period of her novitiate, which continues for several months, she is exposed to the severestdiscipline of vigils, and fastings, and solitude, and prayer, thatshe may distinctly understand the life of weariness and self-denialupon which she has entered. If, unintimidated by these hardships, shestill persists in her determination, she then takes the black veil, and utters her solemn and irrevocable vows to bury herself in thegloom of the cloister, never again to emerge. From this step there isno return. The throbbing heart, which neither cowls nor veils canstill, finds in the taper-lighted cell its living tomb, till it sleepsin death. No one with even an ordinary share of sensibility canwitness a ceremony involving such consequences without the deepestemotion. The scene produced an effect upon the spirit of Jane whichwas never effaced. The wreath of flowers which crowned the beautifulvictim; the veil enveloping her person; the solemn and dirge-likechant, the requiem of her burial to all the pleasures of sense andtime; the pall which overspread her, emblematic of her consignment toa living tomb, all so deeply affected the impassioned child, that, burying her face in her hands, she wept with uncontrollable emotion. 

The thought of the magnitude of the sacrifice which the young novicewas making appealed irresistibly to her admiration of the morallysublime. There was in that relinquishment of all the joys of earth aself-surrender to a passionless life of mortification, and penance, and prayer, an apparent heroism, which reminded Jane of hermuch-admired Roman maidens and matrons. She aspired with most romanticardor to do, herself, something great and noble. While her soundjudgment could not but condemn this abandonment of life, she wasinspired with the loftiest enthusiasm to enter, in some worthy way, upon a life of endurance, of sacrifice, and of martyrdom. She feltthat she was born for the performance of some great deeds, and shelooked down with contempt upon all the ordinary vocations of every-daylife. These were the dreams of a romantic girl. They were not, however, the fleeting visions of a sickly and sentimental mind, butthe deep, soul-moving aspirations of one of the strongest intellectsover which imagination has ever swayed its scepter. One is reminded bythese early developments of character of the remark of Napoleon, whensome one said, in his presence, "It is nothing but imagination. ""Nothing but imagination!" replied this sagacious observer;"_imagination rules the world!_"

These dim visions of greatness, these lofty aspirations, not forrenown, but for the inward consciousness of intellectual elevation, ofmoral sublimity, of heroism, had no influence, as is ordinarily thecase with day-dreams, to give Jane a distaste for life's energeticduties. They did not enervate her character, or convert her into amere visionary; on the contrary, they but roused and invigorated herto alacrity in the discharge of every duty. They led her to despiseease and luxury, to rejoice in self-denial, and to cultivate, to thehighest possible degree, all her faculties of body and of mind, thatshe might be prepared for any possible destiny. Wild as, at times, herimaginings might have been, her most vivid fancy never could havepictured a career so extraordinary as that to which reality introducedher; and in all the annals of ancient story, she could find no recordof sufferings and privations more severe than those which she wascalled upon to endure. And neither heroine nor hero of any age hasshed greater luster upon human nature by the cheerful fortitude withwhich adversity has been braved. 

CHAPTER II. 

YOUTH. 

Convent life. --Its influence upon Jane. --Jane leaves the convent. --Herattachment to one of the nuns. --Jane partakes of the Lord'sSupper. --Preparations for the solemnity. --Jane's delight inmeditation. --Departure from the convent. --Jane goes to live with hergrandmother. --Character of the latter. --Jane's intellectualprogress. --Her father's delight. --Jane learns to engrave. --Her motherimpatient for her return. --The visit to Madame De Boismorel. --Remarksof servants. --Appearance of Madame De Boismorel. --Her reception of thevisitors. --Madame De Boismorel's volubility. --Jane's dignifiedrejoinders. --Jane's indignation. --She visits Versailles. --Jane'sdisgust at palace life. --She resorts to the gardens. --Characteristicremark. --Jane's meditations. --Jane returns home. --Her manner ofreading. --Jane devotes herself to domestic duties. --She goes tomarket. --Jane's aptitude for domestic duties. --From the study to thekitchen. --Domestic education. --Dissolute lives of the Catholicclergy. --New emotions. --Insolence of the aristocracy. --Jane'sindignation. --New acquaintances. --Jane's contempt for their ignoranceand pride. --A noble but illiterate lady. --Deference paid to her. --Habitsof reflection. 

The influence of those intense emotions which were excited in thebosom of Jane by the scenes which she witnessed in her childhood inthe nunnery were never effaced from her imaginative mind. Nothing canbe conceived more strongly calculated to impress the feelings of aromantic girl, than the poetic attractions which are thrown around theRoman Catholic religion by nuns, and cloisters, and dimly-lightedchapels, and faintly-burning tapers, and matins, and vespers, andmidnight dirges. Jane had just the spirit to be most deeply captivatedby such enchantments. She reveled in those imaginings which clusteredin the dim shades of the cloister, in an ecstasy of luxuriousenjoyment. The ordinary motives which influence young girls of her ageseem to have had no control over her. Her joys were most highlyintellectual and spiritual, and her aspirations were far above theusual conceptions of childhood. She, for a time, became entirelyfascinated by the novel scenes around her, and surrendered her wholesoul to the dominion of the associations with which she was engrossed. In subsequent years, by the energies of a vigorous philosophy, shedisenfranchised her intellect from these illusions, and, proceeding toanother extreme, wandered in the midst of the cheerless mazes ofunbelief; but her fancy retained the traces of these early impressionsuntil the hour of her death. Christianity, even when most heavilyencumbered with earthly corruption, is infinitely preferable to noreligion at all. Even papacy has never swayed so bloody a scepter asinfidelity. 

Jane remained in the convent one year, and then, with deep regret, left the nuns, to whom she had become extremely attached. With one ofthe sisters, who was allied to the nobility, she formed a strongfriendship, which continued through life. For many years she kept up aconstant correspondence with this friend, and to this correspondenceshe attributes, in a great degree, that facility in writing whichcontributed so much to her subsequent celebrity. This letter-writingis one of the best schools of composition, and the parent who isemulous of the improvement of his children in that respect, will doall in his power to encourage the constant use of the pen in thesefamiliar epistles. Thus the most important study, the study of thepower of expression, is converted into a pleasure, and is pursued withan avidity which will infallibly secure success. It is a sad mistaketo frown upon such efforts as a waste of time. 

While in the convent, she, for the first time, partook of thesacrament of the Lord's Supper. Her spirit was most deeply impressedand overawed by the sacredness of the ceremony. During several weeksprevious to her reception of this solemn ordinance, by solitude, self-examination, and prayer, she endeavored to prepare herself forthat sacred engagement, which she deemed the pledge of her union toGod, and of her eternal felicity. When the hour arrived, her feelingswere so intensely excited that she wept convulsively, and she wasentirely incapable of walking to the altar. She was borne in the armsof two of the nuns. This depth of emotion was entirely unaffected, andsecured for her the peculiar reverence of the sacred sisters. 

That spirit of pensive reverie, so dangerous and yet so fascinating, to which she loved to surrender herself, was peculiarly in harmonywith all the influences with which she was surrounded in the convent, and constituted the very soul of the piety of its inmates. She wasencouraged by the commendations of all the sisters to deliver her mindup to the dominion of these day-dreams, with whose intoxicating powerevery heart is more or less familiar. She loved to retire to thesolitude of the cloisters, when the twilight was deepening intodarkness, and alone, with measured steps, to pace to and fro, listening to the monotonous echoes of her own footfall, which alonedisturbed the solemn silence. At the tomb of a departed sister shewould often linger, and, indulging in those melancholy meditationswhich had for her so many charms, long for her own departure to thebosom of her heavenly Father, where she might enjoy that perfecthappiness for which, at times, her spirit glowed with such intenseaspirations. 

At the close of the year Jane left the peaceful retreat where she hadenjoyed so much, and where she had received so many impressions neverto be effaced. Her parents, engrossed with care, were unable to paythat attention to their child which her expanding mind required, andshe was sent to pass her thirteenth year with her paternal grandmotherand her aunt Angelieu. Her grandmother was a dignified lady of muchrefinement of mind and gracefulness of demeanor, who laid great stressupon all the courtesies of life and the elegances of manners andaddress. Her aunt was gentle and warm-hearted, and her spirit wasdeeply imbued with that humble and docile piety, which has so oftenshone out with pure luster even through all the encumbrances of theRoman Catholic Church. With them she spent a year, in a seclusion fromthe world almost as entire as that which she found in the solitude ofthe convent. An occasional visit to her parents, and to her oldfriends the nuns, was all that interrupted the quiet routine of dailyduties. Books continued still her employment and her delight. Herhabits of reverie continued unbroken. Her lofty dreams gained a dailyincreasing ascendency over her character. 

She thus continued to dwell in the boundless regions of the intellectand the affections. Even the most commonplace duties of life wererendered attractive to her by investing them with a mysteriousconnection with her own limitless being. Absorbed in her own thoughts, ever communing with herself, with nature, with the Deity, as theobject of her highest sentiment and aspirations, though she did notdespise those of a more humble mental organization, she gave them nota thought. The evening twilight of every fine day still found her ather chamber window, admiring the glories of the setting sun, andfeeding her impassioned spirit with those visions of future splendorand happiness which the scene appeared to reveal. She fancied shecould almost see the wings of angels gleaming in the purple sunlight. Through those gorgeous avenues, where clouds were piled on goldenclouds, she imagined, far away, the mansions of the blessed. Theseemotions glowing within her, gave themselves utterance in prayersearnest and ardent, while the tears of irrepressible feeling filledher eyes as she thought of that exalted Being, so worthy of her pureand intensest homage. 

The father of Jane was delighted with all these indications of amarked and elevated character, and did all in his power to stimulateher to greater zeal in her lofty studies and meditations. Jane becamehis idol, and the more her imaginative mind became imbued with thespirit of romantic aspirations, the better was he pleased. The ardorof her zeal enabled her to succeed in every thing which she undertook. Invincible industry and energy were united with these dreams. She wasambitious of knowing every thing; and when her father placed in herhands the _burin_, wishing to teach her to engrave, she immediatelyacquired such skill as to astonish both of her parents. And sheafterward passed many pleasant hours in engraving, on highly-polishedplates of brass, beautiful emblems of flowers as tokens of affectionfor her friends. 

The mother of Jane, with far better judgment, endeavored to call backher daughter from that unreal world in which she loved to dwell, andto interest her in the practical duties of life. She began to beimpatient for her return home, that she might introduce her to thosehousehold employments, the knowledge of which is of such unspeakableimportance to every lady. In this she was far from being unsuccessful;for while Jane continued to dream in accordance with the encouragementof her father, she also cordially recognized the good sense of hermother's counsels, and held herself ever in readiness to co-operatewith her in all her plans. 

[Illustration: THE VISIT. ]

A little incident which took place at this time strikingly illustratesthe reflective maturity which her character had already acquired. Before the French Revolution, the haughty demeanor of the nobility ofFrance assumed such an aspect as an American, at the present day, canbut feebly conceive. One morning, the grandmother of Jane, a woman ofdignity and cultivated mind, took her to the house of Madame DeBoismorel, a lady of noble rank, whose children she had partlyeducated. It was a great event, and Jane was dressed with the utmostcare to visit the aristocratic mansion. The aspiring girl, with nodisposition to come down to the level of those beneath her, and withstill less willingness to do homage to those above her, was entirelyunconscious of the mortifying condescension with which she was to bereceived. The porter at the door saluted Madame Phlippon withpoliteness, and all the servants whom she met in the hall addressedher with civility. She replied to each with courtesy and with dignity. The grandmother was proud of her grand-daughter, and the servants paidthe young lady many compliments. The instinctive pride of Jane tookinstant alarm. She felt that _servants_ had no right to presume to pay_her_ compliments--that they were thus assuming that she was upontheir level. Alas! for poor human nature. All love to ascend. Feware willing to favor equality by stepping down. A tall footmanannounced them at the door of the magnificent saloon. All thefurnishing and arrangements of this aristocratic apartment werecalculated to dazzle the eye and bewilder the mind of one unaccustomedto such splendor. Madame De Boismorel, dressed with the mostostentatious display of wealth, was seated upon an ottoman, in statelydignity, employing her fingers with fancy needle-work. Her face wasthickly covered with rouge, and, as her guests were announced, sheraised her eyes from her embroidery, and fixing a cold and unfeelingglance upon them, without rising to receive them, or even making theslightest inclination of her body, in a very patronizing andcondescending tone said to the grandmother, "Ah! _Miss_ Phlippon, good morning to you!"

Jane, who was far from pleased with her reception in the hall, wasexceedingly displeased with her reception in the saloon. The pride ofthe Roman maiden rose in her bosom, and indignantly she exclaimed toherself, "So my grandmother is called _Miss_ in this house!"

"I am very glad to see you, " continued Madame De Boismorel; "and whois this fine girl? your grand-daughter, I suppose? She will make avery pretty woman. Come here, my dear. Ah! I see she is a littlebashful. How old is your grand-daughter, Miss Phlippon? Her complexionis rather brown, to be sure, but her skin is clear, and will growfairer in a few years. She is quite a woman already. "

Thus she rattled on for some time, waiting for no answers. At length, turning again to Jane, who had hardly ventured to raise her eyes fromthe floor, she said, "What a beautiful hand you have got. That handmust be a lucky one. Did you ever venture in a lottery my dear?"

"Never, madam, " replied Jane, promptly. "I am not fond of gaming. "

"What an admirable voice!" exclaimed the lady. "So sweet and yet sofull-toned! But how grave she is! Pray, my dear, are you not a littleof a devotee?"

"I know my duty to God, " replied Jane, "and I endeavor to fulfill it. "

"That's a good girl, " the noble lady rejoined. "You wish to take theveil, do you not?"

"I do not know what may be my destination, neither am I at presentanxious to conjecture it. "

"How very sententious!" Madame De Boismorel replied. "Yourgrand-daughter reads a great deal, does she not, Miss Phlippon?"

"Yes, madam, reading is her greatest delight. "

"Ay, ay, " rejoined the lady; "I see how it is. But have a care thatshe does not turn author. That would be a pity indeed. "

During this conversation the cheeks of Jane were flushed with woundedpride, and her heart throbbed most violently. She felt indignant anddegraded, and was exceedingly impatient to escape from the humiliatingvisit. Conscious that she was, in spirit, in no respect inferior tothe maidens of Greece and Rome who had so engrossed her admiration, she as instinctively recoiled from the arrogance of the haughtyoccupant of the parlor as she had repelled the affected equality ofthe servants in the hall. 

A short time after this she was taken to pass a week at the luxuriousabodes of Maria Antoinette. Versailles was in itself a city of palacesand of courtiers, where all that could dazzle the eye in regal pompand princely voluptuousness was concentered. Most girls of her agewould have been enchanted and bewildered by this display of royalgrandeur. Jane was permitted to witness, and partially to share, allthe pomp of luxuriously-spread tables, and presentations, and courtballs, and illuminations, and the gilded equipages of embassadors andprinces. But this maiden, just emerging from the period of childhoodand the seclusion of the cloister, undazzled by all this brilliance, looked sadly on the scene with the condemning eye of a philosopher. The servility of the courtiers excited her contempt. She contrastedthe boundless profusion and extravagance which filled these palaceswith the absence of comfort in the dwellings of the over-taxed poor, and pondered deeply the value of that regal despotism, which starvedthe millions to pander to the dissolute indulgence of the few. Herpersonal pride was also severely stung by perceiving that her ownattractions, mental and physical, were entirely overlooked by thecrowds which were bowing before the shrines of rank and power. Shesoon became weary of the painful spectacle. Disgusted with thefrivolity of the living, she sought solace for her wounded feelings incompanionship with the illustrious dead. She chose the gardens for herresort, and, lingering around the statues which embellished thesescenes of almost fairy enchantment, surrendered herself to the luxuryof those oft-indulged dreams, which lured her thoughts away from thetrivialities around her to heroic character and brilliant exploits. 

"How do you enjoy your visit, my daughter?" inquired her mother. 

"I shall be glad when it is ended, " was the characteristic reply, "else, in a few more days, I shall so detest all the persons I seethat I shall not know what to do with my hatred. "

"Why, what harm have these persons done you, my child?"

"They make me feel injustice and look upon absurdity, " replied thisphilosopher of thirteen. 

Thus early did she commence her political meditations, and here wereplanted the germs of that enthusiasm which subsequently nerved her tosuch exertions for the disenthralment of the people, and theestablishment of republican power upon the ruin of the throne of theBourbons. She thought of the ancient republics, encircled by a halo ofvisionary glory, and of the heroes and heroines who had been themartyrs of liberty; or, to use her own energetic language, "I sighedat the recollection of Athens, where I could have enjoyed the finearts without being annoyed at the sight of despotism. I was out ofall patience at being a French-woman. Enchanted with the golden periodof the Grecian republic, I passed over the storms by which it had beenagitated. I forgot the exile of Aristides, the death of Socrates, andthe condemnation of Phocion. I little thought that Heaven reserved meto be a witness of similar errors, to profess the same principles, andto participate in the glory of the same persecutions. "

Soon after Jane had entered her fourteenth year, she left hergrandmother's and returned to her parental home. Her father, thoughfar from opulence, was equally removed from poverty, and, withoutdifficulty, provided his family with a frugal competence. Jane nowpursued her studies and her limitless reading with unabated ardor. Hermind, demanding reality and truth as basis for thought, in thedevelopments of character as revealed in biography, in the rise andfall of empires as portrayed in history, in the facts of science, andin the principles of mental and physical philosophy, found itscongenial aliment. She accustomed herself to read with her pen in herhand, taking copious abstracts of facts and sentiments whichparticularly interested her. Not having a large library of her own, many of the books which she read were borrowed, and she carefullyextracted from them and treasured in her commonplace book thosepassages which particularly interested her, that she might read themagain and again. With these abstracts and extracts there were freelyintermingled her own reflections, and thus all that she read wascarefully stored up in her own mind and became a portion of her ownintellectual being. 

Jane's mother, conscious of the importance to her child of a knowledgeof domestic duties, took her to the market to obtain meat andvegetables, and occasionally placed upon her the responsibility ofmost of the family purchases; and yet the unaffected, queenly dignitywith which the imaginative girl yielded herself to these most usefulyet prosaic avocations was such, that when she entered the market, thefruit-women hastened to serve her before the other customers. Thefirst comers, instead of being offended by this neglect, steppedaside, struck by those indescribable indications of superiority whichever gave her such a resistless influence over other minds. It isquite remarkable that Jane, apparently, never turned with repugnancefrom these humble avocations of domestic life. It speaks most highlyin behalf of the intelligence and sound judgment of her mother, thatshe was enabled thus successfully to allure her daughter from herproud imaginings and her realms of romance to those unattractivepractical duties which our daily necessities demand. At one hour, thisardent and impassioned maiden might have been seen in her littlechamber absorbed in studies of deepest research. The highest themeswhich can elevate or engross the mind of man claimed her profound anddelighted reveries. The next hour she might be seen in the kitchen, under the guidance of her placid and pious mother, receiving from herjudicious lips lessons upon frugality, and industry, and economy. Thewhite apron was bound around her waist, and her hands, which, but afew moments before, were busy with the circles of the celestial globe, were now occupied in preparing vegetables for dinner. There was thusunited in the character of Jane the appreciation of all that isbeautiful, chivalric, and sublime in the world of fact and the worldof imagination, and also domestic skill and practical common sense. She was thus prepared to fascinate by the graces and elegances of arefined and polished mind, and to create for herself, in the midst ofall the vicissitudes of life, a region of loveliness in which herspirit could ever dwell; and, at the same time, she possessed thatsagacity and tact, and those habits of usefulness, which prepared herto meet calmly all the changes of fortune, and over them all totriumph. With that self-appreciation, the expression of which, withher, was frankness rather than vanity, she subsequently writes, "Thismixture of serious studies, agreeable relaxations, and domestic cares, was rendered pleasant by my mother's good management, and fitted mefor every thing. It seemed to forebode the vicissitudes of futurelife, and enabled me to bear them. In every place I am at home. I canprepare my own dinner with as much address as Philopoemen cut wood;but no one seeing me thus engaged would think it an office in which Iought to be employed. "

Jane was thus prepared by Providence for that career which sherendered so illustrious through her talents and her sufferings. Atthis early period there were struggling in her bosom those veryemotions which soon after agitated every mind in France, and whichoverthrew in chaotic ruin both the altar and the throne. Thedissolute lives of many of the Catholic clergy, and their indolenceand luxury, began to alarm her faith. The unceasing denunciations ofher father gave additional impulse to every such suggestion. She couldnot but see that the pride and power of the state were sustained bythe superstitious terrors wielded by the Church. She could not beblind to the trickery by which money was wrested from torturedconsciences, and from ignorance, imbecility, and dotage. She could notbut admire her mother's placid piety, neither could she conceal fromherself that her faith was feeling, her principles sentiments. Deeplyas her own feelings had been impressed in the convent, and much as sheloved the gentle sisters there, she sought in vain for a foundationfor the gigantic fabric of spiritual dominion towering above her. Shelooked upon the gorgeous pomp of papal worship, with its gormandizingpastors and its starving flocks, with its pageants to excite the senseand to paralyze the mind, with its friars and monks loitering in slothand uselessness, and often in the grossest dissipation, and her reasongradually began to condemn it as a gigantic superstition for theenthrallment of mankind. Still, the influence of Christian sentiments, like a guardian angel, ever hovered around her, and when herbewildered mind was groping amid the labyrinths of unbelief, her_heart_ still clung to all that is pure in Christian morals, and toall that is consolatory in the hopes of immortality; and even whenbenighted in the most painful atheistic doubts, _conscience_ becameher deity; its voice she most reverently obeyed. 

She turned from the Church to the state. She saw the sons and thedaughters of aristocratic pride, glittering in gilded chariots, andsurrounded by insolent menials, sweep by her, through the ElysianFields, while she trod the dusty pathway. Her proud spirit revolted, more and more, at the apparent injustice. She had studied theorganization of society. She was familiar with the modes of popularoppression. She understood the operation of that system of taxes, soingeniously devised to sink the mass of the people in poverty anddegradation, that princes and nobles might revel in voluptuoussplendor. Indignation nerved her spirit as she reflected upon theusurpation thus ostentatiously displayed. The seclusion in which shelived encouraged deep musings upon these vast inequalities of life. Piety had not taught her submission. Philosophy had not yet taught herthe impossibility of adjusting these allotments of our earthly state, so as to distribute the gifts of fortune in accordance with merit. Little, however, did the proud grandees imagine, as in courtlysplendor they swept by the plebeian maiden, enveloping her in the dustof their chariots, that her voice would yet aid to upheave theircastles from their foundations, and whelm the monarchy and thearistocracy of France in one common ruin. 

At this time circumstances brought her in contact with several ladiesconnected with noble families. The ignorance of these ladies, theirpride, their arrogance, excited in Jane's mind deep contempt. Shecould not but feel her own immeasurable superiority over them, and yetshe perceived with indignation that the accident of birth investedthem with a factitious dignity, which enabled them to look down uponher with condescension. A lady of noble birth, who had lost fortuneand friends through the fraud and dissipation of those connected withher, came to board for a short time in her father's family. This ladywas forty years of age, insufferably proud of her pedigree, and in hermanners stiff and repulsive. She was exceedingly illiterate anduninformed, being unable to write a line with correctness, and havingno knowledge beyond that which may be picked up in the ball-room andthe theater. There was nothing in her character to win esteem. She wastrying, by a law-suit, to recover a portion of her lost fortune. Janewrote petitions for her, and letters, and sometimes went with her tomake interest with persons whose influence would be important. Sheperceived that, notwithstanding her deficiency in every personalquality to inspire esteem or love, she was treated, in consequence ofher birth, with the most marked deference. Whenever she mentioned thenames of her high-born ancestry--and those names were ever upon herlips--she was listened to with the greatest respect. Jane contrastedthe reception which this illiterate descendant of nobility enjoyedwith the reception which her grandmother encountered in the visit toMadame De Boismorel, and it appeared to her that the world wasexceedingly unjust, and that the institutions of society were highlyabsurd. Thus was her mind training for activity in the arena ofrevolution. She was pondering deeply all the abuses of society. Shehad become enamored of the republican liberty of antiquity. She wasready to embrace with enthusiasm any hopes of change. All the gamesand amusements of girlhood appeared to her frivolous, as, day afterday, her whole mental powers were engrossed by these profoundcontemplations, and by aspirations for the elevation of herself and ofmankind. 

CHAPTER III. 

MAIDENHOOD. 

1770-1775

First emotions of love. --A youthful artist. --Maiden timidity. --Numberof suitors. --Jane as a letter writer. --Her sentiments adopted bythe French ministry. --A rich meat merchant proposes for Jane'shand. --Conversation between Jane and her father aboutmatrimony. --Views of Jane in regard to marriage. --Jane's objectionsto a tradesman. --She is immovable. --The young physician as alover. --Curious interview. --The physician taken on trial. --Theconnection broken off. --Illness of Jane's mother. --The jeweler. --Jane'sviews of congeniality between man and wife. --Her mother's death. --Jane'sfather becomes dissipated. --Meekness of her mother. --Excursion tothe country. --Delusive hopes. --Death of Madame Phlippon. --Effectsupon Jane. --Recovery of Jane. --Character of her mother. --Jane'smelancholy. --She resorts to writing. --Development of character. --Letterfrom M. Boismorel. --Reply to M. De Boismorel. --Translation. --Characterof M. De Boismorel. --Jane introduced to the nobility. --Jane's contemptfor the aristocracy. --Her good taste. --M. Phlippon's progressin dissipation. --Jane's painful situation. --Jane secures a smallincome. --Consolations of literature. 

A soul so active, so imaginative, and so full of feeling as that ofJane, could not long slumber unconscious of the emotion of love. Inthe unaffected and touching narrative which she gives of her owncharacter, in the Journal which she subsequently wrote in the gloom ofa prison, she alludes to the first rising of that mysterious passionin her bosom. With that frankness which ever marked her character, shedescribes the strange fluttering of her heart, the embarrassment, theattraction, and the instinctive diffidence she experienced when in thepresence of a young man who had, all unconsciously, interested heraffections. It seems that there was a youthful painter named Taboral, of pale, and pensive, and intellectual countenance--an artist withsoul-inspired enthusiasm beaming from his eye--who occasionally calledupon her father. Jane had just been reading the Heloise of Rousseau, that gushing fountain of sentimentality. Her young heart took fire. His features mingled insensibly in her dreamings and her visions, anddwelt, a welcome guest, in her castles in the air. The diffident youngman, with all the sensitiveness of genius, could not speak to thedaughter, of whose accomplishments the father was so justly proud, without blushing like a girl. When Jane heard him in the shop, shealways contrived to make some errand to go in. There was a pencil orsomething else to be sought for. But the moment she was in thepresence of Taboral, instinctive embarrassment drove her away, and sheretired more rapidly than she entered, and with a palpitating heartran to hide herself in her little chamber. 

This emotion, however, was fleeting and transient, and soon forgotten. Indeed, highly imaginative as was Jane, her imagination was vigorousand intellectual, and her tastes led her far away from thoseenervating love-dreams in which a weaker mind would have indulged. Ayoung lady so fascinating in mind and person could not but attractmuch attention. Many suitors began to appear, one after another, butshe manifested no interest in any of them. The customs of society inFrance were such at that time, that it was difficult for any one whosought the hand of Jane to obtain an introduction to her. Consequently, the expedient was usually adopted of writing first toher parents. These letters were always immediately shown to Jane. Shejudged of the character of the writer by the character of theepistles. Her father, knowing her intellectual superiority, looked toher as his secretary to reply to all these letters. She consequentlywrote the answers, which her father carefully copied, and sent in hisown name. She was often amused with the gravity with which she, as thefather of herself, with parental prudence discussed her own interests. In subsequent years she wrote to kings and to cabinets in the name ofher husband; and the sentiments which flowed from her pen, adopted bythe ministry of France as their own, guided the councils of nations. 

Her father, regarding commerce as the source of wealth, and wealth asthe source of power and dignity, was very anxious that his daughtershould accept some of the lucrative offers she was receiving fromyoung men of the family acquaintance who were engaged in trade. ButJane had no such thought. Her proud spirit revolted from such aconnection. From her sublimated position among the ancient heroes, and her ambitious aspirings to dwell in the loftiest regions ofintellect, she could not think of allying her soul with those whoseenergies were expended in buying and selling; and she declared thatshe would have no husband but one with whom she could cherishcongenial sympathies. 

At one time a rich meat merchant of the neighborhood solicited herhand. Her father, allured by his wealth, was very anxious that hisdaughter should accept the offer. In reply to his urgency Jane firmlyreplied, "I can not, dear father, descend from my noble imaginings. What I wantin a husband is a _soul_, not a _fortune_. I will die single ratherthan prostitute my own mind in a union with a being with whom I haveno sympathies. Brought up from my infancy in connection with the greatmen of all ages--familiar with lofty ideas and illustriousexamples--have I lived with Plato, with all the philosophers, all thepoets, all the politicians of antiquity, merely to unite myself with ashop-keeper, who will neither appreciate nor feel any thing as I do?Why have you suffered me, father, to contract these intellectualhabits and tastes, if you wish me to form such an alliance? I know notwhom I may marry; but it must be one who can share my thoughts andsympathize with my pursuits. "

"But, my daughter, there are many men of business who have extensiveinformation and polished manners. "

"That may be, " Jane answered, "but they do not possess the kind ofinformation, and the character of mind, and the intellectual tasteswhich I wish any one who is my husband to possess. "

"Do you not suppose, " rejoined her father, "that Mr. ---- and his wifeare happy? He has just retired from business with an ample fortune. They have a beautiful house, and receive the best of company. "

"I am no judge, " was the reply, "of other people's happiness. But myown heart is not fixed on riches. I conceive that the strictest unionof affection is requisite to conjugal felicity. I can not connectmyself with any man whose tastes and sympathies are not in accordancewith my own. My husband must be my superior. Since both nature and thelaws give him the pre-eminence, I should be ashamed if he did notreally deserve it. "

"I suppose, then, you want a counselor for your husband. But ladiesare seldom happy with these learned gentlemen. They have a great dealof pride, and very little money. "

"Father, " Jane earnestly replied, "I care not about the profession. Iwish only to marry a man whom I can love. "

"But you persist in thinking such a man will never be found in trade. You will find it, however, a very pleasant thing to sit at ease inyour own parlor while your husband is accumulating a fortune. Nowthere is Madame Dargens: she understands diamonds as well as herhusband. She can make good bargains in his absence, and could carry onall his business perfectly well if she were left a widow. You areintelligent. You perfectly understand that branch of business sinceyou studied the treatise on precious stones. You might do whatever youplease. You would have led a very happy life if you could but havefancied Delorme, Dabrieul, or--"

"Father, " earnestly exclaimed Jane, "I have discovered that the onlyway to make a fortune in trade is by selling dear that which has beenbought cheap; by overcharging the customer, and beating down the poorworkman. I could never descend to such practices; nor could I respecta man who made them his occupation from morning till night. "

"Do you then suppose that there are no honest tradesmen?"

"I presume that there are, " was the reply; "but the number is notlarge; and among them I am not likely to find a husband who willsympathize with me. "

"And what will you do if you do not find the idol of yourimagination?"

"I will live single. "

"Perhaps you will not find that as pleasant as you imagine. You maythink that there is time enough yet. But weariness will come at last. The crowd of lovers will soon pass away and you know the fable. "

"Well, then, by meriting happiness, I will take revenge upon theinjustice which would deprive me of it. "

"Oh! now you are in the clouds again, my child. It is very pleasant tosoar to such a height, but it is not easy to keep the elevation. "

The judicious mother of Jane, anxious to see her daughter settled inlife, endeavored to form a match for her with a young physician. Muchmaneuvering was necessary to bring about the desired result. The youngpractitioner was nothing loth to lend his aid. The pecuniaryarrangements were all made, and the bargain completed, before Janeknew any thing of the matter. The mother and daughter went out onemorning to make a call upon a friend, at whose house the prospectivehusband of Jane, by previous appointment, was accidentally to be. Itwas a curious interview. The friends so overacted their part, thatJane immediately saw through the plot. Her mother was pensive andanxious. Her friends were voluble, and prodigal of sly intimations. The young gentleman was very lavish of his powers of pleasing, loadedJane with flippant compliments, devoured confectionary with highrelish, and chattered most flippantly in the most approved style offashionable inanition. The high-spirited girl had no idea of beingthus disposed of in the matrimonial bazaar. The profession of thedoctor was pleasing to her, as it promised an enlightened mind, andshe was willing to consent to make his acquaintance. Her mother urgedher to decide at once. 

"What, mother!" she exclaimed, "would you have me take one for myhusband upon the strength of a single interview?"

"It is not exactly so, " she replied. "This young gentleman's intimacywith our friends enables us to judge of his conduct and way of life. We know his disposition. These are the main points. You have attainedthe proper age to be settled in the world. You have refused manyoffers from tradesmen, and it is from that class alone that you arelikely to receive addresses. You seem fully resolved never to marry aman in business. You may never have another such offer. The presentmatch is very eligible in every external point of view. Beware how youreject it too lightly. "

Jane, thus urged, consented to see the young physician at her father'shouse, that she might become acquainted with him. She, however, determined that no earthly power should induce her to marry him, unless she found in him a congenial spirit. Fortunately, she was savedall further trouble in the matter by a dispute which arose between herlover and her father respecting the pecuniary arrangements, and whichbroke off all further connection between the parties. 

Her mother's health now began rapidly to decline. A stroke of palsydeprived her of her accustomed elasticity of spirits, and, secludingherself from society, she became silent and sad. In view ofapproaching death, she often lamented that she could not see herdaughter well married before she left the world. An offer which Janereceived from a very honest, industrious, and thrifty jeweler, arousedanew a mother's maternal solicitude. 

"Why, " she exclaimed, with melancholy earnestness, "will you rejectthis young man? He has an amiable disposition, and high reputation forintegrity and sobriety. He is already in easy circumstances, and is ina fair way of soon acquiring a brilliant fortune. He knows that youhave a superior mind. He professes great esteem for you, and will beproud of following your advice. You might lead him in any way youlike. "

"But, my dear mother, I do not want a husband who is to be led. Hewould be too cumbersome a child for me to take care of. "

"Do you know that you are a very whimsical girl, my child? And how doyou think you would like a husband who was your master and tyrant?"

"I certainly, " Jane replied, "should not like a man who assumed airsof authority, for that would only provoke me to resist. But I am surethat I could never love a husband whom it was necessary for me togovern. I should be ashamed of my own power. "

"I understand you, Jane. You would like to have a man _think_ himselfthe master, while he obeyed you in every particular. "

"No, mother, it is not that either. I hate servitude; but empire wouldonly embarrass me. I wish to gain the affections of a man who wouldmake his happiness consist in contributing to mine, as his good senseand regard for me should dictate. "

"But, my daughter, there would be hardly such a thing in the world asa happy couple, if happiness could not exist without that perfectcongeniality of taste and opinions which you imagine to be sonecessary. "

"I do not know, mother, of a single person whose happiness I envy. "

"Very well; but among those matches which you do not envy, there maybe some far preferable to remaining always single. I may be called outof the world sooner than you imagine. Your father is still young. Ican not tell you all the disagreeable things my fondness for you makesme fear. I should be indeed happy, could I see you united to someworthy man before I die. "

This was the first time that the idea of her mother's death everseriously entered the mind of Jane. With an eager gaze, she fixed hereye upon her pale and wasted cheek and her emaciate frame, and thedreadful truth, with the suddenness of a revelation, burst upon her. Her whole frame shook with emotion, and she burst into a flood oftears. Her mother, much moved, tried to console her. 

"Do not be alarmed, my dear child, " said she, tenderly. "I am notdangerously ill. But in forming our plans, we should take intoconsideration all chances. A worthy man offers you his hand. You havenow attained your twentieth year. You can not expect as many suitorsas you have had for the last five years. I may be suddenly taken fromyou. Do not, then, reject a husband who, it is true, has not all therefinement you could desire, but who will love you, and with whom youcan be happy. "

"Yes, my dear mother, " exclaimed Jane, with a deep and impassionedsigh, "as happy as _you_ have been. "

The expression escaped her in the excitement of the moment. Neverbefore had she ventured in the remotest way to allude to the totalwant of congeniality which she could not but perceive existed betweenher father and her mother. Indeed, her mother's character for patienceand placid submission was so remarkable, that Jane did not know howdeeply she had suffered, nor what a life of martyrdom she was leading. The effect of Jane's unpremeditated remark opened her eyes to the sadreality. Her mother was greatly disconcerted. Her cheek changed color. Her lip trembled. She made no reply. She never again opened her lipsupon the subject of the marriage of her child. 

The father of Jane, with no religious belief to control his passionsor guide his conduct, was gradually falling into those habits ofdissipation to which he was peculiarly exposed by the character of thetimes. He neglected his business. He formed disreputableacquaintances. He became irritable and domineering over his wife, andwas often absent from home, with convivial clubs, until a late hour ofthe night. Neither mother nor daughter ever uttered one word to eachother in reference to the failings of the husband and father. Jane, however, had so powerful an influence over him, that she often, by herpersuasive skill, averted the storm which was about to descend uponher meek and unresisting parent. 

The poor mother, in silence and sorrow, was sinking to the tomb farmore rapidly than Jane imagined. One summer's day, the father, mother, and daughter took a short excursion into the country. The day was warmand beautiful. In a little boat they glided over the pleasant watersof the Seine, feasting their eyes with the beauties of nature and artwhich fringed the shores. The pale cheek of the dying wife becameflushed with animation as she once again breathed the invigorating airof the country, and the daughter beguiled her fears with the delusivehope that it was the flush of returning health. When they reachedtheir home, Madame Phlippon, fatigued with the excursion, retired toher chamber for rest. Jane, accompanied by her maid, went to theconvent to call upon her old friends the nuns. She made a very shortcall. 

"Why are you in such haste?" inquired Sister Agatha. 

"I am anxious to return to my mother. "

"But you told me that she was better. "

"She is much better than usual. But I have a strange feeling ofsolicitude about her. I shall not feel easy until I see her again. "

She hurried home, and was met at the door by a little girl, whoinformed her that her mother was very dangerously ill. She flew to theroom, and found her almost lifeless. Another stroke of paralysis haddone its work, and she was dying. She raised her languid eyes to herchild, but her palsied tongue could speak no word of tenderness. Onearm only obeyed the impulse of her will. She raised it, andaffectionately patted the cheek of her beloved daughter, and wiped thetears which were flowing down her cheeks. The priest came toadminister the last consolations of religion. Jane, with her eyesriveted upon her dying parent, endeavored to hold the light. Overpowered with anguish, the light suddenly dropped from her hand, and she fell senseless upon the floor. When she recovered from thisswoon her mother was dead. 

Jane was entirely overwhelmed with uncontrollable and delirioussorrow. For many days it was apprehended that her own life would falla sacrifice to the blow which her affections had received. Instead ofbeing a support to the family in this hour of trial, she added to theburden and the care. The Abbé Legrand, who stood by her bedside as herwhole frame was shaken by convulsions, very sensibly remarked, "It isa good thing to possess sensibility. It is very unfortunate to have somuch of it. " Gradually Jane regained composure, but life, to her, wasdarkened. She now began to realize all those evils which her fondmother had apprehended. Speaking of her departed parent, she says, "The world never contained a better or a more amiable woman. There wasnothing brilliant in her character, but she possessed every quality toendear her to all by whom she was known. Naturally endowed with thesweetest disposition, virtue seemed never to cost her any effort. Herpure and tranquil spirit pursued its even course like the docilestream that bathes with equal gentleness, the foot of the rock whichholds it captive, and the valley which it at once enriches and adorns. With her death was concluded the tranquillity of my youth, which tillthen was passed in the enjoyment of blissful affections and belovedoccupations. "

Jane soon found her parental home, indeed, a melancholy abode. She wastruly alone in the world. Her father now began to advance with morerapid footsteps in the career of dissipation. A victim to thatinfidelity which presents no obstacle to crime, he yielded himself awilling captive to the dominion of passion, and disorder reignedthrough the desolated household. Jane had the mortification of seeinga woman received into the family to take her mother's place, in aunion unsanctified by the laws of God. A deep melancholy settled downupon the mind of the wounded girl, and she felt that she was desolateand an alien in her own home. She shut herself up in her chamber withher thoughts and her books. All the chords of her sensitive nature nowvibrated only responsive to those melancholy tones which are thedirges of the broken heart. As there never was genius untinged bymelancholy, so may it be doubted whether there ever was greatness ofcharacter which had not been nurtured in the school of greataffliction. Her heart now began to feel irrepressible longings for thesympathy of some congenial friend, upon whose supporting bosom shecould lean her aching head. In lonely musings she solaced herself, andnurtured her own thoughts by writing. Her pen became her friend, andthe resource of every weary hour. She freely gave utterance in herdiary to all her feelings and all her emotions. Her manuscripts ofabstracts, and extracts, and original thoughts, became quitevoluminous. In this way she was daily cultivating that power ofexpression and that force of eloquence which so often, in subsequentlife, astonished and charmed her friends. 

In every development of character in her most eventful future career, one can distinctly trace the influence of these vicissitudes of earlylife, and of these impressions thus powerfully stamped upon hernature. Philosophy, romance, and religious sentiment, an impassionedmind and a glowing heart, admiration of heroism, and emulation ofmartyrdom in some noble cause, all conspired to give her sovereigntyover the affections of others, and to enable her to sway human willsalmost at pleasure. 

M. Boismorel, husband of the aristocratic lady to whom Jane once paidso disagreeable a visit, called one day at the shop of M. Phlippon, and the proud father could not refrain from showing him some of thewritings of Jane. The nobleman had sense enough to be very muchpleased with the talent which they displayed, and wrote her a veryflattering letter, offering her the free use of his very valuablelibrary, and urging her to devote her life to literary pursuits, andat once to commence authorship. Jane was highly gratified by thiscommendation, and most eagerly availed herself of his most valuableoffer. In reply to his suggestion respecting authorship, she inclosedthe following lines:

 "Aux hommes ouvrant la carrière Des grands et des nobles talents, Ils n'ont mis aucune barrière A leurs plus sublimes èlans. 

 "De mon sexe foible et sensible, Ils ne veulent que des vertus; Nous pouvons imiter Titus, Mais dans un sentier moins penible. 

 "Joussiez du bien d'être admis A toutes ces sortes de glorie Pour nous le temple de mémoire Est dans le coeurs de nos amis. "

These lines have been thus vigorously translated in the interestingsketch given by Mrs. Child of Madame Roland:

 "To man's aspiring sex 'tis given To climb the highest hill of fame; To tread the shortest road to heaven, And gain by death a deathless name. 

 "Of well-fought fields and trophies won The memory lives while ages pass; Graven on everlasting stone, Or written on retentive brass. 

 "But to poor feeble womankind The meed of glory is denied; Within a narrow sphere confined. The lowly virtues are their pride. 

 "Yet not deciduous is their fame, Ending where frail existence ends; A sacred temple holds their name-- The heart of their surviving friends. "

A friendly correspondence ensued between Jane and M. De Boismorel, which continued through his life. He was a very worthy and intelligentman, and became so much interested in his young friend, that he wishedto connect her in marriage with his son. This young man was indolentand irresolute in character, and his father thought that he would begreatly benefited by a wife of decision and judgment. Jane, however, was no more disposed to fall in love with rank than with wealth, andtook no fancy whatever to the characterless young nobleman. Thejudicious father saw that it would be utterly unavailing to urge thesuit, and the matter was dropped. 

Through the friendship of M. De Boismorel, she was often introduced tothe great world of lords and ladies. Even his formal and haughty wifebecame much interested in the fascinating young lady, and herbrilliant talents and accomplishments secured her invitations to manysocial interviews to which she would not have been entitled by herbirth. This slight acquaintance with the nobility of France did not, however, elevate them in her esteem. She found the conversation ofthe old marquises and antiquated dowagers who frequented the salons ofMadame De Boismorel more insipid and illiterate than that of thetradespeople who visited her father's shop, and upon whom those nobleslooked down with such contempt. Jane was also disgusted with the manyindications she saw, not only of indolence and voluptuousness, but ofdissipation and utter want of principle. Her good sense enabled her tomove among these people as a studious observer of this aspect of humannature, neither adopting their costume nor imitating their manners. She was very unostentatious and simple in her style of dress, andnever, in the slightest degree, affected the mannerism of mindless andheartless fashion. 

Madame De Boismorel, at one time eulogizing her taste in theserespects, remarked, "You do not love feathers, do you, Miss Phlippon? How very differentyou are from the giddy-headed girls around us!"

"I never wear feathers, " Jane replied, "because I do not think thatthey would correspond with the condition in life of an artist'sdaughter who is going about on foot. "

"But, were you in a different situation in life, would you then wearfeathers?"

"I do not know what I should do in that case. I attach very slightimportance to such trifles. I merely consider what is suitable formyself, and should be very sorry to judge of others by the superficialinformation afforded by their dress. "

M. Phlippon now began to advance more rapidly in the career ofdissipation. Jane did every thing in her power to lure him to love hishome. All her efforts were entirely unavailing. Night after night hewas absent until the latest hours at convivial clubs and card-parties. He formed acquaintance with those with whom Jane could not only haveno congeniality of taste, but who must have excited in her emotions ofthe deepest repugnance. These companions were often at his house; andthe comfortable property which M. Phlippon possessed, under thiscourse of dissipation was fast melting away. Jane's situation was nowpainful in the extreme. Her mother, who had been the guardian angel ofher life, was sleeping in the grave. Her father was advancing with themost rapid strides in the road to ruin. Jane was in danger of soonbeing left an orphan and utterly penniless. Her father was dailybecoming more neglectful and unkind to his daughter, as he became moredissatisfied with himself and with the world. Under thesecircumstances, Jane, by the advice of friends, had resort to a legalprocess, by which there was secured to her, from the wreck of hermother's fortune, an annual income of about one hundred dollars. 

In these gloomy hours which clouded the morning of life's tempestuousday, Jane found an unfailing resource and solace in her love ofliterature. With pen in hand, extracting beautiful passages andexpanding suggested thoughts, she forgot her griefs and beguiled manyhours, which would otherwise have been burdened with intolerablewretchedness. Maria Antoinette, woe-worn and weary, in tones ofdespair uttered the exclamation, "Oh! what a resource, amid thecasualties of life, must there be in a highly-cultivated mind. " Theplebeian maiden could utter the same exclamation in accents ofjoyfulness. 

CHAPTER IV. 

MARRIAGE. 

1776-1785

Sophia Cannet. --Roland de la Platière. --M. Roland. --His personalappearance. --Character of M. Roland. --First impressions. --Jane'sappreciation of M. Roland. --Minds and hearts. --Journal of M. Roland. --His notes on Italy. --The light in which Jane and M. Rolandregard each other. --M. Roland professes his attachment. --Feelingsof Jane. --M. Roland writes to Jane's father. --Insulting letter ofM. Phlippon. --Jane retires to a convent. --Her mode of lifethere. --Correspondence with M. Roland. --He returns to Paris. --M. Roland renews his offers to Jane. --They are married. --First yearof married life. --Madame Roland's devotion to her husband. --Birthof a daughter. --Literary pursuits. --Application for letters-patentof nobility. --Visit to England. --Removal to Lyons. --La Platièreand its inmates. --Death of M. Roland's mother. --Situation of LaPlatière. --Description of La Platière. --Surrounding scenery. --Yearsof happiness. --Mode of life. --Eudora. --Domestic duties. --Literaryemployments. --Pleasant rambles. --Distinguished guests. --Ruralpleasures. --Knowledge of medicine. --Kindness to thepeasantry. --Gratitude of the peasantry. --Popular rights. 

When Jane was in the convent, she became acquainted with a young ladyfrom Amiens, Sophia Cannet. They formed for each other a strongattachment, and commenced a correspondence which continued for manyyears. There was a gentleman in Amiens by the name of Roland de laPlatière, born of an opulent family, and holding the quite importantoffice of inspector of manufactures. His time was mainly occupied intraveling and study. Being deeply interested in all subjects relatingto political economy, he had devoted much attention to that noblescience, and had written several treatises upon commerce, mechanics, and agriculture, which had given him, in the literary and scientificworld, no little celebrity. He frequently visited the father ofSophia. She often spoke to him of her friend Jane, showed him herportrait, and read to him extracts from her glowing letters. The calmphilosopher became very much interested in the enthusiastic maiden, and entreated Sophia to give him a letter of introduction to her, upon one of his annual visits to Paris. Sophia had also often writtento Jane of her father's friend, whom she regarded with so muchreverence. 

One day Jane was sitting alone in her desolate home, absorbed inpensive musings, when M. Roland entered, bearing a letter ofintroduction to her from Sophia. "You will receive this letter, " herfriend wrote, "by the hand of the philosopher of whom I have so oftenwritten to you. M. Roland is an enlightened man, of antique manners, without reproach, except for his passion for the ancients, hiscontempt for the moderns, and his too high estimation of his ownvirtue. "

The gentleman thus introduced to her was about forty years old. He wastall, slender, and well formed, with a little stoop in his gait, andmanifested in his manners that self-possession which is the result ofconscious worth and intellectual power, while, at the same time, heexhibited that slight and not displeasing awkwardness which oneunavoidably acquires in hours devoted to silence and study. Still, Madame Roland says, in her description of his person, that he wascourteous and winning; and though his manners did not possess all theeasy elegance of the man of fashion, they united the politeness of thewell-bred man with the unostentatious gravity of the philosopher. Hewas thin, with a complexion much tanned. His broad and intellectualbrow, covered with but few hairs, added to the imposing attractivenessof his features. When listening, his countenance had an expression ofdeep thoughtfulness, and almost of sadness; but when excited inspeaking, a smile of great cheerfulness spread over his animatedfeatures. His voice was rich and sonorous; his mode of speech briefand sententious; his conversation full of information, and rich insuggestive thought. 

Jane, the enthusiastic, romantic Jane, saw in the serene philosopherone of the sages of antiquity, and almost literally bowed andworshiped. All the sentiments of M. Roland were in accordance with themost cherished emotions which glowed in her own mind. She found whatshe had ever been seeking, but had never found before, a trulysympathetic soul. She thought not of love. She looked up to M. Rolandas to a superior being--to an oracle, by whose decisions she couldjudge whether her own opinions were right or wrong. It is true thatM. Roland, cool and unimpassioned in all his mental operations, neverentered those airy realms of beauty and those visionary regions ofromance where Jane loved, at times, to revel. And perhaps Janevenerated him still more for his more stern and unimaginativephilosophy. But his meditative wisdom, his abstraction from thefrivolous pursuits of life, his high ambition, his elevated pleasures, his consciousness of superiority over the mass of his fellow-men, andhis sleepless desire to be a benefactor of humanity, were all traitsof character which resistlessly attracted the admiration of Jane. Sheadored him as a disciple adores his master. She listened eagerly toall his words, and loved communion with his thoughts. M. Roland was byno means insensible to this homage, and though he looked upon her withnone of the emotions of a lover, he was charmed with her societybecause she was so delighted with his own conversation. By the facultyof attentively listening to what others had to say, Madame Rolandaffirms that she made more friends than by any remarks she ever madeof her own. The two _minds_, not _hearts_, were at once united; butthis platonic union soon led to one more tender. 

M. Roland had recently been traveling in Germany, and had written acopious journal of his tour. As he was about to depart from Paris forItaly, he left this journal, with other manuscripts, in the hands ofJane. "These manuscripts, " she writes, "made me better acquainted withhim, during the eighteen months he passed in Italy, than frequentvisits could have done. They consisted of travels, reflections, plansof literary works, and personal anecdotes. A strong mind, strictprinciples, and personal taste, were evident in every page. " He alsointroduced Jane to his brother, a Benedictine monk. During theeighteen months of his absence from Paris, he was traveling in Italy, Switzerland, Sicily, and Malta, and writing notes upon thosecountries, which he afterward published. These notes he communicatedto his brother the monk, and he transmitted them to Jane. She readthem with intense interest. At length he returned again to Paris, andtheir acquaintance was renewed. M. Roland submitted to her hisliterary projects, and was much gratified in finding that she approvedof all that he did and all that he contemplated. She found in him aninvaluable friend. His gravity, his intellectual life, his almoststoical philosophy impressed her imagination and captivated herunderstanding. Two or three years passed away ere either of themseemed to have thought of the other in the light of a lover. Sheregarded him as a guide and friend. There was no ardor of youthfullove warming her heart. There were no impassioned affections glowingin her bosom and impelling her to his side. Intellectual enthusiasmalone animated her in welcoming an intellectual union with a noblemind. M. Roland, on the other hand, looked with placid and paternaladmiration upon the brilliant girl. He was captivated by her geniusand the charms of her conversation, and, above all, by her profoundadmiration of himself. They were mutually happy in each other'ssociety, and were glad to meet and loth to part. They conversed uponliterary projects, upon political reforms, upon speculations inphilosophy and science. M. Roland was naturally self-confident, opinionated, and domineering. Jane regarded him with so much reverencethat she received his opinions for law. Thus he was flattered and shewas happy. 

M. Roland returned to his official post at Amiens, and engaged inpreparing his work on Italy for the press. They carried on avoluminous and regular correspondence. He forwarded to her, inmanuscript, all the sheets of his proposed publication, and shereturned them with the accompanying thoughts which their perusalelicited. Now and then an expression of decorous endearment wouldescape from each pen in the midst of philosophic discussions andpolitical speculations. It was several years after their acquaintancecommenced before M. Roland made an avowal of his attachment. Jane knewvery well the pride of the Roland family, and that her worldlycircumstances were such that, in their estimation, the connectionwould not seem an advantageous one. She also was too proud to enterinto a family who might feel dishonored by the alliance. She thereforefrankly told him that she felt much honored by his addresses, and thatshe esteemed him more highly than any other man she had ever met. Sheassured him that she should be most happy to make him a full returnfor his affection, but that her father was a ruined man, and that, byhis increasing debts and his errors of character, still deeperdisgrace might be entailed upon all connected with him; and shetherefore could not think of allowing M. Roland to make his generosityto her a source of future mortification to himself. 

This was not the spirit most likely to repel the philosophic lover. The more she manifested this elevation of soul, in which Jane wasperfectly sincere, the more earnestly did M. Roland persist in hisplea. At last Jane, influenced by his entreaties, consented that heshould make proposals to her father. He wrote to M. Phlippon. Inreply, he received an insulting letter, containing a blunt refusal. M. Phlippon declared that he had no idea of having for a son-in-law a manof such rigid principles, who would ever be reproaching him for allhis little errors. He also told his daughter that she would find in aman of such austere virtue, not a companion and an equal, but a censorand a tyrant. Jane laid this refusal of her father deeply to heart, and, resolving that if she could not marry the man of her choice, shewould marry no one else, she wrote to M. Roland, requesting him toabandon his design, and not to expose himself to any further affronts. She then requested permission of her father to retire to a convent. 

Her reception at the convent, where she was already held in such highesteem, was cordial in the extreme. The scanty income she had savedfrom her mother's property rendered it necessary for her to live withthe utmost frugality. She determined to regulate her expenses inaccordance with this small sum. Potatoes, rice, and beans, with alittle salt, and occasionally the luxury of a little butter, were heronly food. She allowed herself to leave the convent but twice a week:once, to call, for an hour, upon a relative, and once to visit herfather, and look over his linen. She had a little room under the roof, in the attic, where the pattering of the rain upon the tiles soothedto pensive thought, and lulled her to sleep by night. She carefullysecluded herself from association with the other inmates of theconvent, receiving only a visit of an hour each evening from themuch-loved Sister Agatha. Her time she devoted, with unremittingdiligence, to those literary avocations in which she found so muchdelight. The quiet and seclusion of this life had many charms forJane. Indeed, a person with such resources for enjoyment withinherself could never be very weary. The votaries of fashion and gayetyare they to whom existence grows languid and life a burden. Severalmonths thus glided away in tranquillity. She occasionally walked inthe garden, at hours when no one else was there. The spirit ofresignation, which she had so long cultivated; the peacefulconscience she enjoyed, in view of duty performed; the elevation ofspirit, which enabled her to rise superior to misfortune; themethodical arrangement of time, which assigned to each hour itsappropriate duty; the habit of close application, which riveted herattention to her studies; the highly-cultivated taste andbuoyantly-winged imagination, which opened before her all the fairyrealms of fancy, were treasures which gilded her cell and enriched herheart. She passed, it is true, some melancholy hours; but even thatmelancholy had its charms, and was more rich in enjoyment than themost mirthful moments through which the unreflecting flutter. M. Roland continued a very constant and kind correspondence with Jane, but she was not a little wounded by the philosophic resignation withwhich he submitted to her father's stern refusal. In the course offive or six months he again visited Paris, and called at the conventto see Jane. He saw her pale and pensive face behind a grating, andthe sight of one who had suffered so much from her faithful love forhim, and the sound of her voice, which ever possessed a peculiarcharm, revived in his mind those impressions which had been somewhatfading away. He again renewed his offer, and entreated her to allowthe marriage ceremony at once to be performed by his brother theprior. Jane was in much perplexity. She did not feel that her fatherwas in a situation longer to control her, and she was a littlemortified by the want of ardor which her philosophical lover haddisplayed. The illusion of romantic love was entirely dispelled fromher mind, and, at the same time, she felt flattered by hisperseverance, by the evidence that his most mature judgment approvedof his choice, and by his readiness to encounter all the unpleasantcircumstances in which he might be involved by his alliance with her. Jane, without much delay, yielded to his appeals. They were married inthe winter of 1780. Jane was then twenty-five years of age. Herhusband was twenty years her senior. 

The first year of their marriage life they passed in Paris. It was toMadame Roland a year of great enjoyment. Her husband was publishing awork upon the arts, and she, with all the energy of her enthusiasticmind, entered into all his literary enterprises. With great care andaccuracy, she prepared his manuscripts for the press, and correctedthe proofs. She lived in the study with him, became the companion ofall his thoughts, and his assistant in all his labors. The onlyrecreations in which she indulged, during the winter, were to attend acourse of lectures upon natural history and botany. M. Roland hadhired ready-furnished lodgings. She, well instructed by her mother indomestic duties, observing that all kinds of cooking did not agreewith him, took pleasure in preparing his food with her own hands. Herhusband engrossed her whole time, and, being naturally rather austereand imperious, he wished so to seclude her from the society of othersas to monopolize all her capabilities of friendly feeling. Shesubmitted to the exaction without a murmur, though there were hours inwhich she felt that she had made, indeed, a serious sacrifice of heryouthful and buoyant affections. Madame Roland devoted herself soentirely to the studies in which her husband was engaged that herhealth was seriously impaired. Accustomed as she was to share in allhis pursuits, he began to think that he could not do without her atany time or on any occasion. 

At the close of the year M. Roland returned to Amiens with his wife. She soon gave birth to a daughter, her only child, whom she nurturedwith the most assiduous care. Her literary labors were, however, unremitted, and, though a mother and a nurse, she still lived in thestudy with her books and her pen. M. Roland was writing severalarticles for an encyclopedia. She aided most efficiently in collectingthe materials and arranging the matter. Indeed, she wielded a far morevigorous pen than he did. Her copiousness of language, her facility ofexpression, and the play of her fancy, gave her the command of a veryfascinating style; and M. Roland obtained the credit for many passagesrich in diction and beautiful in imagery for which he was indebted tothe glowing imagination of his wife. Frequent sickness of her husbandalarmed her for his life. The tenderness with which she watched overhim strengthened the tie which united them. He could not but love ayoung and beautiful wife so devoted to him. She could not but love oneupon whom she was conferring such rich blessings. They remained inAmiens for four years. Their little daughter Eudora was a source ofgreat delight to the fond parents, and Madame Roland took the deepestinterest in the developments of her infantile mind. The office of M. Roland was highly lucrative, and his literary projects successful;and their position in society was that of an opulent family ofillustrious descent--for the ancestors of M. Roland had been nobles. He now, with his accumulated wealth, was desirous of being reinstatedin that ancestral rank which the family had lost with the loss offortune. Neither must we blame our republican heroine too much that, under this change of circumstances, she was not unwilling that heshould resume that exalted social position to which she believed himto be so richly entitled. It could hardly be unpleasant to her to beaddressed as _Lady_ Roland. It is the infirmity of our frail naturethat it is more agreeable to ascend to the heights of those who areabove us, than to aid those below to reach the level we have attained. Encountering some embarrassments in their application forletters-patent of nobility, the subject was set aside for the time, and was never after renewed. The attempt, however, subsequentlyexposed them to great ridicule from their democratic opponents. 

About this time they visited England. They were received with muchattention, and Madame Roland admired exceedingly the comparativelyfree institutions of that country. She felt that the English, as anation, were immeasurably superior to the French, and returned to herown home more than ever dissatisfied with the despotic monarchy bywhich the people of France were oppressed. 

From Amiens, M. Roland removed to the city of Lyons, his native place, in which wider sphere he continued the duties of his office asInspector General of Commerce and Manufactures. In the winter theyresided in the city. During the summer they retired to M. Roland'spaternal estate, La Platière, a very beautiful rural retreat but a fewmiles from Lyons. The mother of M. Roland and an elder brother residedon the same estate. They constituted the ingredient of bitterness intheir cup of joy. It seems that in this life it must ever be that eachpleasure shall have its pain. No happiness can come unalloyed. LaPlatière possessed for Madame Roland all the essentials of an earthlyparadise; but those trials which are the unvarying lot of fallenhumanity obtained entrance there. Her mother-in-law was proud, imperious, ignorant, petulant, and disagreeable in every developmentof character. There are few greater annoyances of life than anirritable woman, rendered doubly morose by the infirmities of years. The brother was coarse and arrogant, without any delicacy of feelinghimself, and apparently unconscious that others could be troubled byany such sensitiveness. The disciplined spirit of Madame Rolandtriumphed over even these annoyances, and she gradually infusedthrough the discordant household, by her own cheerful spirit, a greatimprovement in harmony and peace. It is not, however, possible thatMadame Roland should have shed many tears when, on one bright autumnalday, this hasty tongue and turbulent spirit were hushed in that reposefrom which there is no awaking. Immediately after this event, attracted by the quiet of this secluded retreat, they took up theirabode there for both summer and winter. 

[Illustration: LA PLATIÈRE. ]

La Platière, the paternal inheritance of M. Roland, was an estatesituated at the base of the mountains of Beaujolais, in the valley ofthe Saône. It is a region solitary and wild, with rivulets, meanderingdown from the mountains, fringed with willows and poplars, andthreading their way through narrow, yet smooth and fertile meadows, luxuriant with vineyards. A large, square stone house, with regularwindows, and a roof, nearly flat, of red tiles, constituted thecomfortable, spacious, and substantial mansion. The eaves projectedquite a distance beyond the walls, to protect the windows from thesummer's sun and the winter's rain and snow. The external walls, straight, and entirely unornamented, were covered with white plaster, which, in many places, the storms of years had cracked and peeled off. The house stood elevated from the ground, and the front door wasentered by ascending five massive stone steps, which were surmountedby a rusty iron balustrade. Barns, wine-presses, dove-cotes andsheep-pens were clustered about, so that the farm-house, with itsout-buildings, almost presented the aspect of a little village. Avegetable garden; a flower garden, with serpentine walks and arborsembowered in odoriferous and flowering shrubs; an orchard, casting theshade of a great variety of fruit-trees over the closely-mowngreensward, and a vineyard, with long lines of low-trimmed grapevines, gave a finish to this most rural and attractive picture. In thedistance was seen the rugged range of the mountains of Beaujolais, while still further in the distance rose towering above them thesnow-capped summits of the Alps. Here, in this social solitude, inthis harmony of silence, in this wide expanse of nature, MadameRoland passed five of the happiest years of her life--five such yearsas few mortals enjoy on earth. She, whose spirit had been so oftenexhilarated by the view of the tree tops and the few square yards ofblue sky which were visible from the window of her city home, wasenchanted with the exuberance of the prospect of mountain and meadow, water and sky, so lavishly spread out before her. The expanse, apparently so limitless, open to her view, invited her fancy to arange equally boundless. Nature and imagination were her friends, andin their realms she found her home. Enjoying an ample income, engagedconstantly in the most ennobling literary pursuits, rejoicing in thesociety of her husband and her little Eudora, and superintending herdomestic concerns with an ease and skill which made thatsuperintendence a pleasure, time flew upon its swiftest wings. 

Her mode of life during these five calm and sunny years whichintervened between the cloudy morning and the tempestuous evening ofher days, must have been exceedingly attractive. She rose with thesun, devoted sundry attentions to her husband and child, andpersonally superintended the arrangements for breakfast, taking anaffectionate pleasure in preparing very nicely her husband's frugalfood with her own hands. That social meal, ever, in a loving family, the most joyous interview of the day, being passed, M. Roland enteredthe library for his intellectual toil, taking with him, for his silentcompanion, the idolized little Eudora. She amused herself with herpencil, or reading, or other studies, which her father and mothersuperintended. Madame Roland, in the mean time, devoted herself, withmost systematic energy, to her domestic concerns. She was a perfecthousekeeper, and each morning all the interests of her family, fromthe cellar to the garret, passed under her eye. She superintended thepreservation of the fruit, the storage of the wine, the sorting of thelinen, and those other details of domestic life which engross theattention of a good housewife. The systematic division of time, whichseemed to be an instinctive principle of her nature, enabled her toaccomplish all this in two hours. She had faithful and devotedservants to do the work. The superintendence was all that wasrequired. This genius to superintend and be the head, while otherscontribute the hands, is not the most common of human endowments. Madame Roland, having thus attended to her domestic concerns, laidaside those cares for the remainder of the day, and entered the studyto join her husband in his labors there. These intellectualemployments ever possessed for her peculiar attractions. Thescientific celebrity of M. Roland, and his political position, attracted many visitors to La Platière; consequently, they had, almostinvariably, company to dine. At the close of the literary labors ofthe morning, Madame Roland dressed for dinner, and, with all thatfascination of mind and manners so peculiarly her own, met her guestsat the dinner-table. The labor of the day was then over. The repastwas prolonged with social converse. After dinner, they walked in thegarden, sauntered through the vineyard, and looked at the innumerableobjects of interest which are ever to be found in the yard of aspacious farm. Madame Roland frequently retired to the library, towrite letters to her friends, or to superintend the lessons of Eudora. Occasionally, of a fine day, leaning upon her husband's arm, she wouldwalk for several miles, calling at the cottages of the peasantry, whomshe greatly endeared to her by her unvarying kindness. In the evening, after tea, they again resorted to the library. Guests ofdistinguished name and influence were frequently with them, and thehours glided swiftly, cheered by the brilliance of philosophy andgenius. The journals of the day were read, Madame Roland being usuallycalled upon as reader. When not thus reading, she usually sat at herwork-table, employing her fingers with her needle, while she took aquiet and unobtrusive part in the conversation. "This kind of life, "says Madame Roland, "would be very austere, were not my husband a manof great merit, whom I love with my whole heart. Tender friendship andunbounded confidence mark every moment of existence, and stamp a valueupon all things, which nothing without them would have. It is the lifemost favorable to virtue and happiness. I appreciate its worth. Icongratulate myself on enjoying it; and I exert my best endeavors tomake it last. " Again she draws the captivating picture of ruralpleasures. "I am preserving pears, which will be delicious. We aredrying raisins and prunes. We make our breakfast upon wine; overlookthe servants busy in the vineyard; repose in the shady groves, and onthe green meadows; gather walnuts from the trees; and, havingcollected our stock of fruit for the winter, spread it in the garretto dry. After breakfast this morning, we are all going in a body togather almonds. Throw off, then, dear friend, your fetters for awhile, and come and join us in our retreat. You will find here truefriendship and real simplicity of heart. "

Madame Roland, among her other innumerable accomplishments, hadacquired no little skill in the science of medicine. Situated in aregion where the poor peasants had no access to physicians, she wasnot only liberal in distributing among them many little comforts, but, with the most self-denying assiduity, she visited them in sickness, and prescribed for their maladies. She was often sent for, to go adistance of ten or twelve miles to visit the sick. From such appealsshe never turned away. On Sundays, her court-yard was filled withpeasants, who had assembled from all the region round, some asinvalids, to seek relief, and others who came with such little tokensof their gratitude as their poverty enabled them to bring. Hereappears a little rosy-cheeked boy with a basket of chestnuts; or acare-worn mother, pale and thin, but with a grateful eye presenting toher benefactrice a few small, fragrant cheeses, made of goat's milk;and there is an old man, hobbling upon crutches, with a basket ofapples from his orchard. She was delighted with these indications ofgratitude and sensibility on the part of the unenlightened and lowlypeasantry. Her republican notions, which she had cherished so fondlyin her early years, but from which she had somewhat swerved whenseeking a patent of nobility for her husband, began now to revive inher bosom with new ardor. She was regarded as peculiarly the friend ofthe poor and the humble; and at all the hearth-fires in the cottagesof that retired valley, her name was pronounced in tones almost ofadoration. More and more Madame Roland and her husband began toidentify their interests with those of the poor around them, and toplead with tongue and pen for popular rights. Her intercourse with thepoor led her to feel more deeply the oppression of laws, framed toindulge the few in luxury, while the many were consigned to penury andhopeless ignorance. She acquired boundless faith in the virtue of thepeople, and thought that their disenthralment would usher in amillennium of unalloyed happiness. She now saw the ocean of humanpassions reposing in its perfect calm. She afterward saw that sameocean when lashed by the tempest. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. 

1791-1792

Portentous mutterings. --Welcomed as blessings. --Enthusiasm of MadameRoland. --Louis XVI. --Maria Antoinette. --Character of MariaAntoinette. --Character of Louis. --M. Roland elected to theAssembly. --Ardor of his wife. --Popularity of the Rolands. --Theygo to Paris. --Reception of the Rolands at Paris. --Sittings ofthe Assembly. --Tastes and principles. --Conflict for power. --TheGirondists. --The Jacobins. --Meetings at Madame Roland's. --Appearanceof Robespierre. --His character. --Remains of the court party. --Influenceof Madame Roland. --Madame Roland's mode of action. --Herdelicacy. --Robespierre at Madame Roland's. --Horrors of theRevolution. --Fears of the Girondists. --Violence of theJacobins. --Resolution of the Girondists. --Warning of MadameRoland. --Danger of Robespierre. --He is concealed by MadameRoland. --Baseness of Robespierre. --The Assembly dissolved. --TheRolands again at La Platière. --They return to Paris. --Plotsand counterplots. --Political maneuvering. --Massacres andconflagrations. --The king insulted and a prisoner. --The kingsurrenders. --M. Roland Minister of the Interior. --Madame Roland ina palace. --M. Roland's first appearance at court. --Horror of thecourtiers. --M. Roland's opinion of the king. --Madame Roland'sadvice. --Her opinion of kings and courtiers. 

Madame Roland was thus living at La Platière, in the enjoyment of allthat this world can give of peace and happiness, when the firstportentous mutterings of that terrible moral tempest, the FrenchRevolution, fell upon her ears. She eagerly caught the sounds, and, believing them the precursor of the most signal political and socialblessings, rejoiced in the assurance that the hour was approachingwhen long-oppressed humanity would reassert its rights and achieve itstriumph. Little did she dream of the woes which in surging billowswere to roll over her country, and which were to ingulf her, and allwhom she loved, in their resistless tide. She dreamed--a verypardonable dream for a philanthropic lady--that an ignorant andenslaved people could be led from Egyptian bondage to the promisedland without the weary sufferings of the wilderness and the desert. Her faith in the regenerative capabilities of human nature was sostrong, that she could foresee no obstacles and no dangers in the wayof immediate and universal disfranchisement from every custom, andfrom all laws and usages which her judgment disapproved. Her wholesoul was aroused, and she devoted all her affections and every energyof her mind to the welfare of the human race. It is hardly to besupposed, human nature being such as it is, but that themortifications she met in early life from the arrogance of those aboveher, and the difficulties she encountered in obtaining letters-patentof nobility, exerted some influence in animating her zeal. Herenthusiastic devotion stimulated the ardor of her less excitablespouse; and all her friends, by her fascinating powers of eloquenceboth of voice and pen, were gradually inspired by the same intenseemotions which had absorbed her whole being. 

Louis XVI. And Maria Antoinette had but recently inherited the throneof the Bourbons. Louis was benevolent, but destitute of the decisionof character requisite to hold the reins of government in so stormy aperiod. Maria Antoinette had neither culture of mind nor knowledge ofthe world. She was an amiable but spoiled child, with great nativenobleness of character, but with those defects which are the naturaland inevitable consequence of the frivolous education she hadreceived. She thought never of duty and responsibility; always andonly of pleasure. It was her misfortune rather than her fault, thatthe idea never entered her mind that kings and queens had aught elseto do than to indulge in luxury. It would be hardly possible toconceive of two characters less qualified to occupy the throne instormy times than were Louis and Maria. The people were slowly, butwith resistless power, rising against the abuses, enormous and hoarywith age, of the aristocracy and the monarchy. Louis, a man ofunblemished kindness, integrity, and purity, was made the scape-goatfor the sins of haughty, oppressive, profligate princes, who forcenturies had trodden, with iron hoofs, upon the necks of theirsubjects. The accumulated hate of ages was poured upon his devotedhead. The irresolute monarch had no conception of his position. 

The king, in pursuance of his system of conciliation, as the clamorsof discontent swelled louder and longer from all parts of France, convened the National Assembly. This body consisted of the nobility, the higher clergy, and representatives, chosen by the people from allparts of France. M. Roland, who was quite an idol with the populace ofLyons and its vicinity, and who now was beginning to lose caste withthe aristocracy, was chosen, by a very strong vote, as therepresentative to the Assembly from the city of Lyons. In that busycity the revolutionary movement had commenced with great power, andthe name of Roland was the rallying point of the people now strugglingto escape from ages of oppression. M. Roland spent some time in hiscity residence, drawn thither by the intense interest of the times, and in the saloon of Madame Roland meetings were every evening held bythe most influential gentlemen of the revolutionary party. Her ardorstimulated their zeal, and her well-stored mind and fascinatingconversational eloquence guided their councils. The impetuous youngmen of the city gathered around this impassioned woman, from whoselips words of liberty fell so enchantingly upon their ears, and withchivalric devotion surrendered themselves to the guidance of her mind. 

In this rising conflict between plebeian and patrician, betweendemocrat and aristocrat, the position in which M. Roland and wife wereplaced, as most conspicuous and influential members of therevolutionary party, arrayed against them, with daily increasinganimosity, all the aristocratic community of Lyons. Each day theirnames were pronounced by the advocates of reform with more enthusiasm, and by their opponents with deepening hostility. The applause and thecensure alike invigorated Madame Roland, and her whole soul becameabsorbed in the one idea of popular liberty. This object became herpassion, and she devoted herself to it with the concentration of everyenergy of mind and heart. 

On the 20th of February, 1791, Madame Roland accompanied her husbandto Paris, as he took his seat, with a name already prominent, in theNational Assembly. Five years before, she had left the metropolis inobscurity and depression. She now returned with wealth, with elevatedrank, with brilliant reputation, and exulting in conscious power. Herpersuasive influence was dictating those measures which were drivingthe ancient nobility of France from their chateaux, and her vigorousmind was guiding those blows before which the throne of the Bourbonstrembled. The unblemished and incorruptible integrity of M. Roland, his simplicity of manners and acknowledged ability, invested himimmediately with much authority among his associates. The brillianceof his wife, and her most fascinating colloquial powers, alsoreflected much luster upon his name. Madame Roland, with her glowingzeal, had just written a pamphlet upon the new order of things, inlanguage so powerful and impressive that more than sixty thousandcopies had been sold--an enormous number, considering the comparativefewness of readers at that time. She, of course, was received with themost flattering attention, and great deference was paid to heropinions. She attended daily the sittings of the Assembly, andlistened with the deepest interest to the debates. The king and queenhad already been torn from their palaces at Versailles, and werevirtually prisoners in the Tuileries. Many of the nobles had fled fromthe perils which seemed to be gathering around them, and had joinedthe army of emigrants at Coblentz. A few, however, of the nobility, and many of the higher clergy, remained heroically at their posts, and, as members of the Assembly, made valiant but unavailing effortsto defend the ancient prerogatives of the crown and of the Church. Madame Roland witnessed with mortification, which she could neitherrepress nor conceal, the decided superiority of the court party indignity, and polish of manners, and in general intellectual culture, over those of plebeian origin, who were struggling, with the energy ofan infant Hercules, for the overthrow of despotic power. All her_tastes_ were with the ancient nobility and their defenders. All her_principles_ were with the people. And as she contrasted the unrefinedexterior and clumsy speech of the democratic leaders with the courtlybearing and elegant diction of those who rallied around the throne, she was aroused to a more vehement desire for the social andintellectual elevation of those with whom she had cast in her lot. Theconflict with the nobles was of short continuance. The energy ofrising democracy soon vanquished them. Violence took the place of law. And now the conflict for power arose between those of the Republicanswho were _more_ and those who were _less_ radical in their plans ofreform. The most moderate party, consisting of those who would sustainthe throne, but limit its powers by a free constitution, retainingmany of the institutions and customs which antiquity had renderedvenerable, was called the _Girondist party_. It was so called becausetheir most prominent leaders were from the department of the Gironde. They would deprive the king of many of his prerogatives, but not ofhis crown. They would take from him his despotic power, but not hislife. They would raise the mass of the people to the enjoyment ofliberty, but to liberty controlled by vigorous law. Opposed to themwere the Jacobins--far more radical in their views of reform. Theywould overthrow both throne and altar, break down all privilegedorders, confiscate the property of the nobles, and place prince andbeggar on the footing of equality. These were the two great partiesinto which revolutionary France was divided and the conflict betweenthem was the most fierce and implacable earth has ever witnessed. 

M. Roland and wife, occupying a residence in Paris, which was aconvenient place of rendezvous, by their attractions gathered aroundthem every evening many of the most influential members of theAssembly. They attached themselves, with all their zeal and energy, tothe Girondists. Four evenings of every week, the leaders of this partymet in the saloon of Madame Roland, to deliberate respecting theirmeasures. Among them there was a young lawyer from the country, witha stupid expression of countenance, sallow complexion, and ungainlygestures, who had made himself excessively unpopular by the prosyspeeches with which he was ever wearying the Assembly. He had oftenbeen floored by argument and coughed down by contempt, but he seemedalike insensible to sarcasm and to insult. Alone in the Assembly, without a friend, he attacked all parties alike, and was by alldisregarded. But he possessed an indomitable energy, and unwaveringfixedness of purpose, a profound contempt for luxury and wealth, and astoical indifference to reputation and to personal indulgence, whichsecured to him more and more of an ascendency, until, at the name ofRobespierre, all France trembled. This young man, silent and moody, appeared with others in the saloon of Madame Roland. She was struckwith his singularity, and impressed with an instinctive consciousnessof his peculiar genius. He was captivated by those charms ofconversation in which Madame Roland was unrivaled. Silently--for hehad no conversational powers--he lingered around her chair, treasuredup her spontaneous tropes and metaphors, and absorbed her sentiments. He had a clear perception of the state of the times, was perhaps asincere patriot, and had no ties of friendship, no scruples ofconscience, no instincts of mercy, to turn him aside from any measuresof blood or woe which might accomplish his plans. 

[Illustration: ROBESPIERRE. ]

Though the Girondists and the Jacobins were the two great parties nowcontending in the tumultuous arena of French revolution, there stillremained the enfeebled and broken remains of the court party, withtheir insulted and humiliated king at their head, and also numerouscliques and minor divisions of those struggling for power. At thepolitical evening reunions in the saloon of Madame Roland, she wasinvariably present, not as a prominent actor in the scenes, taking aconspicuous part in the social debates, but as a quiet and modestlady, of well-known intellectual supremacy, whose active mind took theliveliest interest in the agitations of the hour. The influence sheexerted was the polished, refined, attractive influence of anaccomplished woman, who moved in her own appropriate sphere. She madeno Amazonian speeches. She mingled not with men in the clamor ofdebate. With an invisible hand she gently and winningly touched thesprings of action in other hearts. With feminine conversationaleloquence, she threw out sagacious suggestions, which others eagerlyadopted, and advocated, and carried into vigorous execution. She didno violence to that delicacy of perception which is woman's tower andstrength. She moved not from that sphere where woman reigns soresistlessly, and dreamed not of laying aside the graceful andpolished weapons of her own sex, to grasp the heavier and coarserarmor of man, which no woman can wield. By such an endeavor, one doesbut excite the repugnance of all except the unfortunate few, who cansee no peculiar sacredness in woman's person, mind, or heart. 

As the gentlemen assembled in the retired parlor, or rather libraryand study, appropriated to these confidential interviews, MadameRoland took her seat at a little work-table, aside from the circlewhere her husband and his friends were discussing their politicalmeasures. Busy with her needle or with her pen, she listened to everyword that was uttered, and often bit her lips to check the almostirrepressible desire to speak out in condemnation of some feebleproposal or to urge some bolder action. At the close of the evening, when frank and social converse ensued, her voice was heard in low, but sweet and winning tones, as one after another of the members wereattracted to her side. Robespierre, at such times silent andthoughtful, was ever bending over her chair. He studied Madame Rolandwith even more of stoical apathy than another man would study a bookwhich he admires. The next day his companions would smile at theeffrontery with which Robespierre would give utterance, in theAssembly, not only to the sentiments, but even to the very words andphrases which he had so carefully garnered from the exuberant dictionof his eloquent instructress. Occasionally, every eye would be rivetedupon him, and every ear attentive, as he gave utterance to some loftysentiment, in impassioned language, which had been heard before, insweeter tones, from more persuasive lips. 

But the Revolution, like a spirit of destruction, was now careeringonward with resistless power. Liberty was becoming lawlessness. Mobsrioted through the streets, burned chateaux, demolished convents, hunted, even to death, priests and nobles, sacked the palaces of theking, and defiled the altars of religion. The Girondists, illustrious, eloquent, patriotic men, sincerely desirous of breaking the arm ofdespotism and of introducing a well-regulated liberty, now began totremble. They saw that a spirit was evoked which might trample everything sacred in the dust. Their opponents, the Jacobins, rallying thepopulace around them with the cry, "Kill, burn, destroy, " were forrushing onward in this career of demolition, till every vestige ofgradations of rank and every restraint of religion should be sweptfrom the land. The Girondists paused in deep embarrassment. They couldnot retrace their steps and try to re-establish the throne. Theendeavor would not only be utterly unavailing, but would, withcertainty, involve them in speedy and retrieveless ruin. They couldnot unite with the Jacobins in their reckless onset upon every thingwhich time had rendered venerable, and substitute for decency, andlaw, and order, the capricious volitions of an insolent, ignorant, anddegraded mob. The only hope that remained for them was to struggle tocontinue firm in the position which they had already assumed. It wasthe only hope for France. The restoration of the monarchy wasimpossible. The triumph of the Jacobins was ruin. Which of these twoparties in the Assembly shall array around its banners the millions ofthe populace of France, now aroused to the full consciousness oftheir power? Which can bid highest for the popular vote? Which canpander most successfully to the popular palate? The Girondists hadtalent, and integrity, and incorruptible patriotism. They foresawtheir peril, but they resolved to meet it, and, if they must perish, to perish with their armor on. No one discerned this danger at anearlier period than Madame Roland. She warned her friends of itsapproach, even before they were conscious of the gulf to which theywere tending. She urged the adoption of precautionary measures, bywhich a retreat might be effected when their post should be no longertenable. "I once thought, " said Madame Roland, "that there were noevils worse than regal despotism. I now see that there are othercalamities vastly more to be dreaded. "

Robespierre, who had associated with the Girondists with rather asullen and Ishmaelitish spirit, holding himself in readiness to gohere or there, as events might indicate to be politic, began now toincline toward the more popular party, of which he subsequently becamethe inspiring demon. Though he was daily attracting more attention, hehad not yet risen to popularity. On one occasion, being accused ofadvocating some unpopular measure, the clamors of the multitude wereraised against him, and vows of vengeance were uttered, loud and deep, through the streets of Paris. His enemies in the Assembly tookadvantage of this to bring an act of accusation against him, whichwould relieve them of his presence by the decisive energy of the ax ofthe guillotine. Robespierre's danger was most imminent, and he wasobliged to conceal himself. Madame Roland, inspired by thosecourageous impulses which ever ennobled her, went at midnight, accompanied by her husband, to his retreat, to invite him to a moresecure asylum in their own house. Madame Roland then hastened to avery influential friend, M. Busot, allowing no weariness to interrupther philanthropy, and entreated him to hasten immediately and endeavorto exculpate Robespierre, before an act of accusation should be issuedagainst him. M. Busot hesitated, but, unable to resist the earnestappeal of Madame Roland, replied, "I will do all in my power to savethis unfortunate young man, although I am far from partaking theopinion of many respecting him. He thinks too much of himself to loveliberty; but he serves it, and that is enough for me. I will defendhim. " Thus was the life of Robespierre saved. He lived to reward hisbenefactors by consigning them all to prison and to death. SaysLamartine sublimely, "Beneath the dungeons of the Conciergerie, MadameRoland remembered that night with satisfaction. If Robespierrerecalled it in his power, this memory must have fallen colder upon hisheart than the ax of the headsman. "

The powerful influence which Madame Roland was thus exerting could notbe concealed. Her husband became more illustrious through thatbrilliance she was ever anxious to reflect upon him. She appeared tohave no ambition for personal renown. She sought only to elevate theposition and expand the celebrity of her companion. It was whisperedfrom ear to ear, and now and then openly asserted in the Assembly, that the bold and decisive measures of the Girondists received theirimpulse from the youthful and lovely wife of M. Roland. 

In September, 1791, the Assembly was dissolved, and M. And MadameRoland returned to the rural quiet of La Platière. But in pruning thevines, and feeding the poultry, and cultivating the flowers which sopeacefully bloomed in their garden, they could not forget the excitingscenes through which they had passed, and the still more excitingscenes which they foresaw were to come. She kept up a constantcorrespondence with Robespierre and Busot, and furnished many veryable articles for a widely-circulated journal, established by theGirondists for the advocacy of their political views. The question nowarose between herself and her husband whether they should relinquishthe agitations and the perils of a political life in these stormytimes, and cloister themselves in rural seclusion, in the calm luxuryof literary and scientific enterprise, or launch forth again upon thestorm-swept ocean of revolution and anarchy. Few who understand thehuman heart will doubt of the decision to which they came. Thechickens were left in the yard, the rabbits in the warren, and theflowers were abandoned to bloom in solitude; and before the snows ofDecember had whitened the hills, they were again installed intumultuous Paris. A new Assembly had just been convened, from whichall the members of the one but recently dissolved were by lawexcluded. Their friends were rapidly assembling in Paris from theirsummer retreats, and influential men, from all parts of the empire, were gathering in the metropolis, to watch the progress of affairs. Clubs were formed to discuss the great questions of the day, to moldpublic opinion, and to overawe the Assembly. It was a period ofdarkness and of gloom; but there is something so intoxicating in thedraughts of homage and power, that those who have once quaffed themfind all milder stimulants stale and insipid. No sooner were M. AndMadame Roland established in their city residence, than they wereinvolved in all the plots and the counterplots of the Revolution. M. Roland was grave, taciturn, oracular. He had no brilliance of talentto excite envy. He displayed no ostentation in dress, or equipage, ormanners, to provoke the desire in others to humble him. His reputationfor stoical virtue gave a wide sweep to his influence. His verysilence invested him with a mysterious wisdom. Consequently, no onefeared him as a rival, and he was freely thrust forward as theunobjectionable head of a party by all who hoped through him topromote their own interests. He was what we call in America an_available_ candidate. Madame Roland, on the contrary, was animatedand brilliant. Her genius was universally admired. Her boldsuggestions, her shrewd counsel, her lively repartee, her capabilityof cutting sarcasm, rarely exercised, her deep and impassionedbenevolence, her unvarying cheerfulness, the sincerity and enthusiasmof her philanthropy, and the unrivaled brilliance of herconversational powers, made her the center of a system around whichthe brightest intellects were revolving. Vergniaud, Pétion, Brissot, and others, whose names were then comparatively unknown, but whosefame has since resounded through the civilized world, loved to do herhomage. 

The spirit of the Revolution was still advancing with giganticstrides, and the already shattered throne was reeling beneath theredoubled blows of the insurgent people. Massacres were rife all overthe kingdom. The sky was nightly illumined by conflagrations. Thenobles were abandoning their estates, and escaping from perils anddeath to take refuge in the bosom of the little army of emigrants atCoblentz. The king, insulted and a prisoner, reigned but in name. Under these circumstances, Louis was compelled to dismiss his ministryand to call in another more acceptable to the people. The king hoped, by the appointment of a Republican ministry, to pacify the democraticspirit. There was no other resource left him but abdication. It was abitter cup for him to drink. His proud and spirited queen declaredthat she would rather die than throw herself into the arms of_Republicans_ for protection. He yielded to the pressure, dismissedhis ministers, and surrendered himself to the Girondists for theappointment of a new ministry. The Girondists called upon M. Roland totake the important post of Minister of the Interior. It was a perilousposition to fill, but what danger will not ambition face? In thepresent posture of affairs, the Minister of the Interior was themonarch of France. M. Roland, whose quiet and hidden ambition had beenfeeding upon its success, smiled nervously at the power which, thusunsolicited, was passing into his hands. Madame Roland, whoseall-absorbing passion it now was to elevate her husband to the highestsummits of greatness, was gratified in view of the honor and agitatedin view of the peril; but, to her exalted spirit, the greater thedanger, the more heroic the act. "The burden is heavy, " she said; "butRoland has a great consciousness of his own powers, and would derivefresh strength from the feeling of being useful to liberty and hiscountry. "

In March, 1792, he entered upon his arduous and exalted office. Thepalace formerly occupied by the Controller General of Finance, mostgorgeously furnished by Madame Necker in the days of her glory, wasappropriated to their use. Madame Roland entered this splendidestablishment, and, elevated in social eminence above the most exaltednobles of France, fulfilled all the complicated duties of her stationwith a grace and dignity which have never been surpassed. Thus hadJane risen from that humble position in which the daughter of theengraver, in solitude, communed with her books, to be the mistress ofa palace of aristocratic grandeur, and the associate of statesmen andprinces. 

When M. Roland made his first appearance at court as the minister ofhis royal master, instead of arraying himself in the court-dress whichthe customs of the times required, he affected, in his costume, thesimplicity of his principles. He wished to appear in his exaltedstation still the man of the people. He had not forgotten theimpression produced in France by Franklin, as in the most republicansimplicity of dress he moved among the glittering throng atVersailles. He accordingly presented himself at the Tuileries in aplain black coat, with a round hat, and dusty shoes fastened withribbons instead of buckles. The courtiers were indignant. The king washighly displeased at what he considered an act of disrespect. Themaster of ceremonies was in consternation, and exclaimed with a lookof horror to General Damuriez, "My dear sir, he has not even bucklesin his shoes!" "Mercy upon us!" exclaimed the old general, with themost laughable expression of affected gravity, "we shall then all goto ruin together!"

The king, however, soon forgot the neglect of etiquette in themomentous questions which were pressing upon his attention. He feltthe importance of securing the confidence and good will of hisministers, and he approached them with the utmost affability andconciliation. M. Roland returned from his first interview with themonarch quite enchanted with his excellent disposition and hispatriotic spirit. He assured his wife that the community had formed atotally erroneous estimate of the king; that he was sincerely a friendto the reforms which were taking place, and was a hearty supporter ofthe Constitution which had been apparently forced upon him. The promptreply of Madame Roland displayed even more than her characteristicsagacity. "If Louis is sincerely a friend of the Constitution, he mustbe virtuous beyond the common race of mortals. Mistrust your ownvirtue, M. Roland. You are only an honest countryman wandering amid acrowd of courtiers--virtue in danger amid a myriad of vices. Theyspeak our language; we do not know theirs. No! Louis _can not_ lovethe chains that fetter him. He may feign to caress them. He thinksonly of how he can spurn them. Fallen greatness loves not itsdecadence. No man likes his humiliation. Trust in human nature; thatnever deceives. Distrust courts. Your virtue is too elevated to seethe snares which courtiers spread beneath your feet. "

CHAPTER VI. 

THE MINISTRY OF M. ROLAND. 

1792

Parlor of Madame Roland. --Vacillation of Louis. --Measures of theGirondists. --Their perilous position. --Rumors of invasion. --Therabble. --Danger of the Girondists. --Their demand of the king. --Letterto the king. --Its character. --Refusal of the king. --Dismissal of M. Roland. --The letter read to the Assembly. --Its celebrity. --Increasinginfluence of the Rolands. --Barbaroux. --Project of a republic. --Secondedby Madame Roland. --Barbaroux's opinion of the Rolands. --The Girondistsdesert the king. --Madame Roland's influence over the Girondists. --Buzotadores her. --Madame Roland's opinion of Buzot. --Effect of herdeath. --Danton at Madame Roland's. --New scenes of violence. --Outragesof the mob. --Recall of M. Roland. --Perilous situation of M. Roland. --Hiswife's mode of living. --Library of Madame Roland. --Meetingsthere. --Striking contrast. --Labors of Madame Roland. --Frenchartists at Rome. --Letter to the pope. --Anecdote. --Reverses offortune. --Increasing anarchy. --Baseness of the Jacobins. --The thronedemolished. --Cry for a republic. --The Republic. --Waning of M. Roland'spower. --Madame Roland's disgust at the horrors of the Revolution. 

From all the spacious apartments of the magnificent mansion allottedas the residence of the Minister of the Interior, Madame Rolandselected a small and retired parlor, which she had furnished withevery attraction as a library and a study. This was her much-lovedretreat, and here M. Roland, in the presence of his wife, wasaccustomed to see his friends in all their confidential intercourse. Thus she was not only made acquainted with all the importantoccurrences of the times, but she formed an intimate personalacquaintance with the leading actors in these eventful movements. Louis, adopting a vacillating policy, in his endeavors to conciliateeach party was losing the confidence and the support of all. TheGirondists, foreseeing the danger which threatened the king and allthe institutions of government, were anxious that he should bepersuaded to abandon these mistaken measures, and firmly and openlyadvocate the reforms which had already taken place. They felt that ifhe would energetically take his stand in the position which theGirondists had assumed, there was still safety for himself and thenation. The Girondists, at this time, wished to sustain the throne, but they wished to limit its power and surround it by the institutionsof republican liberty. The king, animated by his far morestrong-minded, energetic, and ambitious queen, was slowly andreluctantly surrendering point by point as the pressure of themultitude compelled, while he was continually hoping that some changein affairs would enable him to regain his lost power. 

The position of the Girondists began to be more and more perilous. Thearmy of emigrant nobles at Coblentz, within the dominions of the Kingof Prussia, was rapidly increasing in numbers. Frederic wasthreatening, in alliance with all the most powerful crowns of Europe, to march with a resistless army to Paris, reinstate the king in hislost authority, and take signal vengeance upon the leaders of theRevolution. There were hundreds of thousands in France, the mostillustrious in rank and opulence, who would join such an army. TheRoman Catholic priesthood, to a man, would lend to it the influenceof all its spiritual authority. Paris was every hour agitated byrumors of the approach of the armies of invasion. The people allbelieved that Louis wished to escape from Paris and head that army. The king was spiritless, undecided, and ever vacillating in his plans. Maria Antoinette would have gone through fire and blood to haverallied those hosts around her banner. Such was the position of theGirondists in reference to the Royalists. They were ready to adopt themost energetic measures to repel the interference of this armedconfederacy. 

On the other hand, they saw another party, noisy, turbulent, sanguinary, rising beneath them, and threatening with destruction allconnected in any way with the execrated throne. This new party, nowemerging from the lowest strata of society, upheaving all itssuperincumbent masses, consisted of the wan, the starving, thehaggard, the reckless. All of the abandoned and the dissolute ralliedbeneath its banners. They called themselves the people. Amazonianfish-women; overgrown boys, with the faces and the hearts of demons;men and girls, who had no homes but the kennels of Paris, in countlessthousands swelled its demonstrations of power, whenever it pleasedits leaders to call them out. This was the Jacobin party. 

The Girondists trembled before this mysterious apparition now loomingup before them, and clamoring for the overthrow of all humandistinctions. The crown had been struck from the head of the king, andwas snatched at by the most menial and degraded of his subjects. TheGirondists, through Madame Roland, urged the Minister of the Interiorthat he should demand of the king an immediate proclamation of waragainst the emigrants and their supporters, and that he should alsoissue a decree against the Catholic clergy who would not support themeasures of the Revolution. It was, indeed, a bitter draught for theking to drink. Louis declared that he would rather die than sign sucha decree. The pressure of the populace was so tremendous, displayed inmobs, and conflagrations, and massacres, that these decisive measuresseemed absolutely indispensable for the preservation of the Girondistparty and the safety of the king. M. Roland was urged to present tothe throne a most earnest letter of expostulation and advice. MadameRoland sat down at her desk and wrote the letter for her husband. Itwas expressed in that glowing and impassioned style so eminently ather command. Its fervid eloquence was inspired by the foresight shehad of impending perils. M. Roland, impressed by its eloquence, yetalmost trembling in view of its boldness and its truths, presented theletter to the king. Its last paragraphs will give one some idea of itscharacter. 

 "Love, serve the Revolution, and the people will love it and serve it in you. Deposed priests agitate the provinces. Ratify the measures to extirpate their fanaticism. Paris trembles in view of its danger. Surround its walls with an army of defense. Delay longer, and you will be deemed a conspirator and an accomplice. Just Heaven! hast thou stricken kings with blindness? I know that truth is rarely welcomed at the foot of thrones. I know, too, that the withholding of truth from kings renders revolutions so often necessary. As a citizen, a minister, I owe truth to the king, and nothing shall prevent me from making it reach his ear. "

The advice contained in this letter was most unpalatable to theenfeebled monarch. The adoption of the course it recommended wasapparently his only chance of refuge from certain destruction. We mustrespect the magnanimity of the king in refusing to sign the decreeagainst the firmest friends of his throne, and we must also respectthose who were struggling against despotic power for the establishmentof civil and religious freedom. When we think of the king and hissuffering family, our sympathies are so enlisted in behalf of theirwoes that we condemn the letter as harsh and unfeeling. When we thinkfor how many ages the people of France had been crushed into povertyand debasement, we rejoice to hear stern and uncompromising truth fallupon the ear of royalty. And yet Madame Roland's letter rather excitesour admiration for her wonderful abilities than allures us to her bydevelopments of female loveliness. This celebrated letter waspresented to the king on the 11th of June, 1792. On the same day M. Roland received a letter from the king informing him that he wasdismissed from office. It is impossible to refrain from applauding theking for this manifestation of spirit and self-respect. Had heexhibited more of this energy, he might at least have had the honor ofdying more gloriously; but, as the intrepid wife of the ministerdictated the letter to the king, we can not doubt that it was theimperious wife of the king who dictated the dismissal in reply. MariaAntoinette and Madame Roland met as Greek meets Greek. 

"Here am I, dismissed from office, " was M. Roland's exclamation to hiswife on his return home. 

"Present your letter to the Assembly, that the nation may see for whatcounsel you have been dismissed, " replied the undaunted wife. 

M. Roland did so. He was received as a martyr to patriotism. Theletter was read amid the loudest applauses. It was ordered to beprinted, and circulated by tens of thousands through the eighty-threedepartments of the kingdom; and from all those departments there camerolling back upon the metropolis the echo of the most tumultuousindignation and applause. The famous letter was read by allFrance--nay, more, by all Europe. Roland was a hero. The plaudits ofthe million fell upon the ear of the defeated minister, while theexecrations of the million rose more loudly and ominously around thetottering throne. This blow, struck by Madame Roland, was by far theheaviest the throne of France had yet received. She who so loved toplay the part of a heroine was not at all dismayed by defeat, when itcame with such an aggrandizement of power. Upon this wave ofenthusiastic popularity Madame Roland and her husband retired from themagnificent palace where they had dwelt for so short a time, and, witha little pardonable ostentation, selected for their retreat veryhumble apartments in an apparently obscure street of the agitatedmetropolis. It was the retirement of a philosopher proud of the gloomof his garret. But M. Roland and wife were more powerful now than everbefore. The famous letter had placed them in the front ranks of thefriends of reform, and enshrined them in the hearts of the ever ficklepopulace. Even the Jacobins were compelled to swell the universalvoice of commendation. M. Roland's apartments were ever thronged. Allimportant plans were discussed and shaped by him and his wife beforethey were presented in the Assembly. 

There was a young statesman then in Paris named Barbaroux, ofremarkable beauty of person, and of the richest mental endowments. Theelegance of his stature and the pensive melancholy of his classicfeatures invested him with a peculiar power of fascination. Betweenhim and Madame Roland there existed the most pure, though thestrongest friendship. One day he was sitting with M. Roland and wife, in social conference upon the desperate troubles of the times, whenthe dismissed minister said to him, "What is to be done to saveFrance? There is no army upon which we can rely to resist invasion. Unless we can circumvent the plots of the court, all we have gained islost. In six weeks the Austrians will be at Paris. Have we, then, labored at the most glorious of revolutions for so many years, to seeit overthrown in a single day? If liberty dies in France, it is lostforever to mankind. All the hopes of philosophy are deceived. Prejudice and tyranny will again grasp the world. Let us prevent thismisfortune. If the armies of despotism overrun the north of France, let us retire to the southern provinces, and there establish a_republic_ of freemen. "

The tears glistened in the eyes of his wife as she listened to thisbold proposal, so heroic in its conception, so full of hazard, anddemanding such miracles of self-sacrifice and devotion. Madame Roland, who perhaps originally suggested the idea to her husband, urged itwith all her impassioned energy. Barbaroux was just the man to havehis whole soul inflamed by an enterprise of such grandeur. He drew arapid sketch of the resources and hopes of liberty in the south, and, taking a map, traced the limits of the republic, from the Doubs, theAire, and the Rhone, to La Dordogne; and from the inaccessiblemountains of Auvergne, to Durance and the sea. A serene joy passedover the features of the three, thus quietly originating a plan whichwas, with an earthquake's power, to make every throne in Europetotter, and to convulse Christendom to its very center. Barbaroux leftthem deeply impressed with a sense of the grandeur and the perils ofthe enterprise, and remarked to a friend, "Of all the men of moderntimes, Roland seems to me most to resemble Cato; but it must be ownedthat it is to his wife that his courage and talents are due. " Previousto this hour the Girondists had wished to sustain the throne, andmerely to surround it with free institutions. They had taken thegovernment of England for their model. From this day the Girondists, freed from all obligations to the king, conspired secretly in MadameRoland's chamber, and publicly in the tribune, for the entireoverthrow of the monarchy, and the establishment of a republic likethat of the United States. They rivaled the Jacobins in the endeavorto see who could strike the heaviest blows against the throne. It wasnow a struggle between life and death. The triumph of the invadingarmy would be the utter destruction of all connected with therevolutionary movement. And thus did Madame Roland exert an influencemore powerful, perhaps, than that of any other one mind in thedemolition of the Bourbon despotism. 

Her influence over the Girondist party was such as no _man_ ever canexert. Her conduct, frank and open-hearted, was irreproachable, everabove even the slightest suspicion of indiscretion. She could not beinsensible to the homage, the admiration of those she gathered aroundher. Buzot adored Madame Roland as the inspiration of his mind, as theidol of his worship. She had involuntarily gained that entireascendency over his whole being which made her the world to him. Thesecret of this resistless enchantment was concealed until her death;it was then disclosed, and revealed the mystery of a spiritualconflict such as few can comprehend. She writes of Buzot, "Sensible, ardent, melancholy, he seems born to give and share happiness. Thisman would forget the universe in the sweetness of private virtues. Capable of sublime impulses and unvarying affections, the vulgar, wholike to depreciate what it can not equal, accuse him of being adreamer. Of sweet countenance, elegant figure, there is always in hisattire that care, neatness, and propriety which announce the respectof self as well as of others. While the dregs of the nation elevatethe flatterers and corrupters of the people to station--whilecut-throats swear, drink, and clothe themselves in rags, in order tofraternize with the populace, Buzot possesses the morality ofSocrates, and maintains the decorum of Scipio. So they pull down hishouse, and banish him as they did Aristides. I am astonished that theyhave not issued a decree that his name should be forgotten. "

These words Madame Roland wrote in her dungeon the night before herexecution. Buzot was then an exile, pursued by unrelenting fury, andconcealed in the caves of St. Emilion. When the tidings reached him ofthe death of Madame Roland, he fell to the ground as if struck bylightning. For many days he was in a state of phrensy, and was neveragain restored to cheerfulness. 

Danton now appeared in the saloon of Madame Roland, with his giganticstature, and shaggy hair, and voice of thunder, and crouched at thefeet of this mistress of hearts, whom his sagacity perceived was soonagain to be the dispenser of power. She comprehended at a glance hisherculean abilities, and the important aid he could render theRepublican cause. She wished to win his co-operation, and at firsttried to conciliate him, "as a woman would pat a lion;" but soon, convinced of his heartlessness and utter want of principle, shespurned him with abhorrence. He subsequently endeavored, again andagain, to reinstate himself in her favor, but in vain. Every hourscenes of new violence were being enacted in Paris and throughout allFrance. Roland was the idol of the nation. The famous letter was thesubject of universal admiration. The outcry against his dismission wasfalling in thunder tones on the ear of the king. This act had fannedto increased intensity those flames of revolutionary phrensy whichwere now glaring with portentous flashes in every part of France. Thepeople, intoxicated and maddened by the discovery of their power, werenow arrayed, with irresistible thirstings for destruction and blood, against the king, the court, and the nobility. The royal family, imprisoned in the Tuileries, were each day drinking of the cup ofhumiliation to its lowest dregs. Austria and Prussia, united with theemigrants at Coblentz, prepared to march to Paris to reinstate theking upon his throne. Excitement, consternation, phrensy, pervaded allhearts. A vast assemblage of countless thousands of women, and boys, and wan and starving men, gathered in the streets of Paris. Haranguesagainst the king and the aristocrats rendered them delirious withrage. They crowded all the avenues to the Tuileries, burst through thegates and over the walls, dashed down the doors and stove in thewindows, and, with obscene ribaldry, rioted through all the apartmentssacred to royalty. They thrust the dirty red cap of Jacobinism uponthe head of the King. They poured into the ear of the humiliated queenthe most revolting and loathsome execrations. There was no hope forLouis but in the recall of M. Roland. The court party could give himno protection. The Jacobins were upon him in locust legions. M. Rolandalone could bring the Girondists, as a shield, between the throne andthe mob. He was recalled, and again moved, in calm triumph, from hisobscure chambers to the regal palace of the minister. If MadameRoland's letter dismissed him from office, her letter also restoredhim again with an enormous accumulation of power. 

[Illustration: THE LIBRARY. ]

His situation was not an enviable one. Elevated as it was in dignityand influence, it was full of perplexity, toil, and peril. The spiritof revolution was now rampant, and no earthly power could stay it. Itwas inevitable that those who would not recklessly ride upon itsbillows must be overwhelmed by its resistless surges. Madame Rolandwas far more conscious of the peril than her husband. With intenseemotion, but calmly and firmly, she looked upon the gathering storm. The peculiarity of her character, and her great moral courage, wasillustrated by the mode of life she vigorously adopted. Raised fromobscurity to a position so commanding, with rank and wealth bowingobsequiously around her, she was entirely undazzled, and resolvedthat, consecrating all her energies to the demands of the tempestuoustimes, she would waste no time in fashionable parties and heartlessvisits. "My love of study, " she said, "is as great as my detestationof cards, and the society of silly people affords me no amusement. "Twice a week she gave a dinner to the members of the ministry, andother influential men in the political world, with whom her husbandwished to converse. The palace was furnished to their hands by itsformer occupants with Oriental luxury. Selecting for her own use, asbefore, one of the smallest parlors, she furnished it as her library. Here she lived, engrossed in study, busy with her pen, and taking anunostentatious and unseen, but most active part, in all those measureswhich were literally agitating the whole civilized world. Her littlelibrary was the sanctuary for all confidential conversation uponmatters of state. Here her husband met his political friends to maturetheir measures. The gentlemen gathered, evening after evening, aroundthe table in the center of the room, M. Roland, with his serene, reflective brow, presiding at their head, while Madame Roland, at herwork-table by the fireside, employed herself with her needle or herpen. Her mind, however, was absorbed by the conversation which waspassing. M. Roland, in fact, in giving his own views, was butrecapitulating those sentiments with which his mind was imbued fromprevious conference with his companion. 

It is not possible that one endowed with the ardent and glowingimagination of Madame Roland should not, at times, feel inwardly thespirit of exultation in the consciousness of this vast power. From thewindows of her palace she looked down upon the shop of the mechanicwhere her infancy was cradled, and upon those dusty streets where shehad walked an obscure child, while proud aristocracy swept by her insplendor--that very aristocracy looking now imploringly to her for asmile. She possessed that peculiar tact, which enabled her often toguide the course of political measures without appearing to do so. Shewas only anxious to promote the glory of her husband, and was nevermore happy than when he was receiving plaudits for works which she hadperformed. She wrote many of his proclamations, his letters, his statepapers, and with all the glowing fervor of an enthusiastic woman. "Without me, " she writes, "my husband would have been quite as good aminister, for his knowledge, his activity, his integrity were all hisown; but with me he attracted more attention, because I infused intohis writings that mixture of spirit and gentleness, of authoritativereason and seducing sentiment, which is, perhaps, only to be found inthe language of a woman who has a clear head and a feeling heart. "This frank avowal of just self-appreciation is not vanity. A _vain_woman could not have won the love and homage of so many of the noblestmen of France. 

A curious circumstance occurred at this time, which forcibly and evenludicrously struck Madame Roland's mind, as she reflected upon thewonderful changes of life, and the peculiar position which she nowoccupied. Some French artists had been imprisoned by the pope at Rome. The Executive Council of France wished to remonstrate and demand theirrelease. Madame Roland sat down to write the letter, severe andauthoritative, to his holiness, threatening him with the severestvengeance if he refused to comply with the request. As in her littlelibrary she prepared this communication to the head of the PapalStates and of the Catholic Church, she paused, with her pen in herhand, and reflected upon her situation but a few years before as thehumble daughter of an engraver. She recalled to mind the emotions ofsuperstitious awe and adoration with which, in the nunnery, she hadregarded his holiness as next to the Deity, and almost his equal. Sheread over some of the imperious passages which she had now addressedto the pope in the unaffected dignity of conscious power, and thecontrast was so striking, and struck her as so ludicrous, that sheburst into an uncontrollable paroxysm of laughter. 

When Jane was a diffident maiden of seventeen, she went once with heraunt to the residence of a nobleman of exalted rank and vast wealth, and had there been invited to dine _with the servants_. The proudspirit of Jane was touched to the quick. With a burning brow she satdown in the servants' hall, with stewards, and butlers, and cooks, andfootmen, and _valet de chambres_, and ladies' maids of every degree, all dressed in tawdry finery, and assuming the most disgusting airs ofself-importance. She went home despising in her heart both lords andmenials, and dreaming, with new aspirations, of her Roman republic. One day, when Madame Roland was in power, she had just passed from hersplendid dining-room, where she had been entertaining the mostdistinguished men of the empire, into her drawing-room, when agray-headed gentleman entered, and bowing profoundly and mostobsequiously before her, entreated the honor of an introduction to theMinister of the Interior. This gentleman was M. Haudry, with whoseservants she had been invited to dine. This once proud aristocrat, who, in the wreck of the Revolution, had lost both wealth and rank, now saw Madame Roland elevated as far above him as he had formerlybeen exalted above her. She remembered the many scenes in which herspirit had been humiliated by haughty assumptions. She could not butfeel the triumph to which circumstances had borne her, thoughmagnanimity restrained its manifestation. 

Anarchy now reigned throughout France. The king and the royal familywere imprisoned in the Temple. The Girondists in the LegislativeAssembly, which had now assumed the name of the National Convention, and M. Roland at the head of the ministry, were struggling, withherculean exertions, to restore the dominion of law, and, if possible, to save the life of the king. The Jacobins, who, unable to resist theboundless popularity of M. Roland, had, for a time, co-operated withthe Girondists, now began to separate themselves again more and morewidely from them. They flattered the mob. They encouraged everypossible demonstration of lawless violence. They pandered to thepassions of the multitude by affecting grossness and vulgarity inperson, and language, and manners; by clamoring for the division ofproperty, and for the death of the king. In tones daily increasing inboldness and efficiency, they declared the Girondists to be thefriends of the monarch, and the enemies of popular liberty. Upon thistumultuous wave of polluted democracy, now rising with resistless andcrested billow, Danton and Robespierre were riding into their terrificpower. Humanity shut its eyes in view of the hideous apparition of wanand haggard beggary and crime. The deep mutterings of this risingstorm, which no earthly hand might stay, rolled heavily upon the earof Europe. Christendom looked astounded upon the spectacle of abarbarian invasion bursting forth from the cellars and garrets ofParis. Oppressed and degraded humanity was about to take vengeance forits ages of accumulated wrongs. The throne was demolished. Theinsulted royal family, in rags and almost in starvation, were in adungeon. The universal cry from the masses of the people was now for arepublic. Jacobins and Girondists united in this cry; but the Jacobinsaccused the Girondists of being insincere, and of secretly plottingfor the restoration of the king. 

Madame Roland, in the name of her husband, drew up for the Conventionthe plan of a republic as a substitute for the throne. From childhoodshe had yearned for a republic, with its liberty and purity, fascinated by the ideal of Roman virtue, from which her livelyimagination had banished all human corruption. But now that the throneand hereditary rank were virtually abolished, and all France clamoringfor a republic, and the pen in her hand to present to the NationalAssembly a Constitution of popular liberty, her heart misgave her. Herhusband was nominally Minister of the Interior, but his power wasgone. The mob of Paris had usurped the place of king, andConstitution, and law. The Jacobins were attaining the decidedascendency. The guillotine was daily crimsoned with the blood of thenoblest citizens of France. The streets and the prisons were pollutedwith the massacre of the innocent. The soul of Madame Roland recoiledwith horror at the scenes she daily witnessed. The Girondistsstruggled in vain to resist the torrent, but they were swept beforeit. The time had been when the proclamation of a republic would havefilled her soul with inexpressible joy. Now she could see no gleam ofhope for her country. The restoration of the monarchy was impossible. The substitution of a republic was inevitable. No earthly power couldprevent it. In that republic she saw only the precursor of her ownruin, the ruin of all dear to her, and general anarchy. With adejected spirit she wrote to a friend, "We are under the knife ofRobespierre and Marat. You know my enthusiasm for the Revolution. I amashamed of it now. It has been sullied by monsters. It is hideous. "

CHAPTER VII. 

MADAME ROLAND AND THE JACOBINS. 

1792

Advance of the allies. --Hopes of the king's friends. --Consternationat Paris. --Speech of Danton. --Despotic measures. --Domiciliaryvisits. --Opening of the catacombs. --Terror of the people. --Scenes ofterror. --Vain attempts at concealment. --Numbers arrested. --Thepriests. --A human fiend. --Butchery of the priests. --Arrival at theprison. --Prison tribunal. --Massacre in the prisons. --Fiendishorgies. --Female spectators. --Character of the victims. --TheBicetre. --Numbers massacred. --Girls sent to the guillotine. --Theirheroism. --The assassins rewarded. --They threaten theirinstigators. --Ascendency of the mob. --Peril of the Girondists. --TheAssembly surrounded. --Adroitness of the Jacobins. --Advance of theallies. --Robespierre and Danton. --Bold measures proposed by MadameRoland. --Decisive stand taken by MM. Roland and Vergniaud. --TheGirondists defeated. --Resignation of M. Roland. --Attacks upon MadameRoland. --How received in the Assembly. --Letter from M. Roland. --Itslofty tone. --Danton seeks a reconciliation. --His failure. --Plans ofthe Jacobins. --Fearlessness of Madame Roland. 

The Prussians were now advancing on their march to Paris. One afteranother of the frontier cities of France were capitulating to theinvaders as the storm of bomb-shells, from the batteries of the alliedarmy, was rained down upon their roofs. The French were retreatingbefore their triumphant adversaries. Sanguine hopes sprung up in thebosoms of the friends of the monarchy that the artillery of thePrussians would soon demolish the iron doors of the Temple, where theking and the royal family were imprisoned, and reinstate the captivemonarch upon his throne. The Revolutionists were almost frantic inview of their peril. They knew that there were tens of thousands inParis, of the most wealthy and the most influential, and hundreds ofthousands in France, who would, at the slightest prospect of success, welcome the Prussians as their deliverers. Should the king thus provevictorious, the leaders in the revolutionary movement had sinned toodeeply to hope for pardon. Death was their inevitable doom. Consternation pervaded the metropolis. The magnitude of this perilunited all the revolutionary parties for their common defense. EvenVergniaud, the most eloquent leader of the Girondists, proposed adecree of death against every citizen of a besieged city who shouldspeak of surrender. 

It was midnight in the Assembly. The most extraordinary and despoticmeasures were adopted by acclamation to meet the fearful emergency. "We must rouse the whole populace of France, " exclaimed Danton, inthose tones which now began to thrill so portentously upon the ear ofEurope, "and hurl them, _en masse_, upon our invaders. There aretraitors in Paris, ready to join our foes. We must arrest them all, however numerous they may be. The peril is imminent. The precautionsadopted must be correspondingly prompt and decisive. With the morningsun we must visit every dwelling in Paris, and imprison those whom wehave reason to fear will join the enemies of the nation, even thoughthey be thirty thousand in number. "

The decree passed without hesitation. The gates of Paris were to belocked, that none might escape. Carriages were to be excluded fromthe streets. All citizens were ordered to be at home. The sections, the tribunals, the clubs were to suspend their sittings, that thepublic attention might not be distracted. All houses were to bebrilliantly lighted in the evening, that the search might be moreeffectually conducted. Commissaries, accompanied by armed soldiers, were, in the name of the law, to enter every dwelling. Each citizenshould show what arms he had. If any thing excited suspicion, theindividual and his premises were to be searched with the utmostvigilance. If the slightest deception had been practiced, in denyingor in not fully confessing any suspicious appearances, the person wasto be arrested and imprisoned. If a person were found in any dwellingbut his own, he was to be imprisoned as under suspicion. Guards wereto be placed in all unoccupied houses. A double cordon of soldierswere stationed around the walls, to arrest all who should attempt toescape. Armed boats floated upon the Seine, at the two extremities ofParis, that every possible passage of escape might be closed. Gardens, groves, promenades, all were to be searched. 

With so much energy was this work conducted, that that very night abody of workmen were sent, with torches and suitable tools, to open anaccess to the subterranean burial-grounds extending under a portion ofParis, that a speedy disposal might be made of the anticipatedmultitude of dead bodies. The decree, conveying terror to ten thousandbosoms, spread with the rapidity of lightning through the streets andthe dwellings of Paris. Every one who had expressed a sentiment ofloyalty; every one who had a friend who was an emigrant or a loyalist;every one who had uttered a word of censure in reference to thesanguinary atrocities of the Revolution; every one who inherited anillustrious name, or who had an unfriendly neighbor or an inimicalservant, trembled at the swift approach of the impending doom. 

Bands of men, armed with pikes, brought into power from the dregs ofsociety, insolent, merciless, and resistless, accompanied by martialmusic, traversed the streets in all directions. As the commissariesknocked at a door, the family within were pale and paralyzed withterror. The brutal inquisitors appeared to delight in the anguishwhich their stern office extorted, and the more refined the family inculture or the more elevated in rank, the more severely did vulgarityin power trample them in the dust of humiliation. They took with themworkmen acquainted with all possible modes of concealment. They brokelocks, burst in panels, cut open beds and mattresses, tore up floors, sounded wells, explored garrets and cellars for secret doors andvaults, and could they find in any house an individual whom affectionor hospitality had sheltered, a rusty gun, an old picture of anymember of the royal family, a button with the royal arms, a letterfrom a suspected person, or containing a sentiment against the "Reignof Terror, " the father was instantly and rudely torn from his home, his wife, his children, and hurried with ignominious violence, as atraitor unfit to live, through the streets, to the prison. It was anight of woe in Paris. 

The friends of the monarchy soon found all efforts at concealmentunavailing. They had at first crept into chimneys, from which theywere soon smoked out. They had concealed themselves behind tapestry. But pikes and bayonets were with derision thrust through their bodies. They had burrowed in holes in the cellars, and endeavored to blind theeye of pursuit by coverings of barrels, or lumber, or wood, or coal. But the stratagems of affection were equally matched by the sagacityof revolutionary phrensy, and the doomed were dragged to light. Manyof the Royalists had fled to the hospitals, where, in the wards ofinfection, they shared the beds of the dead and the dying. But eventhere they were followed and arrested. The domiciliary visits werecontinued for three days. "The whole city was like a prisoner, whoselimbs are held while he is searched and fettered. " Ten thousandsuspected persons were seized and committed to the prisons. Many weremassacred in their dwellings or in the streets. Some were subsequentlyliberated, as having been unjustly arrested. 

Thirty priests were dragged into a room at the Hotel de Ville. Fivecoaches, each containing six of the obnoxious prisoners, started toconvey them to the prison of the Abbayé. A countless mob gatheredaround them as an alarm-gun gave the signal for the coaches to proceedon their way. The windows were open that the populace might see thosewhom they deemed traitors to their country, and whom they believed tobe ready to join the army of invasion, now so triumphantlyapproaching. Every moment the mob increased in density, and withdifficulty the coaches wormed their way through the tumultuousgatherings. Oaths and execrations rose on every side. Gestures andthreats of violence were fearfully increasing, when a vast multitudeof men, and women, and boys came roaring down a cross-street, and socompletely blocked up the way that a peaceful passage was impossible. The carriages stopped. A man with his shirt-sleeves rolled up to theelbows, and a glittering saber in his hand, forced his way through theescort, and, deliberately standing upon the steps of one of thecoaches, clinging with one hand to the door, plunged again, and again, and again his saber into the bodies of the priests, wherever chancemight direct it. He drew it out reeking with blood, and waved itbefore the people. A hideous yell of applause rose from the multitude, and again he plunged his saber into the carriage. The assassin thenpassed to the next coach, and again enacted the same act of horridbutchery upon the struggling priests crowded into the carriages, withno shield and with no escape. Thus he went, from one to the other, through the whole line of coaches, while the armed escort looked onwith derisive laughter, and shouts of fiendish exultation rose fromthe phrensied multitude. The mounted troops slowly forced open apassage for the carriages, and they moved along, marking their passageby the streams of blood which dripped, from their dead and dyinginmates, upon the pavements. When they arrived at the prison, eightdead bodies were dragged from the floor of the vehicles, and many ofthose not dead were horridly mutilated and clotted with gore. Thewretched victims precipitated themselves with the utmost consternationinto the prison, as a retreat from the billows of rage surging androaring around them. 

But the scene within was still more terrible than that without. In thespacious hall opening into the court-yard of the prison there was atable, around which sat twelve men. Their brawny limbs, and coarse andbrutal countenances, proclaimed them familiar with debauch and blood. Their attire was that of the lowest class in society, with woolen capson their heads, shirt sleeves rolled up, unembarrassed by either vestor coat, and butchers' aprons bound around them. At the head of thetable sat Maillard, at that time the idol of the blood-thirsty mob ofParis. These men composed a self-constituted tribunal to award life orinstant death to those brought before them. First appeared onehundred and fifty Swiss officers and soldiers who had been in theemploy of the king. They were brought _en masse_ before the tribunal. "You have assassinated the people, " said Maillard, "and they demandvengeance. " The door was open. The assassins in the court-yard, withweapons reeking with blood, were howling for their prey. The soldierswere driven into the yard, and they fell beneath the blows ofbayonets, sabers, and clubs, and their gory bodies were piled up, ahideous mound, in the corners of the court. The priests, withoutdelay, met with the same fate. A moment sufficed for trial, andverdict, and execution. Night came. Brandy and excitement had rousedthe demon in the human heart. Life was a plaything, murder a pastime. Torches were lighted, refreshments introduced, songs of mirth andjoviality rose upon the night air, and still the horrid carnagecontinued unabated. Now and then, from caprice, one was liberated; butthe innocent and the guilty fell alike. Suspicion was crime. Anillustrious name was guilt. There was no time for defense. A frownfrom the judge was followed by a blow from the assassin. A similarscene was transpiring in all the prisons of Paris. Carts werecontinually arriving to remove the dead bodies, which accumulated muchfaster than they could be borne away. The court-yards became wet andslippery with blood. Straw was brought in and strewn thickly over thestones, and benches were placed against the walls to accommodate thosewomen who wished to gaze upon the butchery. The benches wereimmediately filled with females, exulting in the death of all whomthey deemed tainted with aristocracy, and rejoicing to see the exaltedand the refined falling beneath the clubs of the ragged and thedegraded. The murderers made use of the bodies of the dead for seats, upon which they drank their brandy mingled with gunpowder, and smokedtheir pipes. In the nine prisons of Paris these horrors continuedunabated till they were emptied of their victims. Men most illustriousin philanthropy, rank, and virtue, were brained with clubs byovergrown boys, who accompanied their blows with fiendish laughter. Ladies of the highest accomplishments, of exalted beauty and ofspotless purity, were hacked in pieces by the lowest wretches who hadcrawled from the dens of pollution, and their dismembered limbs wereborne on the points of pikes in derision through the streets of themetropolis. Children, even, were involved in this blind slaughter. They were called the cubs of aristocracy. 

We can not enter more minutely into the details of these sickeningscenes, for the soul turns from them weary of life; and yet thus farwe must go, for it is important that all eyes should read thisdreadful yet instructive lesson--that all may _know_ that there is nodespotism so dreadful as the despotism of anarchy--that there are nolaws more to be abhorred than the absence of all law. 

In the prison of the Bicetre there were three thousand five hundredcaptives. The ruffians forced the gates, drove in the dungeon doorswith cannon, and for five days and five nights continued theslaughter. The phrensy of the intoxicated mob increased each day, andhordes came pouring out from all the foul dens of pollution greedy forcarnage. The fevered thirst for blood was inextinguishable. No tonguecan now tell the number of the victims. The mangled bodies werehurried to the catacombs, and thrown into an indiscriminate heap ofcorruption. By many it is estimated that more than ten thousand fellduring these massacres. The tidings of these outrages spread throughall the provinces of France, and stimulated to similar atrocities themob in every city. At Orleans the houses of merchants were sacked, themerchants and others of wealth or high standing massacred, while somewho had offered resistance were burned at slow fires. 

In one town, in the vicinity of the Prussian army, some Loyalistgentlemen, sanguine in view of the success of their friends, got up anentertainment in honor of their victories. At this entertainment theirdaughters danced. The young ladies were all arrested, fourteen innumber, and taken in a cart to the guillotine. These young andbeautiful girls, all between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, andfrom the most refined and opulent families, were beheaded. The groupof youth and innocence stood clustered at the foot of the scaffold, while, one by one, their companions ascended, were bound to the plank, the ax fell, and their heads dropped into the basket. It seems thatthere must have been some supernatural power of support to havesustained children under so awful an ordeal. There were no faintings, no loud lamentations, no shrieks of despair. With the serenity ofmartyrs they met their fate, each one emulous of showing to hercompanions how much like a heroine she could die. 

These scenes were enacted at the instigation of the Jacobins. Dantonand Marat urged on these merciless measures of lawless violence. "Wemust, " said they, "strike _terror_ into the hearts of our foes. It isour only safety. " They sent agents into the most degraded quarters ofthe city to rouse and direct the mob. They voted abundant supplies tothe wretched assassins who had broken into the prisons, and involvedyouth and age, and innocence and guilt, in indiscriminate carnage. Themurderers, reeking in intoxication and besmeared with blood, came incrowds to the door of the municipality to claim their reward. "Do youthink, " said a brawny, gigantic wretch, with tucked-up sleeves, in thegarb of a butcher, and with his whole person bespattered with bloodand brains, "do you think that I have earned but twenty-four francsto-day? I have killed forty aristocrats with my own hands!" The moneywas soon exhausted, and still the crowd of assassins thronged thecommittee. Indignant that their claims were not instantly discharged, they presented their bloody weapons at the throats of theirinstigators, and threatened them with immediate death if the moneywere not furnished. Thus urged, the committee succeeded in paying onehalf the sum, and gave bonds for the rest. 

M. Roland was almost frantic in view of these horrors, which he had nopower to quell. The mob, headed by the Jacobins, had now the completeascendency, and he was minister but in name. He urged upon theAssembly the adoption of immediate and energetic measures to arrestthese execrable deeds of lawless violence. Many of the Girondists inthe Assembly gave vehement but unavailing utterance to theirexecration of the massacres. Others were intimidated by the weaponwhich the Jacobins were now so effectually wielding; for they knewthat it might not be very difficult so to direct the fury of the mobas to turn those sharp blades, now dripping with blood, from theprisons into the hall of Assembly, and upon the throats of allobnoxious to Jacobin power. The Girondists trembled in view of theirdanger. They had aided in opening the sluice-ways of a torrent whichwas now sweeping every thing before it. Madame Roland distinctly sawand deeply felt the peril to which she and her friends were exposed. She knew, and they all knew, that defeat was death. The great strugglenow in the Assembly was for the popular voice. The Girondists hoped, though almost in despair, that it was not yet too late to show thepeople the horrors of anarchy, and to rally around themselves themultitude to sustain a well-established and law-revering republic. TheJacobins determined to send their opponents to the scaffold, and bythe aid of the terrors of the mob, now enlisted on their side, resistlessly to carry all their measures. A hint from the Jacobinleaders surrounded the Assembly with the hideous howlings of a haggardconcourse of beings just as merciless and demoniac as lost spirits. They exhibited these allies to the Girondists as a bull-dog shows histeeth. 

In speeches, and placards, and proclamations they declared theGirondists to be, in heart, the enemies of the Republic. They accusedthem of hating the Revolution in consequence of its necessaryseverity, and of plotting in secret for the restoration of the king. With great adroitness, they introduced measures which the Girondistsmust either support, and thus aid the Jacobins, or oppose, andincrease the suspicion of the populace, and rouse their rage againstthem. The allied army, with seven thousand French emigrants and over ahundred thousand highly-disciplined troops, under the most able andexperienced generals, was slowly but surely advancing toward Paris, torelease the king, replace him on the throne, and avenge the insults toroyalty. The booming of their artillery was heard reverberating amongthe hills of France, ever drawing nearer and nearer to the insurgentmetropolis, and sending consternation into all hearts. Under thesecircumstances, the Jacobins, having massacred those deemed the friendsof the aristocrats, now gathered their strength to sweep before themall their adversaries. They passed a decree ordering every man inParis, capable of bearing arms, to shoulder his musket and march tothe frontiers to meet the invaders. If money was wanted, it was onlynecessary to send to the guillotine the aristocrat who possessed it, and to confiscate his estate. 

Robespierre and Danton had now broken off all intimacy with MadameRoland and her friends. They no longer appeared in the little librarywhere the Girondist leaders so often met, but, placing themselves atthe head of the unorganized and tumultuous party now so rapidlygaining the ascendency, they were swept before it as the crest isborne by the billow. Madame Roland urged most strenuously upon herfriends that those persons in the Assembly, the leaders of the Jacobinparty, who had instigated the massacres in the prisons, should beaccused, and brought to trial and punishment. It required peculiarboldness, at that hour, to accuse Robespierre and Danton of crime. Though thousands in France were horror-stricken at these outrages, themob, who now ruled Paris, would rally instantaneously at the sound ofthe tocsin for the protection of their idols. 

Madame Roland was one evening urging Vergniaud to take that heroic anddesperate stand. "The only hope for France, " said she "is in thesacredness of law. This atrocious carnage causes thousands of bosomsto thrill with horror, and all the wise and the good in France and inthe world will rise to sustain those who expose their own hearts as abarrier to arrest such enormities. "

"Of what avail, " was the reply, in tones of sadness, "can suchexertions be? The assassins are supported by all the power of thestreet. Such a conflict must necessarily terminate in a street fight. The cannon are with our foes. The most prominent of the friends oforder are massacred. Terror will restrain the rest. We shall onlyprovoke our own destruction. "

"Of what use is life, " rejoins the intrepid woman, "if we must live inthis base subjection to a degraded mob? Let us contend for the right, and if we must die, let us rejoice to die with dignity and withheroism. "

Though despairing of success, and apprehensive that their own doom wasalready sealed, M. Roland and Vergniaud, roused to action by thisruling spirit, the next day made their appearance in the Assembly withthe heroic resolve to throw themselves before the torrent now rushingso wildly. They stood there, however, but the representatives ofMadame Roland, inspired by her energies, and giving utterance to thoseeloquent sentiments which had burst from her lips. 

The Assembly listened in silence as M. Roland, in an energeticdiscourse, proclaimed the true principles of law and order, and calledupon the Assembly to defend its own dignity against popular violence, and to raise an armed force consecrated to the security of liberty andjustice. Encouraged by these appearances of returning moderation, others of the Girondists rose, and, with great boldness and vehemence, urged decisive action. "It requires some courage, " said Kersaint, "torise up here against assassins, but it is time to erect scaffolds forthose who provoke assassination. " The strife continued for two orthree days, with that intense excitement which a conflict for life ordeath must necessarily engender. The question between the Girondistand the Jacobin was, "Who shall lie down on the guillotine?" For sometime the issue of the struggle was uncertain. The Jacobins summonedtheir allies, the mob. They surrounded the doors and the windows ofthe Assembly, and with their howlings sustained their friends. "I havejust passed through the crowd, " said a member, "and have witnessed itsexcitement. If the act of accusation is carried, many a head will lielow before another morning dawns. " The Girondists found themselves, atthe close of the struggle, defeated, yet not so decidedly but thatthey still clung to hope. 

M. Roland, who had not yet entirely lost, with the people, thatpopularity which swept him, on so triumphant a billow, again into theoffice of Minister of the Interior, now, conscious of his utterimpotency, presented to the Assembly his resignation of power whichwas merely nominal. Great efforts had for some time been made, by hisadversaries, to turn the tide of popular hatred against him, andespecially against his wife, whom Danton and Robespierre recognizedand proclaimed as the animating and inspiring soul of the Girondistparty. 

The friends of Roland urged, with high encomiums upon his character, that he should be invited to retain his post. The sentiment of theAssembly was wavering in his favor. Danton, excessively annoyed, aroseand said, with a sneer, "I oppose the invitation. Nobody appreciatesM. Roland more justly than myself. But if you give him thisinvitation, you must give his wife one also. Every one knows that M. Roland is not alone in his department. As for myself, in my departmentI am alone. I have no wife to help me. "

These indecorous and malicious allusions were received with shouts ofderisive laughter from the Jacobin benches. The majority, however, frowned upon Danton with deep reproaches for such an attack upon alady. One of the Girondists immediately ascended the tribune. "Whatsignifies it to the country, " said he, "whether Roland possesses anintelligent wife, who inspires him with her additional energy, orwhether he acts from his own resolution alone?" The defense wasreceived with much applause. 

The next day, Roland, as Minister of the Interior, presented a letterto the Convention, expressing his determination to continue in office. It was written by Madame Roland in strains of most glowing eloquence, and in the spirit of the loftiest heroism and the most dignifieddefiance. "The Convention is wise, " said this letter, "in not giving asolemn invitation to a man to remain in the ministry. It would attachtoo great importance to a name. But the _deliberation_ honors me, andclearly pronounces the desire of the Convention. That wish satisfiesme. It opens to me the career. I espouse it with courage. I remain inthe ministry. I remain because there are perils to face. I am notblind to them, but I brave them fearlessly. The salvation of mycountry is the object in view. To that I devote myself, even to death. I am accused of wanting courage. Is no courage requisite in thesetimes in denouncing the protectors of assassins?"

Thus Madame Roland, sheltered in the seclusion of her library, met, inspirit, in the fierce struggle of the tribune, Robespierre, Danton, and Marat. They knew from whose shafts these keen arrows were shot. The Girondists knew to whom they were indebted for many of the mostskillful parries and retaliatory blows. The one party looked to heralmost with adoration; the other, with implacable hate. Never before, probably, in the history of the world, has a woman occupied such aposition, and never by a woman will such a position be occupied again. Danton began to recoil from the gulf opening before him, and wished toreturn to alliance with the Girondists. He expressed the most profoundadmiration for the talents, energy, and sagacity of Madame Roland. "Wemust act together, " said he, "or the wave of the Revolution willoverwhelm us all. United, we can stem it. Disunited, it will overpowerus. " Again he appeared in the library of Madame Roland, in a lastinterview with the Girondists. He desired a coalition. They could notagree. Danton insisted that they must overlook the massacres, and giveat least an implied assent to their necessity. "We will agree to all, "said the Girondists, "except impunity to murderers and theiraccomplices. " The conference was broken up. Danton, irritated, withdrew, and placed himself by the side of Robespierre. Again theJacobins and the Girondists prepared for the renewal of theirstruggle. It was not a struggle for power merely, but for life. TheGirondists, knowing that the fury of the Revolution would soon sweepover every thing, unless they could bring back the people to a senseof justice--would punish with the scaffold those who had incited themassacre of thousands of uncondemned citizens. The Jacobins would ridthemselves of their adversaries by overwhelming them in the samecarnage to which they had consigned the Loyalists. Madame Roland mighthave fled from these perils, and have retired with her husband toregions of tranquillity and of safety but she urged M. Roland toremain at his post and resolved to remain herself and meet herdestiny, whatever it might be. Never did a mortal face danger, with afull appreciation of its magnitude, with more stoicism than wasexhibited by this most ardent and enthusiastic of women. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

LAST STRUGGLES OF THE GIRONDISTS. 

1792-1793

The Jacobins resolve to bring the king to trial. --Famine inParis. --Suspicions against the Girondists. --Baseness of theJacobins. --Peril of the Girondists. --Anxious deliberations. --Vileintrigue of the Jacobins. --Madame Roland accused. --Madame Rolandbefore the Assembly. --Her dignified demeanor. --Madame Roland's defenseof herself. --She is acquitted by acclamation. --Madame Roland'striumph. --Chagrin of her enemies. --Festival of the Girondists. --Toastof Vergniaud. --Classical allusion. --Clamors for the king's death. --Theking brought before the Convention. --Dismal day. --Menaces of themob. --Danton, Marat, and Robespierre. --Trial of the king. --Propositionof Robespierre. --Vote of Vergniaud. --Vote of the Girondists. --Indignationat the king's death. --The Revolutionary Tribunal. --Unlimited powers ofthe Revolutionary Tribunal. --Atrocious cruelties. --Embarrassments ofM. Roland. --He sends in his resignation. --Attempts to assassinate theRolands. --Entreaties of friends. --Firmness of Madame Roland. --Roland'sinfluence in the departments. --Plots against the Girondists. --Meetingsat Madame Roland's. --Insurrections in favor of the monarchy. --Jacobininsurrection. --Portentous mutterings. --Precautions of theGirondists. --Intrepidity of Vergniaud. --Power of prayer. --"Horriblehope. "--The power of the Girondists gone. 

The Jacobins now resolved to bring the king to trial. By placardsposted in the streets, by inflammatory speeches in the Convention, inpublic gatherings, and in the clubs, by false assertions and slandersof every conceivable nature, they had roused the ignorant populace tothe full conviction that the king was the author of every calamity nowimpending. The storm of the Revolution had swept desolation throughall the walks of peaceful industry. Starvation, gaunt and terrible, began to stare the population of Paris directly in the face. Theinfuriated mob hung the bakers upon the lamp-posts before their owndoors for refusing to supply them with bread. The peasant dared notcarry provisions into the city, for he was sure of being robbed by thesovereign people, who had attained the freedom of committing allcrimes with impunity. The multitude fully believed that there was aconspiracy formed by the king in his prison, and by the friends ofroyalty, to starve the people into subjection. Portentous murmurs werenow also borne on every breeze, uttered by a thousand unseen voices, that the Girondists were accomplices in this conspiracy; that theyhated the Revolution; that they wished to save the life of the king;that they would welcome the army of invasion, as affording them anopportunity to reinstate Louis upon the throne. The Jacobins, it wasdeclared, were the only true friends of the people. The Girondistswere accused of being in league with the aristocrats. These suspicionsrose and floated over Paris like the mist of the ocean. They wereevery where encountered, and yet presented no resistance to beassailed. They were intimated in the Jacobin journals; they weresuggested, with daily increasing distinctness, at the _tribune_. Andin those multitudinous gatherings, where Marat stood in filth and ragsto harangue the miserable, and the vicious, and the starving, theywere proclaimed loudly, and with execrations. The Jacobins rejoicedthat they had now, by the force of circumstances, crowded theiradversaries into a position from which they could not easily extricatethemselves. Should the Girondists vote for the death of the king, theywould thus support the Jacobins in those sanguinary measures, sopopular with the mob, which had now become the right arm of Jacobinpower. The glory would also all redound to the Jacobins, for it wouldnot be difficult to convince the multitude that the Girondists merelysubmitted to a measure which they were unable to resist. Should theGirondists, on the other hand, true to their instinctive abhorrence ofthese deeds of blood, dare to vote against the death of the king, theywould be ruined irretrievably. They would then stand unmasked beforethe people as traitors to the Republic and the friends of royalty. Like noxious beasts, they would be hunted through the streets andmassacred at their own firesides. The Girondists perceived distinctlythe vortex of destruction toward which they were so rapidly circling. Many and anxious were their deliberations, night after night, in thelibrary of Madame Roland. In the midst of the fearful peril, it wasnot easy to decide what either duty or apparent policy required. 

The Jacobins now made a direct and infamous attempt to turn the rageof the populace against Madame Roland. Achille Viard, one of thoseunprincipled adventurers with which the stormy times had filled themetropolis, was employed, as a spy, to feign attachment to theGirondist party, and to seek the acquaintance, and insinuate himselfinto the confidence of Madame Roland. By perversions and exaggerationsof her language, he was to fabricate an accusation against her whichwould bring her head to the scaffold. Madame Roland instantlypenetrated his character, and he was repulsed from her presence by themost contemptuous neglect. He, however, appeared before the Assemblyas her accuser, and charged her with carrying on a secretcorrespondence with persons of influence at home and abroad, toprotect the king. She was summoned to present herself before theConvention, to confront her accuser, and defend herself from thescaffold. Her gentle yet imperial spirit was undaunted by themagnitude of the peril. Her name had often been mentioned in theAssembly as the inspiring genius of the most influential and eloquentparty which had risen up amid the storms of the Revolution. Hertalents, her accomplishments, her fascinating conversationaleloquence, had spread her renown widely through Europe. A large numberof the most illustrious men in that legislative hall, both ardentyoung men and those venerable with age, regarded her with the mostprofound admiration--almost with religious homage. Others, consciousof her power, and often foiled by her sagacity, hated her withimplacable hatred, and determined, either by the ax of the guillotineor by the poniard of the assassin, to remove her from their way. 

The aspect of a young and beautiful woman, combining in her person andmind all the attractions of nature and genius, with her cheek glowingwith heroic resolution, and her demeanor exhibiting the most perfectfeminine loveliness and modesty, entering this vast assembly ofirritated men to speak in defense of her life, at once hushed theclamor of hoarse voices, and subdued the rage of angry disputants. Silence the most respectful instantly filled the hall. Every eye wasfixed upon her. The hearts of her friends throbbed with sympathy andwith love. Her enemies were more than half disarmed, and wished thatthey, also, were honored as her friends. She stood before the bar. 

"What is your name?" inquired the president. 

She paused for a moment, and then, fixing her eye calmly upon herinterrogator, in those clear and liquid tones which left theirvibration upon the ear long after her voice was hushed in death, answered, "Roland! a name of which I am proud, for it is that of a good and anhonorable man. "

"Do you know Achille Viard?" the president inquired. 

"I have once, and but once, seen him. "

"What has passed between you?"

"Twice he has written to me, soliciting an interview. Once I saw him. After a short conversation, I perceived that he was a spy, anddismissed him with the contempt he deserved. "

The calm dignity of her replies, the ingenuous frankness of hermanners, and the manifest malice and falsehood of Viard's accusation, made even her enemies ashamed of their unchivalrous prosecution. Briefly, in tremulous tones of voice, but with a spirit of firmnesswhich no terrors could daunt, she entered upon her defense. It was thefirst time that a female voice had been heard in the midst of theclamor of these enraged combatants. The Assembly, unused to such ascene, were fascinated by her attractive eloquence. Viard, convictedof meanness, and treachery, and falsehood, dared not open his lips. Madame Roland was acquitted by acclamation. Upon the spot thepresident proposed that the marked respect of the Convention beconferred upon Madame Roland. With enthusiasm the resolution wascarried. As she retired from the hall, her bosom glowing with theexcitement of the perfect triumph she had won, her ear was greetedwith the enthusiastic applause of the whole assembly. The eyes of allFrance had been attracted to her as she thus defended herself and herfriends, and confounded her enemies. Marat gnashed his teeth withrage. Danton was gloomy and silent. Robespierre, vanquished by charmswhich had so often before enthralled him, expressed his contempt forthe conspiracy, and, for the last time, smiled upon his early friend, whom he soon, with the most stoical indifference, dragged to thescaffold. 

The evening after the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishmentof the Republic, when there was still some faint hope that there mightyet be found intelligence and virtue in the people to sustain theConstitution, the Girondists met at Madame Roland's, and celebrated, with trembling exultation, the birth of popular liberty. TheConstitution of the United States was the _beau ideal_ of theGirondists, and, vainly dreaming that the institutions whichWashington and his compatriots had established in Christian Americawere now firmly planted in infidel France, they endeavored to cast theveil of oblivion over the past, and to spread over the future theillusions of hope. The men here assembled were the most illustrious ofthe nation. Noble sentiments passed from mind to mind. Madame Roland, pale with emotion, conscious of the perils which were so portentouslyrising around them, shone with a preternatural brilliance in thesolemn rejoicing of that evening. The aged Roland gazed with tears offond affection and of gratified pride upon his lovely wife, as if inspirit asking her if all the loftiest aspirations of their souls werenot now answered. The victorious Republicans hardly knew whether tosing triumphant songs or funeral dirges. Vergniaud, the renownedorator of the party, was prominent above them all. With a pale cheek, and a serene and pensive smile, he sat in silence, his mind evidentlywandering among the rising apparitions of the future. At the close ofthe supper he filled his glass, and rising, proposed to drink to theeternity of the Republic. Madame Roland, whose mind was ever filledwith classic recollections, scattered from a bouquet which she held inher hand, some rose leaves on the wine in his glass. Vergniaud drankthe wine, and then said, in a low voice, "We should quaff cypressleaves, not rose leaves, in our wine to-night. In drinking to arepublic, stained, at its birth, with the blood of massacre, who knowsbut that we drink to our own death. But no matter. Were this wine myown blood, I would drain it to liberty and equality. " All the guests, with enthusiasm, responded, "_Vive la Republique!_" After dinner, Roland read to the company a paper drawn up by himself and wife inreference to the state of the Republic, which views were to bepresented the next day to the Convention. 

The royal family were still in the dungeons of the Temple, lingeringthrough the dreary hours of the most desolate imprisonment. Phrensiedmobs, rioting through the streets of Paris, and overawing all law, demanded, with loudest execrations, the death of the king. A manhaving ventured to say that he thought that the Republic might beestablished without shedding the blood of Louis, was immediatelystabbed to the heart, and his mutilated remains were dragged throughthe streets of Paris in fiendish revelry. A poor vendor of pamphletsand newspapers, coming out of a reading-room, was accused of sellingbooks favorable to royalty. The suspicion was crime, and he fell, pierced by thirty daggers. Such warnings as these were significant andimpressive, and few dared utter a word in favor of the king. 

It was the month of January, 1793, when the imprisoned monarch wasbrought into the hall of the Convention for his trial. It was a gloomyday for France, and all external nature seemed shrouded in darknessand sorrow. Clouds of mist were sweeping through the chill air, and afew feeble lamps glimmered along the narrow avenues and gloomypassages, which were darkened by the approach of a winter's night. Armed soldiers surrounded the building. Heavy pieces of artilleryfaced every approach. Cannoneers, with lighted matches, stood at theirside, ready to scatter a storm of grape-shot upon every foe. A mob ofcountless thousands were surging to and fro through all theneighboring streets. The deep, dull murmurings of the multitudeswelled in unison with the sighings of the storm rising upon thesomber night. It was with no little difficulty that the deputies couldforce their way through the ocean of human beings surrounding theAssembly. The coarse garb, the angry features, the harsh voices, thefierce and significant gestures, proclaimed too clearly that the mobhad determined to have the life of the king, and that, unless thedeputies should vote his death, both king and deputies should perishtogether. As each deputy threaded his way through the throngingmasses, he heard, in threatening tones, muttered into his ear deep andemphatic, "_His death or thine!_"

Persons who were familiar with the faces of all the members werestationed at particular points, and called out aloud to the multitudethe names of the deputies as they elbowed their way through thesurging multitudes. At the names of Danton, Marat, Robespierre, theranks opened to make way for these idols of the populace, and shoutsof the most enthusiastic greeting fell upon their ears. When the namesof Vergniaud, Brissot, and others of the leading Girondists werementioned, clinched fists, brandished daggers, and angry menacesdeclared that those who refused to obey the wishes of the peopleshould encounter dire revenge. The very sentinels placed to guard thedeputies encouraged the mob to insult and violence. The lobbies werefilled with the most sanguinary ruffians of Paris. The interior of thehall was dimly lighted. A chandelier, suspended from the center ofthe ceiling, illuminated certain portions of the room, while the moredistant parts remained in deep obscurity. That all might act under thefull sense of their responsibility to the mob, Robespierre hadproposed and carried the vote that the silent form of ballot should berejected, and that each deputy, in his turn, should ascend thetribune, and, with a distinct voice, announce his sentence. For sometime after the voting commenced it was quite uncertain how thedecision would turn. In the alternate record of the vote, _death_ and_exile_ appeared to be equally balanced. All now depended upon thecourse which the Girondists should pursue. If they should vote fordeath, the doom of the king was sealed. Vergniaud was the first ofthat party to be called to record his sentence. It was well known thathe looked with repugnance and horror upon the sanguinary scenes withwhich the Revolution had been deformed, and that he had often avowedhis sympathy for the hard fate of a prince whose greatest crime wasweakness. His vote would unquestionably be the index of that of thewhole party, and thus the life or death of the king appeared to besuspended from his lips. It was known that the very evening before, while supping with a lady who expressed much commiseration for thecaptives in the Temple, he had declared that he would save the life ofthe king. The courage of Vergniaud was above suspicion, and hisintegrity above reproach. Difficult as it was to judge impartially, with the cannon and the pikes of the mob leveled at his breast, it wasnot doubted that he would vote conscientiously. 

As the name of Vergniaud was called, all conversation instantlyceased. Perfect silence pervaded the hall, and every eye was rivetedupon him. Slowly he ascended the steps of the tribune. His brow wascalm, but his mouth closely compressed, as if to sustain some firmresolve. He paused for a moment, and the Assembly was breathless withsuspense. He contracted his eyebrows, as if again reflecting upon hisdecision, and then, in a low, solemn, firm voice, uttered the word"_Death_. "

The most profound silence reigned for a moment, and then again the lowmurmur of suppressed conversation filled the hall. Vergniaud descendedfrom the tribune and disappeared in the crowd. All hope for the kingwas now gone. The rest of the Girondists also voted for death, andLouis was condemned to the scaffold. 

This united vote upon the death of the king for a short time mingledtogether again the Girondists and the Jacobins. But the dominantparty, elated by the victory which they had gained over theiradversaries, were encouraged to fresh extortions. Perils increased. Europe was rising in arms against the blood-stained Republic. Theexecution of the king aroused emotions of unconquerable detestation inthe bosoms of thousands who had previously looked upon the Revolutionwith favor. Those who had any opulence to forfeit, or any position insociety to maintain, were ready to welcome as deliverers the alliedarmy of invasion. It was then, to meet this emergency, that thatterrible Revolutionary Tribunal was organized, which raised the ax ofthe guillotine as the one all-potent instrument of government, andwhich shed such oceans of innocent blood. "Two hundred and sixtythousand heads, " said Marat, "must fall before France will be safefrom internal foes. " Danton, Marat, and Robespierre were now in theascendency, riding with resistless power upon the billows of mobviolence. Whenever they wished to carry any measure, they sent forththeir agents to the dens and lurking-places of degradation and crime, and surrounded and filled the hall of the Assembly with blood-thirstyassassins. "Those who call themselves _respectable_, " said Marat, "wish to give laws to those whom they call the _rabble_. We will teachthem that the time is come in which the _rabble_ is to reign. "

This Revolutionary Tribunal, consisting of five judges, a jury, and apublic accuser, all appointed by the Convention, was proposed anddecreed on the same evening. It possessed unlimited powers toconfiscate property and take life. The Girondists dared not voteagainst this tribunal. The public voice would pronounce them the worstof traitors. France was now a charnel-house. Blood flowed in streamswhich were never dry. Innocence had no protection. Virtue wassuspicion, suspicion a crime, the guillotine the penalty, and theconfiscated estate the bribe to accusation. Thus there was erected, inthe name of liberty and popular rights, over the ruins of the Frenchmonarchy, a system of despotism the most atrocious and merciless underwhich humanity has ever groaned. 

Again and again had the Jacobins called the mob into the Assembly, andcompelled the members to vote with the poniards of assassins at theirbreasts. Madame Roland now despaired of liberty. Calumny, instead ofgratitude, was unsparingly heaped upon herself and her husband. Thisrequital, so unexpected, was more dreadful to her than the scaffold. All the promised fruits of the Revolution had disappeared, anddesolation and crime alone were realized. The Girondists still met inMadame Roland's library to deliberate concerning measures for avertingthe impending ruin. All was unavailing. 

The most distressing embarrassments now surrounded M. Roland. He couldnot abandon power without abandoning himself and his supporters in theAssembly to the guillotine; and while continuing in power, he wascompelled to witness deeds of atrocity from which not only his soulrevolted, but to which it was necessary for him apparently to give hissanction. His cheek grew pale and wan with care. He could neither eatnor sleep. The Republic had proved an utter failure, and France wasbut a tempest-tossed ocean of anarchy. 

Thus situated, M. Roland, with the most melancholy forebodings, sentin his final resignation. He retired to humble lodgings in one of theobscure streets of Paris. Here, anxiously watching the progress ofevents, he began to make preparations to leave the mob-enthralledmetropolis, and seek a retreat, in the calm seclusion of La Platière, from these storms which no human power could allay. Still, theinfluence of Roland and his wife was feared by those who weredirecting the terrible enginery of lawless violence. It was well knownby them both that assassins had been employed to silence them with theponiard. Madame Roland seemed, however, perfectly insensible topersonal fear. She thought only of her husband and her child. Desperate men were seen lurking about the house, and their friendsurged them to remove as speedily as possible from the perils by whichthey were surrounded. Neither the sacredness of law nor the weapons oftheir friends could longer afford them any protection. The dangerbecame so imminent that the friends of Madame Roland brought her thedress of a peasant girl, and entreated her to put it on, as adisguise, and escape by night, that her husband might follow afterher, unencumbered by his family; but she proudly repelled that whichshe deemed a cowardly artifice. She threw the dress aside, exclaiming, "I am ashamed to resort to any such expedient. I will neither disguisemyself, nor make any attempt at secret escape. My enemies may find mealways in my place. If I am assassinated, it shall be in my own home. I owe my country an example of firmness, and I will give it. "

She, however, was so fully aware of her peril, and each night wasburdened with such atrocities, that she placed loaded pistols underher pillow, to defend herself from those outrages, worse than death, of which the Revolution afforded so many examples. While the influenceof the Girondists was entirely overborne by the clamors of the mob inParis, in the more virtuous rural districts, far removed from thecorruption of the capital, their influence was on the increase. Thename of M. Roland, uttered with execrations in the metropolis by thevagabonds swarming from all parts of Europe, was spoken in tones ofveneration in the departments, where husbandmen tilled the soil, andloved the reign of law and peace. Hence the Jacobins had serious causeto fear a reaction, and determined to silence their voices by theslide of the guillotine. The most desperate measures were now adoptedfor the destruction of the Girondists. One conspiracy was formed tocollect the mob, ever ready to obey a signal from Marat, around theAssembly, to incite them to burst in at the doors and the windows, andfill the hall with confusion, while picked men were to poniard theGirondists in their seats. The conspiracy was detected and exposed buta few hours before its appointed execution. The Jacobin leaders, protected by their savage allies, were raised above the power of law, and set all punishment at defiance. 

A night was again designated, in which bands of armed men were tosurround the dwelling of each Girondist, and assassinate these foes ofJacobin domination in their beds. This plot also was revealed to theGirondists but a few hours before its destined catastrophe, and it waswith the utmost difficulty that the doomed victims obtainedextrication from the toils which had been wound around them. Disastrous news was now daily arriving from the frontiers. The mostalarming tidings came of insurrections in La Vendee, and otherimportant portions of France, in favor of the restoration of themonarchy. These gathering perils threw terror into the hearts of theJacobins, and roused them to deeds of desperation. Though MadameRoland was now in comparative obscurity, night after night the mostillustrious men of France, battling for liberty and for life in theConvention, ascended the dark staircase to her secluded room, hiddenin the depth of a court of the Rue de la Harpe, and there talked overthe scenes of the day, and deliberated respecting the morrow. 

The Jacobins now planned one of those horrible insurrections whichsent a thrill of terror into every bosom in Paris. Assembling themultitudinous throng of demoniac men and women which the troubledtimes had collected from every portion of Christendom, they gatheredthem around the hall of the Assembly to enforce their demands. It wasthree o'clock in the morning of the 31st of May, 1793, when the dismalsounds of the alarm bells, spreading from belfry to belfry, and thedeep booming of the insurrection gun, reverberating through thestreets, aroused the citizens from their slumbers, producing universalexcitement and consternation. A cold and freezing wind swept clouds ofmist through the gloomy air, and the moaning storm seemed theappropriate requiem of a sorrow-stricken world. The Hotel de Ville wasthe appointed place of rendezvous for the swarming multitudes. Theaffrighted citizens, knowing but too well to what scenes of violenceand blood these demonstrations were the precursors, threw up theirwindows, and looked out with fainting hearts upon the dusky formscrowding by like apparitions of darkness. The rumbling of the wheelsof heavy artillery, the flash of powder, with the frequent report offirearms, and the uproar and the clamor of countless voices, werefearful omens of a day to dawn in blacker darkness than the night. TheGirondists had recently been called in the journals and inflammatoryspeeches of their adversaries the Rolandists. The name was given themin recognition of the prominent position of Madame Roland in theparty, and with the endeavor to cast reproach upon her and herhusband. Through all the portentous mutterings of this rising stormcould be heard deep and significant execrations and menaces, coupledwith the names of leading members of the Girondist party. "Down withthe aristocrats, the traitors, the Rolandists!" shouted incessantlyhoarse voices and shrill voices, of drunken men, of reckless boys, offiendish women. 

The Girondists, apprehensive of some movement of this kind, hadgenerally taken the precaution not to sleep that night in their owndwellings. The intrepid Vergniaud alone refused to adopt any measureof safety. "What signifies life to me now?" said he; "my blood may bemore eloquent than my words in awakening and saving my country. I amready for the sacrifice. " One of the Girondists, M. Rabout, a man ofdeep, reflective piety, hearing these noises, rose from his bed, listened a moment at his window to the tumult swelling up from everystreet of the vast metropolis, and calmly exclaiming, "Illa supremadies, " _it is our last day_, prostrated himself at the foot of hisbed, and invoked aloud the Divine protection upon his companions, hiscountry, and himself. Many of his friends were with him, friends whoknew not the power of prayer. But there are hours in which every soulinstinctively craves the mercy of its Creator. They all bowedreverently, and were profoundly affected by the supplications of theirChristian friend. Fortified and tranquilized by the potency of prayer, and determining to die, if die they must, at the post of duty, at sixo'clock they descended into the street, with pistols and daggersconcealed beneath their clothes. They succeeded, unrecognized, inreaching the Convention in safety. 

One or two of the Jacobin party were assembled there at that earlyhour, and Danton, pale with the excitement of a sleepless night, walking to and fro in nervous agitation, greeted his old friends witha wan and melancholy smile. "Do you see, " said Louvet to Gaudet, "whathorrible hope shines upon that hideous face?" The members rapidlycollected. The hall was soon filled. The Girondists were now helpless, their sinews of power were cut, and the struggle was virtually over. All that remained for them was to meet their fate heroically and withan unvanquished spirit. 

CHAPTER IX. 

ARREST OF MADAME ROLAND. 

1793

The Convention, the mob, the Jacobins. --Robespierre, Danton, Marat. --Aspect of the mob. --The Jacobins' sword of justice. --TheConvention invaded. --Triumph of the mob. --Fraternizing with themob. --Paris illuminated. --Arrest of the Girondists. --Suspense of theRolands. --Arrest of M. Roland. --Prompt action of Madame Roland. --MadameRoland in the petitioners' hall. --Uproar in the Assembly. --MadameRoland's letter. --The messenger--Interview with Vergniaud. --Hopevanishes. --Escape of M. Roland. --Scene at the Tuileries. --The deputiesembraced by the mob. --Anecdote. --Madame Roland returns home. --Amother's tears. --Arrest of Madame Roland. --Her composure. --Insults ofthe mob. --Conversation with officers. --The Abbayé. --Kindness of thejailer's wife. --Madame Roland enters her cell. --Her first nightthere. --Embarrassment of M. Roland. --His escape from Paris. --There-arrest and escape. --Cheerful philosophy of Madame Roland. --The cellmade a study. --Delight of the jailer and his wife. --Prisonregulations. --Coarse fare. --Prison employment. --Madame Roland's serenityof spirit. --Intellectual pastime. --Visit from commissioners. --MadameRoland's heroism accounted a crime. 

France was now governed by the Convention. The Convention was governedby the mob of Paris. The Jacobins were the head of this mob. Theyroused its rage, and guided its fury, when and where they listed. Thefriendship of the mob was secured and retained by ever pandering totheir passions. The Jacobins claimed to be exclusively the friends ofthe people, and advocated all those measures which tended to crush theelevated and flatter the degraded. Robespierre, Danton, Marat, werenow the idols of the populace. 

On the morning of the 30th of May, 1793, the streets of Paris weredarkened with a dismal storm of low, scudding clouds, and chillingwinds, and sleet and rain. Pools of water stood in the miry streets, and every aspect of nature was cheerless and desolate. But there wasanother storm raging in those streets, more terrible than anyelemental warfare. In locust legions, the deformed, the haggard, thebrutalized in form, in features, in mind, in heart--demoniac men, satanic women, boys burly, sensual, blood-thirsty, like imps ofdarkness rioted along toward the Convention, an interminable multitudewhom no one could count. Their hideous howlings thrilled upon the ear, and sent panic to the heart. There was no power to resist them. Therewas no protection from their violence. And thousands wished that theymight call up even the most despotic king who ever sat upon the throneof France, from his grave, to drive back that most terrible of allearthly despotisms, the despotism of a mob. This was the power withwhich the Jacobins backed their arguments. This was the gory bladewhich they waved before their adversaries, and called the sword ofjustice. 

The Assembly consisted of about eight hundred members. There weretwenty-two illustrious men who were considered the leaders of theGirondist party. The Jacobins had resolved that they should be accusedof treason, arrested, and condemned. The Convention had refused tosubmit to the arbitrary and bloody demand. The mob were now assembledto coerce submission. The melancholy tocsin, and the thunders of thealarm gun, resounded through the air, as the countless throng camepouring along like ocean billows, with a resistlessness which no powercould stay. They surrounded the Assembly on every side, forced theirway into the hall, filled every vacant space, clambered upon thebenches, crowded the speaker in his chair, brandished their daggers, and mingled their oaths and imprecations with the fierce debate. Eventhe Jacobins were terrified by the frightful spirits whom they hadevoked. "Down with the Girondists!" "Death to the traitors!" theassassins shouted. The clamor of the mob silenced the Girondists, andthey hardly made an attempt to speak in their defense. They sat upontheir benches, pale with the emotions which the fearful scenesexcited, yet firm and unwavering. As Couthon, a Jacobin orator, wasuttering deep denunciations, he became breathless with the vehemenceof his passionate speech. He turned to a waiter for a glass of water. "Take to Couthon a glass of blood, " said Vergniaud; "he is thirstingfor it. "

The decree of accusation was proposed, and carried, without debate, beneath the poniards of uncounted thousands of assassins. The mob wastriumphant. By acclamation it was then voted that all Paris should bejoyfully illuminated, in celebration of the triumph of the people overthose who would arrest the onward career of the Revolution; and everycitizen of Paris well knew the doom which awaited him if brilliantlights were not burning at his windows. It was then voted, and withenthusiasm, that the Convention should go out and fraternize with themultitude. Who would have the temerity, in such an hour, to oppose theaffectionate demonstration? The degraded Assembly obeyed the mandateof the mob, and marched into the streets, where they were hugged inthe unclean arms and pressed to the foul bosoms of beggary, andinfamy, and pollution. Louis was avenged. The hours of the day had nowpassed; night had come; but it was noonday light in thebrilliantly-illuminated streets of the metropolis. The Convention, surrounded by torch-bearers, and an innumerable concourse of drunkenmen and women, rioting in hideous orgies, traversed, in compulsoryprocession, the principal streets of the city. The Girondists were ledas captives to grace the triumph. "Which do you prefer, " said aJacobin to Vergniaud, "this ovation or the scaffold?" "It is all thesame to me, " replied Vergniaud, with stoical indifference. "There isno choice between this walk and the guillotine. It conducts us to it. "The twenty-two Girondists were arrested and committed to prison. 

During this dreadful day, while these scenes were passing in theAssembly, Madame Roland and her husband were in their solitary room, oppressed with the most painful suspense. The cry and the uproar ofthe insurgent city, the tolling of bells and thundering of cannon, were borne upon the wailings of the gloomy storm, and sentconsternation even to the stoutest hearts. There was now no room forescape, for the barriers were closed and carefully watched. MadameRoland knew perfectly well that if her friends fell she must fall withthem. She had shared their principles; she had guided their measures, and she wished to participate in their doom. It was this honorablefeeling which led her to refuse to provide for her own safety, andwhich induced her to abide, in the midst of ever increasing danger, with her associates. No person obnoxious to suspicion could enter thestreet without fearful peril, though, through the lingering hours ofthe day, friends brought them tidings of the current of events. Nothing remained to be done but to await, as patiently as possible, the blow that was inevitably to fall. 

The twilight was darkening into night, when six armed men ascended thestairs and burst into Roland's apartment. The philosopher lookedcalmly upon them as, in the name of the Convention, they informed himof his arrest. "I do not recognize the authority of your warrant, "said M. Roland, "and shall not voluntarily follow you. I can onlyoppose the resistance of my gray hairs, but I will protest against itwith my last breath. "

The leader of the party replied, "I have no orders to use violence. Iwill go and report your answer to the council, leaving, in the meantime, a guard to secure your person. "

This was an hour to rouse all the energy and heroic resolution ofMadame Roland. She immediately sat down, and, with that rapidity ofaction which her highly-disciplined mind had attained, wrote, in a fewmoments, a letter to the Convention. Leaving a friend who was in thehouse with her husband, she ordered a hackney coach, and drove as fastas possible to the Tuileries, where the Assembly was in session. Thegarden of the Tuileries was filled with the tumultuary concourse. Sheforced her way through the crowd till she arrived at the doors of theouter halls. Sentinels were stationed at all the passages, who wouldnot allow her to enter. 

"Citizens, " said she, at last adroitly adopting the vernacular of theJacobins, "in this day of salvation for our country, in the midst ofthose traitors who threaten us, you know not the importance of somenotes which I have to transmit to the president. "

These words were a talisman. The doors were thrown open, and sheentered the petitioners' hall. "I wish to see one of the messengers ofthe House, " she said to one of the inner sentinels. 

"Wait till one comes out, " was the gruff reply. 

She waited for a quarter of an hour in burning impatience. Her ear wasalmost stunned with the deafening clamor of debate, of applause, ofexecrations, which now in dying murmurs, and again in thunderingreverberations, awakening responsive echoes along the throngedstreets, swelled upon the night air. Of all human sounds, the uproarof a countless multitude of maddened human voices is the most awful. 

At last she caught a glimpse of the messenger who had summoned her toappear before the bar of the Assembly in reply to the accusations ofViard, informed him of their peril, and implored him to hand herletter to the president. The messenger, M. Rôze, took the paper, and, elbowing his way through the throng, disappeared. An hour elapsed, which seemed an age. The tumult within continued unabated. At lengthM. Rôze reappeared. 

"Well!" said Madame Roland, eagerly, "what has been done with myletter?"

"I have given it to the president, " was the reply, "but nothing hasbeen done with it as yet. Indescribable confusion prevails. The mobdemand the accusation of the Girondists. I have just assisted one toescape by a private way. Others are endeavoring, concealed by thetumult, to effect their escape. There is no knowing what is tohappen. "

"Alas!" Madame Roland replied, "my letter will not be read. Do sendsome deputy to me, with whom I can speak a few words. "

"Whom shall I send?"

"Indeed I have but little acquaintance with any, and but little esteemfor any, except those who are proscribed. Tell Vergniaud that I aminquiring for him. "

Vergniaud, notwithstanding the terrific agitations of the hour, immediately attended the summons of Madame Roland. She implored him totry to get her admission to the bar, that she might speak in defenseof her husband and her friends. 

"In the present state of the Assembly, " said Vergniaud, "it would beimpossible, and if possible, of no avail. The Convention has lost allpower. It has become but the weapon of the rabble. Your words can dono good. "

"They may do much good, " replied Madame Roland. "I can venture to saythat which you could not say without exposing yourself to accusation. I fear nothing. If I can not save Roland, I will utter with energytruths which may be useful to the Republic. An example of courage mayshame the nation. "

"Think how unavailing the attempt, " replied Vergniaud. "Your lettercan not possibly be read for two or three hours. A crowd ofpetitioners throng the bar. Noise, and confusion, and violence fillthe House. "

Madame Roland paused for a moment, and replied, "I must then hastenhome, and ascertain what has become of my husband. I will immediatelyreturn. Tell our friends so. "

Vergniaud sadly pressed her hand, as if for a last farewell, andreturned, invigorated by her courage, to encounter the storm which washailed upon him in the Assembly. She hastened to her dwelling, andfound that her husband had succeeded in eluding the surveillance ofhis guards, and, escaping by a back passage, had taken refuge in thehouse of a friend. After a short search she found him in his asylum, and, too deeply moved to weep, threw herself into his arms, informedhim of what she had done, rejoiced at his safety, and heroicallyreturned to the Convention, resolved, if possible, to obtain admissionthere. It was now near midnight. The streets were brilliant withilluminations; but Madame Roland knew not of which party theseilluminations celebrated the triumph. 

On her arrival at the court of the Tuileries, which had so recentlybeen thronged by a mob of forty thousand men, she found it silent anddeserted. The sitting was ended. The members, accompanied by thepopulace with whom they had fraternized, were traversing the streets. A few sentinels stood shivering in the cold and drizzling rain aroundthe doors of the national palace. A group of rough-looking men weregathered before a cannon. Madame Roland approached them. 

"Citizens, " inquired she, "has every thing gone well to-night?"

"Oh! wonderfully well, " was the reply. "The deputies and the peopleembraced, and sung the Marseilles Hymn, there, under the tree ofliberty. "

"And what has become of the twenty-two Girondists?"

"They are all to be arrested. "

Madame Roland was almost stunned by the blow. Hastily crossing thecourt, she arrived at her hackney-coach. A very pretty dog, which hadlost its master, followed her. "Is the poor little creature yours?"inquired the coachman. The tones of kindness with which he spokecalled up the first tears which had moistened the eyes of MadameRoland that eventful night. 

"I should like him for my little boy, " said the coachman. 

Madame Roland, gratified to have, at such an hour, for a driver, afather and a man of feeling, said, "Put him into the coach, and I willtake care of him for you. Drive immediately to the galleries of theLouvre. " Madame Roland caressed the affectionate animal, and, wearyof the passions of man, longed for retirement from the world, and toseclude herself with those animals who would repay kindness withgratitude. She sank back in her seat, exclaiming, "O that we couldescape from France, and find a home in the law-governed republic ofAmerica. "

Alighting at the Louvre, she called upon a friend, with whom shewished to consult upon the means of effecting M. Roland's escape fromthe city. He had just gone to bed, but arose, conversed about variousplans, and made an appointment to meet her at seven o'clock the nextmorning. Entirely unmindful of herself, she thought only of the rescueof her friends. Exhausted with excitement and toil, she returned toher desolated home, bent over the sleeping form of her child, and gavevent to a mother's gushing love in a flood of tears. Recovering herfortitude, she sat down and wrote to M. Roland a minute account of allher proceedings. It would have periled his safety had she attempted toshare his asylum. The gray of a dull and somber morning was justbeginning to appear as Madame Roland threw herself upon a bed for afew moments of repose. Overwhelmed by sorrow and fatigue, she had justfallen asleep, when a band of armed men rudely broke into her house, and demanded to be conducted to her apartment. She knew too well theobject of the summons. The order for her arrest was presented her. Shecalmly read it, and requested permission to write to a friend. Therequest was granted. When the note was finished, the officer informedher that it would be necessary for him to be made acquainted with itscontents. She quietly tore it into fragments, and cast it into thefire. Then, imprinting her last kiss upon the cheek of her unconsciouschild, with the composure which such a catastrophe would naturallyproduce in so heroic a mind, she left her home for the prison. Bloodhad been flowing too freely in Paris, the guillotine had been tooactive in its operations, for Madame Roland to entertain any doubtswhither the path she now trod was tending. 

It was early in the morning of a bleak and dismal day as Madame Rolandaccompanied the officers through the hall of her dwelling, where shehad been the object of such enthusiastic admiration and affection. Theservants gathered around her, and filled the house with theirlamentations. Even the hardened soldiers were moved by the scene, andone of them exclaimed, "How much you _are beloved_!" Madame Roland, who alone was tranquil in this hour of trial, calmly replied, "_Because I love. _" As she was led from the house by the gens d'armes, a vast crowd collected around the door, who, believing her to be atraitor to her country, and in league with their enemies, shouted, "_Ala guillotine!_" Unmoved by their cries, she looked calmly andcompassionately upon the populace, without gesture or reply. One ofthe officers, to relieve her from the insults to which she wasexposed, asked her if she wished to have the windows of the carriageclosed. 

"No!" she replied; "oppressed innocence should not assume the attitudeof crime and shame. I do not fear the looks of honest men, and I bravethose of my enemies. "

"You have very great resolution, " was the reply, "thus calmly to awaitjustice. "

"Justice!" she exclaimed; "were justice done I should not be here. ButI shall go to the scaffold as fearlessly as I now proceed to theprison. "

"Roland's flight, " said one of the officers, brutally, "is a proof ofhis guilt. "

She indignantly replied, "It is so atrocious to persecute a man whohas rendered such services to the cause of liberty. His conduct hasbeen so open and his accounts so clear, that he is perfectlyjustifiable in avoiding the last outrages of envy and malice. Just asAristides and inflexible as Cato, he is indebted to his virtues forhis enemies. Let them satiate their fury upon me. I defy their power, and devote myself to death. _He_ ought to save himself for the sake ofhis country, to which he may yet do good. "

When they arrived at the prison of the Abbayé, Madame Roland was firstconducted into a large, dark, gloomy room, which was occupied by anumber of men, who, in attitudes of the deepest melancholy, wereeither pacing the floor or reclining upon some miserable pallets. Fromthis room she ascended a narrow and dirty staircase to the jailer'sapartment. The jailer's wife was a kind woman, and immediately feltthe power of the attractions of her fascinating prisoner. As no cellwas yet provided for her, she permitted her to remain in her room forthe rest of the day. The commissioners who had brought her to theprison gave orders that she should receive no indulgence, but betreated with the utmost rigor. The instructions, however, being merelyverbal, were but little regarded. She was furnished with comfortablerefreshment instead of the repulsive prison fare, and, afterbreakfast, was permitted to write a letter to the National Assemblyupon her illegal arrest. Thus passed the day. 

At ten o'clock in the evening, her cell being prepared, she entered itfor the first time. It was a cold, bare room, with walls blackened bythe dust and damp of ages. There was a small fire-place in the room, and a narrow window, with a double iron grating, which admitted but adim twilight even at noon day. In one corner there was a pallet ofstraw. The chill night air crept in at the unglazed window, and thedismal tolling of the tocsin proclaimed that the metropolis was stillthe scene of tumult and of violence. Madame Roland threw herself uponher humble bed, and was so overpowered by fatigue and exhaustion thatshe woke not from her dreamless slumber until twelve o'clock of thenext day. 

Eudora, who had been left by her mother in the care of weepingdomestics, was taken by a friend, and watched over and protected withmaternal care. Though Madame Roland never saw her idolized childagain, her heart was comforted in the prison by the assurance that shehad found a home with those who, for her mother's sake, would loveand cherish her. 

The tidings of the arrest and imprisonment of Madame Roland soonreached the ears of her unfortunate husband in his retreat. Hisembarrassment was most agonizing. To remain and participate in herdoom, whatever that doom might be, would only diminish her chances ofescape and magnify her peril; and yet it seemed not magnanimous toabandon his noble wife to encounter her merciless foes alone. Thetriumphant Jacobins were now, with the eagerness of blood-hounds, searching every nook and corner in Paris, to drag the fallen ministerfrom his concealment. It soon became evident that no dark hiding-placein the metropolis could long conceal him from the vigilant searchwhich was commenced, and that he must seek safety in precipitateflight. His friends obtained for him the tattered garb of a peasant. In a dark night, alone and trembling, he stole from his retreat, andcommenced a journey on foot, by a circuitous and unfrequented route, to gain the frontiers of Switzerland. He hoped to find a temporaryrefuge by burying himself among the lonely passes of the Alps. A mancan _face_ his foes with a spirit undaunted and unyielding, but hecan not _fly from them_ without trembling as he looks behind. For twoor three days, with blistered feet, and a heart agitated even beyondall his powers of stoical endurance, he toiled painfully along hisdreary journey. As he was entering Moulines, his marked features wererecognized. He was arrested, taken back to Paris, and cast intoprison, where he languished for some time. He subsequently again madehis escape, and was concealed by some friends in the vicinity ofRouen, where he remained in a state of indescribable suspense andanguish until the death of his wife. 

When Madame Roland awoke from her long sleep, instead of yielding todespair and surrendering herself to useless repinings, she immediatelybegan to arrange her cell as comfortably as possible, and to lookaround for such sources of comfort and enjoyment as might yet beobtained. The course she pursued most beautifully illustrates thepower of a contented and cheerful spirit not only to alleviate thepangs of severest affliction, but to gild with comfort even thedarkest of earthly sorrows. With those smiles of unaffected affabilitywhich won to her all hearts, she obtained the favor of a small table, and then of a neat white spread to cover it. This she placed near thewindow to serve for her writing-desk. To keep this table, which sheprized so highly, unsoiled, she smilingly told her keeper that sheshould make a dining-table of her stove. A rusty dining-table indeedit was. Two hair-pins, which she drew from her own clusteringringlets, she drove into a shelf for pegs to hang her clothes upon. These arrangements she made as cheerfully as when superintending thedisposition of the gorgeous furniture in the palace over which she hadpresided with so much elegance and grace. Having thus provided herstudy, her next care was to obtain a few books. She happened to haveThomson's Seasons, a favorite volume of hers, in her pocket. Throughthe jailer's wife she succeeded in obtaining Plutarch's Lives andSheridan's Dictionary. 

The jailer and his wife were both charmed with their prisoner, andinvited her to dine with them that day. In the solitude of her cellshe could distinctly hear the rolling of drums, the tolling of bells, and all those sounds of tumult which announced that the storm ofpopular insurrection was still sweeping through the streets. One ofher faithful servants called to see her, and, on beholding hermistress in such a situation, the poor girl burst into tears. MadameRoland was, for a moment, overcome by this sensibility; she, however, soon again regained her self-command. She endeavored to banish fromher mind all painful thoughts of her husband and her child, and toaccommodate herself as heroically as possible to her situation. Theprison regulations were very severe. The government allowed twentypence per day for the support of each prisoner. Ten pence was to bepaid to the jailer for the furniture he put into the cell; ten penceonly remained for food. The prisoners were, however, allowed topurchase such food as they pleased from their own purse. MadameRoland, with that stoicism which enabled her to triumph over allordinary ills, resolved to conform to the prison allowance. She tookbread and water alone for breakfast. The dinner was coarse meat andvegetables. The money she saved by this great frugality shedistributed among the poorer prisoners. The only indulgence sheallowed herself was in the purchase of books and flowers. In readingand with her pen she beguiled the weary days of her imprisonment. Andthough at times her spirit was overwhelmed with anguish in view of herdesolate home and blighted hopes, she still found great solace in thewarm affections which sprang up around her, even in the uncongenialatmosphere of a prison. 

Though she had been compelled to abandon all the enthusiastic dreamsof her youth, she still retained confidence in her faith that thesedark storms would ere long disappear from the political horizon, andthat a brighter day would soon dawn upon the nations. No misfortunescould disturb the serenity of her soul, and no accumulating perilscould daunt her courage. She immediately made a methodical arrangementof her time, so as to appropriate stated employment to every hour. Shecheered herself with the reflection that her husband was safe in hisretreat, with kind friends ready to minister to all his wants. Shefelt assured that her daughter was received with maternal love by onewho would ever watch over her with the tenderest care. The agitationof the terrible conflict was over. She submitted with calmness andquietude to her lot. After having been so long tossed by storms, sheseemed to find a peaceful harbor in her prison cell, and her spiritwandered back to those days, so serene and happy, which she spent withher books in the little chamber beneath her father's roof. Shehowever, made every effort in her power to regain her freedom. Shewrote to the Assembly, protesting against her illegal arrest. Shefound all these efforts unavailing. Still, she gave way to nodespondency, and uttered no murmurs. Most of her time she employed inwriting historic notices of the scenes through which she had passed. These papers she intrusted, for preservation, to a friend, whooccasionally gained access to her. These articles, written with greateloquence and feeling, were subsequently published with her memoirs. Having such resources in her own highly-cultivated mind, even thehours of imprisonment glided rapidly and happily along. Time had notardy flight, and there probably might have been found many a lady inEurope lolling in a sumptuous carriage, or reclining upon a silkencouch, who had far fewer hours of enjoyment. 

One day some commissioners called at her cell, hoping to extort fromher the secret of her husband's retreat. She looked them calmly in theface, and said, "Gentlemen, I know perfectly well where my husband is. I scorn to tell you a lie. I know also my own strength. And I assureyou that there is no earthly power which can induce me to betray him. "The commissioners withdrew, admiring her heroism, and convinced thatshe was still able to wield an influence which might yet bring theguillotine upon their own necks. Her doom was sealed. Her heroism washer crime. She was too illustrious to live. 

CHAPTER X. 

FATE OF THE GIRONDISTS. 

1793

Fate of the Girondists. --Their heroic courage. --The Girondists inthe Conciergerie. --Their miserable condition. --Youthful hopes cutshort. --State of Paris. --Books and friends. --Anecdote ofVergniaud. --Sentiments of the Girondists inscribed on the prisonwalls. --La Source and Sillery. --Their evening dirge. --The dayof trial. --The misnamed Halls of Justice. --Precautions ofthe Jacobins. --Demeanor of the prisoners. --The trial andcondemnation. --Death of Valazé. --Various emotions. --Return to theConciergerie. --The Girondists exultingly sing the MarseillaiseHymn. --The Girondists prepare for the last scene. --Brutaldecree. --Last feast of the Girondists. --Strange scene. --TheAbbé Lambert. --His memoranda. --Vergniaud presides at thefeast. --Unnatural gayety. --Last thoughts. --Religion, philosophy, andinfidelity. --Eloquence of Vergniaud. --Argument for immortality. --Lastpreparations. --Arrival of the executioners. --Souvenirs to friends. --Thecarts of the condemned. --Enthusiasm of the Girondists. --The lastembrace. --The execution. --Fortitude of Vergniaud. --Burial of thebodies. --Errors of the Girondists. --Escape of Gaudet and others. --TheJacobins clamor for more blood. --More Girondists executed. --Fate ofPétion and Buzot. --Mystery attending the death of Pétion and Buzot. 

As the fate of the Girondist party, of which Madame Roland was thesoul, is so intimately connected with her history, we must leave herin the prison, while we turn aside to contemplate the doom of hercompanions. The portentous thunders of the approaching storm had givensuch warning to the Girondists, that many had effected their escapefrom Paris, and in various disguises, in friendlessness and poverty, were wandering over Europe. Others, however, were too proud to fly. Conscious of the most elevated patriotic sentiments, and with nocriminations of conscience, except for sacrificing too much in lovefor their country, they resolved to remain firm at their post, and toface their foes. Calmly and sternly they awaited the onset. Thisheroic courage did but arouse and invigorate their foes. Mercy hadlong since died in France. 

Immediately after the tumult of that dreadful night in which theConvention was inundated with assassins clamoring for blood, twenty-one of the Girondists were arrested and thrown into thedungeons of the Conciergerie. Imprisoned together, and fully consciousthat their trial would be but a mockery, and that their doom wasalready sealed, they fortified one another with all the consolationswhich philosophy and the pride of magnanimity could administer. Inthose gloomy cells, beneath the level of the street, into whose deepand grated windows the rays of the noonday sun could but feeblypenetrate, their faces soon grew wan, and wasted, and haggard, fromconfinement, the foul prison air, and woe. 

There is no sight more deplorable than that of an accomplished man ofintellectual tastes, accustomed to all the refinements of polishedlife, plunged into those depths of misery from which the decencieseven of our social being are excluded. These illustrious statesmen andeloquent orators, whose words had vibrated upon the ear of Europe, were transformed into the most revolting aspect of beggared andhaggard misery. Their clothes, ruined by the humid filth of theirdungeons, moldered to decay. Unwashed, unshorn, in the loss almost ofthe aspect of humanity, they became repulsive to each other. Unsupported by any of those consolations which religion affords, manyhours of the blackest gloom must have enveloped them. 

Not a few of the deputies were young men, in the morning of theirenergetic being, their bosoms glowing with all the passions of thistumultuous world, buoyant with hope, stimulated by love, invigoratedby perfect health. And they found themselves thus suddenly plungedfrom the heights of honor and power to the dismal darkness of thedungeon, from whence they could emerge only to be led to the scaffold. All the bright hopes of life had gone down amid the gloom of midnightdarkness. Several months lingered slowly away while these men wereawaiting their trial. Day after day they heard the tolling of thetocsin, the reverberations of the alarm gun, and the beating of theinsurrection drum, as the demon of lawless violence rioted through thestreets of the blood-stained metropolis. The execrations of the mob, loud and fiend-like, accompanied the cart of the condemned, as itrumbled upon the pavements above their heads, bearing the victims ofpopular fury to the guillotine; and still, most stoically, theystruggled to nerve their souls with fortitude to meet their fate. 

From these massive stone walls, guarded by triple doors of iron andwatched by numerous sentinels, answerable for the safe custody oftheir prisoners with their lives, there was no possibility of escape. The rigor of their imprisonment was, consequently, somewhat softenedas weeks passed on, and they were occasionally permitted to see theirfriends through the iron wicket. Books, also, aided to relieve thetedium of confinement. The brother-in-law of Vergniaud came to visithim, and brought with him his son, a child ten years of age. Thefeatures of the fair boy reminded Vergniaud of his beloved sister, andawoke mournfully in his heart the remembrance of departed joys. Whenthe child saw his uncle imprisoned like a malefactor, his cheekshaggard and sunken, his matted hair straggling over his forehead, hislong beard disfiguring his face, and his clothes hanging in tatters, he clung to his father, affrighted by the sad sight, and burst intotears. 

"My child, " said Vergniaud, kindly, taking him in his arms, "look wellat me. When you are a man, you can say that you saw Vergniaud, thefounder of the Republic, at the most glorious period, and in the mostsplendid costume he ever wore--that in which he suffered unmeritedpersecution, and in which he prepared to die for liberty. " These wordsproduced a deep impression upon the mind of the child. He rememberedthem to repeat them after the lapse of half a century. 

The cells in which they were imprisoned still remain as they were lefton the morning in which these illustrious men were led to theirexecution. On the dingy walls of stone are still recorded thosesentiments which they had inscribed there, and which indicate thenature of those emotions which animated and sustained them. Theseproverbial maxims and heroic expressions, gleaned from Frenchtragedies or the classic page, were written with the blood which theyhad drawn from their own veins. In one place is carefully written, "Quand il n'a pu sauver la liberté de Rome, Caton est libre encore et suit mourir en homme. "

 "_When he no longer had power to preserve the liberty of Rome Cato still was free, and knew how to die for man. _"

Again, "Cui virtus non deest Ille nunquam omnino miser. "

 _"He who retains his integrity Can never be wholly miserable. "_

In another place, "La vraie liberté est celle de l'ame. "

 _"True liberty is that of the soul. "_

On a beam was written, "Dignum certe Deo spectaculum fortem virum cum calamitatecolluctantem. "

_"Even God may look with pleasure upon a brave man struggling againstadversity. "_

Again, "Quels solides appui dans le malheur suprême! J'ai pour moi ma vertu, l'équité, Dieu même. "

 _"How substantial the consolation in the greatest calamity I have for mine, my virtue, justice, God himself. "_

Beneath this was written, "Le jour n'est pas plus pur que le fond de mon coeur. "

 _"The day is not more pure than the depths of my heart. "_

In large letters of blood there was inscribed, in the hand-writing ofVergniaud, "Potius mori quam foedari. "

 _"Death is preferable to dishonor. "_

But one sentence is recorded there which could be considered strictlyof a religious character. It was taken from the "Imitation of Christ. "

"Remember that you are not called to a life of indulgence andpleasure, but to toil and to suffer. "

La Source and Sillery, two very devoted friends, occupied a celltogether. La Source was a devoted Christian, and found, in theconsolations of piety, an unfailing support. Sillery possessed afeeling heart, and was soothed and comforted by the devotion of hisfriend. La Source composed a beautiful hymn, adapted to a sweet andsolemn air, which they called their evening service. Night after nightthis mournful dirge was heard gently issuing from the darkness oftheir cell, in tones so melodious and plaintive that they never diedaway from the memory of those who heard them. It is difficult toconceive of any thing more affecting than this knell, so softlyuttered at midnight in those dark and dismal dungeons. 

 "Calm all the tumults that invade Our souls, and lend thy powerful aid. Oh! source of mercy! soothe our pains, And break, O break our cruel chains! To Thee the captive pours his cry, To Thee the mourner loves to fly. The incense of our tears receive-- 'Tis all the incense we can give. 

 "Eternal Power! our cause defend, O God! of innocence the friend. Near Thee forever she resides, In Thee forever she confides. Thou know'st the secrets of the breast: Thou know'st the oppressor and the oppress'd. Do thou our wrongs with pity see, Avert a doom offending thee. 

 "But should the murderer's arm prevail; Should tyranny our lives assail; Unmoved, triumphant, scorning death, We'll bless Thee with our latest breath. The hour, the glorious hour will come, That consecrates the patriots' tomb; And with the pang our memory claims, Our country will avenge our names. "

Summer had come and gone while these distinguished prisoners wereawaiting their doom. World-weary and sick at heart, they stillstruggled to sustain each other, and to meet their dreadful fate withheroic constancy. The day for their trial at length arrived. It wasthe 20th of October, 1793. They had long been held up before the mob, by placards and impassioned harangues, as traitors to their country, and the populace of Paris were clamorous for their consignment to theguillotine. They were led from the dungeons of the Conciergerie to themisnamed Halls of Justice. A vast concourse of angry men surroundedthe tribunal, and filled the air with execrations. Paris that daypresented the aspect of a camp. The Jacobins, conscious that therewere still thousands of the most influential of the citizens whoregarded the Girondists with veneration as incorruptible patriots, determined to prevent the possibility of a rescue. They had some causeto apprehend a counter revolution. They therefore gathered around thescene of trial all that imposing military array which they had attheir disposal. Cavalry, with plumes, and helmets, and naked sabers, were sweeping the streets, that no accumulations of the multitudemight gather force. The pavements trembled beneath the rumbling wheelsof heavy artillery, ready to belch forth their storm of grape-shotupon any opposing foe. Long lines of infantry, with loaded muskets andglittering bayonets, guarded all the avenues to the tribunal, whererancorous passion sat enthroned in mockery upon the seat of justice. 

The prisoners had nerved themselves sternly to meet this crisis oftheir doom. Two by two, in solemn procession, they marched to the barof judgment, and took their seat upon benches surrounded by gensd'armes and a frowning populace, and arraigned before judges alreadydetermined upon their doom. The eyes of the world were, however, uponthem. The accused were illustrious in integrity, in rank, in talent. In the distant provinces there were thousands who were their friends. It was necessary to go through the formality of a trial. A few of theaccused still clung to the hope of life. They vainly dreamed itpossible that, by silence, and the abandonment of themselves to theresistless power by which they were crushed, some mercy might beelicited. It was a weakness unworthy of these great men. But there arefew minds which can remain firm while immured for months in thewasting misery of a dungeon. In those glooms the sinews of mentalenergy wither with dying hope. The trial continued for a week. On the30th of October, at eleven o'clock at night, the verdict was broughtin. They were all declared guilty of having conspired against theRepublic, and were condemned to death. With the light of the nextmorning's sun they were to be led to the guillotine. 

As the sentence was pronounced, one of the accused, M. Valazé, made amotion with his hand, as if to tear his garment, and fell from hisseat upon the floor. "What, Valazé, " said Brissot, striving to supporthim, "are you losing your courage?" "No, " replied Valazé, faintly, "Iam dying;" and he expired, with his hand still grasping the hilt ofthe dagger with which he had pierced his heart. For a moment it was ascene of unutterable horror. The condemned gathered sadly around theremains of their lifeless companion. Some, who had confidentlyexpected acquittal, overcome by the near approach of death, yielded tomomentary weakness, and gave utterance to reproaches and lamentations. Others, pale and stupefied, gazed around in moody silence. One, in thedelirium of enthusiasm, throwing his arms above his head, shouted, "This is the most glorious day of my life!" Vergniaud, seated upon thehighest bench, with the composure of philosophy and piety combined, looked upon the scene, exulting in the victory his own spirit hadachieved over peril and death. 

The weakness which a few displayed was but momentary. They ralliedtheir energies boldly to meet their inevitable doom. They gathered fora moment around the corpse of their lifeless companion, and were thenformed in procession, to march back to their cells. It was midnight asthe condemned Girondists were led from the bar of the Palace ofJustice back to the dungeons of the Conciergerie, there to wait tillthe swift-winged hours should bring the dawn which was to guide theirsteps to the guillotine. Their presence of mind had now returned, andtheir bosoms glowed with the loftiest enthusiasm. In fulfillment of apromise they had made their fellow-prisoners, to inform them of theirfate by the echoes of their voices, they burst into the MarseillaiseHymn. The vaults of the Conciergerie rang with the song as theyshouted, in tones of exultant energy, "Allons, enfans de la patrie, Le jour de glorie est arrivé, Contre nous de la tyrannie L'étendard sanglant est levé. 

 "Come! children of your country, come! The day of glory dawns on high, And tyranny has wide unfurl'd Her blood-stain'd banner in the sky. "

It was their death-knell. As they were slowly led along through thegloomy corridors of their prison to the cells, these dirge-likewailings of a triumphant song penetrated the remotest dungeons of thatdismal abode, and roused every wretched head from its pallet. The armsof the guard clattered along the stone floor of the subterraneancaverns, and the unhappy victims of the Revolution, roused from thetemporary oblivion of sleep, or from dreams of the homes of refinementand luxury from which they had been torn, glared through the irongratings upon the melancholy procession, and uttered last words ofadieu to those whose fate they almost envied. The acquittal of theGirondists would have given them some little hope that they also mightfind mercy. Now they sunk back upon their pillows in despair, andlamentations and wailings filled the prison. 

The condemned, now that their fate was sealed, had laid aside allweakness, and, mutually encouraging one another, prepared as martyrsto encounter the last stern trial. They were all placed in one largeroom opening into several cells, and the lifeless body of theircompanion was deposited in one of the corners. By a decree of thetribunal, the still warm and bleeding remains of Valazé were to becarried back to the cell, and to be conveyed the next morning, in thesame cart with the prisoners, to the guillotine. The ax was to severthe head from the lifeless body, and all the headless trunks were tobe interred together. 

A wealthy friend, who had escaped proscription, and was concealed inParis, had agreed to send them a sumptuous banquet the night aftertheir trial, which banquet was to prove to them a funeral repast or atriumphant feast, according to the verdict of acquittal orcondemnation. Their friend kept his word. Soon after the prisonerswere remanded to their cell, a table was spread, and preparations weremade for their last supper. There was a large oaken table in theprison, where those awaiting their trial, and those awaiting theirexecution, met for their coarse prison fare. A rich cloth was spreadupon that table. Servants entered, bearing brilliant lamps, whichilluminated the dismal vault with an unnatural luster, and spread theglare of noonday light upon the miserable pallets of straw, the rustyiron gratings and chains, and the stone walls weeping with moisture, which no ray of the sun or warmth of fire ever dried away. It was astrange scene, that brilliant festival, in the midst of the glooms ofthe most dismal dungeon, with one dead body lying upon the floor, andthose for whom the feast was prepared waiting only for the early dawnto light them to their death and burial. The richest viands of meatsand wines were brought in and placed before the condemned. Vases offlowers diffused their fragrance and expanded their beauty whereflowers were never seen to bloom before. Wan and haggard faces, unwashed and unshorn, gazed upon the unwonted spectacle, as dazzlingflambeaux, and rich table furniture, and bouquets, and costly dishesappeared, one after another, until the board was covered with luxuryand splendor. 

In silence the condemned took their places at the table. They were menof brilliant intellects, of enthusiastic eloquence, thrown suddenlyfrom the heights of power to the foot of the scaffold. A priest, theAbbé Lambert, the intimate personal friend of several of the mosteminent of the Girondists, had obtained admittance into the prison toaccompany his friends to the guillotine, and to administer to them thelast consolations of religion. He stood in the corridor, lookingthrough the open door upon those assembled around the table, and, withhis pencil in his hand, noted down their words, their gestures, theirsighs--their weakness and their strength. It is to him that we areindebted for all knowledge of the sublime scenes enacted at the lastsupper of the Girondists. The repast was prolonged until the dawn ofmorning began to steal faintly in at the grated windows of the prisonand the gathering tumult without announced the preparations to conductthem to their execution. 

Vergniaud, the most prominent and the most eloquent of their number, presided at the feast. He had little, save the love of glory, to bindhim to life, for he had neither father nor mother, wife nor child; andhe doubted not that posterity would do him justice, and that his deathwould be the most glorious act of his life. No one could imagine, fromthe calm and subdued conversation, and the quiet appetite with whichthese distinguished men partook of the entertainment, that this wastheir last repast, and but the prelude to a violent death. But whenthe cloth was removed, and the fruits, the wines, and the flowersalone remained, the conversation became animated, gay, and at timesrose to hilarity. Several of the youngest men of the party, in salliesof wit and outbursts of laughter, endeavored to repel the gloom whichdarkened their spirits in view of death on the morrow. It wasunnatural gayety, unreal, unworthy of the men. Death is not a jest, and no one can honor himself by trying to make it so. A spirit trulynoble can encounter this king of terrors with fortitude, but neverwith levity. Still, now and then, shouts of laughter and songs ofmerriment burst from the lips of these young men, as they endeavored, with a kind of hysterical energy, to nerve themselves to show to theirenemies their contempt of life and of death. Others were morethoughtful, serene, and truly brave. 

"What shall we be doing to-morrow at this time?" said Ducos. 

All paused. Religion had its hopes, philosophy its dreams, infidelityits dreary blank. Each answered according to his faith. "We shallsleep after the fatigues of the day, " said some, "to wake no more. "Atheism had darkened their minds. "Death is an eternal sleep, " hadbecome their gloomy creed. They looked forward to the slide of theguillotine as ending all thought, and consigning them back to thatnon-existence from which they had emerged at their creation. "No!"replied Fauchet, Carru, and others, "annihilation is not our destiny. We are immortal. These bodies may perish. These living thoughts, theseboundless aspirations, can never die. To-morrow, far away in otherworlds, we shall think, and feel, and act and solve the problems ofthe immaterial destiny of the human mind. " Immortality was the theme. The song was hushed upon these dying lips. The forced laughter faintedaway. Standing upon the brink of that dread abyss from whence no onehas returned with tidings, every soul felt a longing for immortality. They turned to Vergniaud, whose brilliant intellect, whosesoul-moving eloquence, whose spotless life commanded their reverence, and appealed to him for light, and truth, and consolation. His wordsare lost. The effect of his discourse alone is described. "Never, "said the abbé "had his look, his gesture, his language, and his voicemore profoundly affected his hearers. " In the conclusion of adiscourse which is described as one of almost superhuman eloquence, during which some were aroused to the most exalted enthusiasm, allwere deeply moved, and many wept, Vergniaud exclaimed, "Death is but the greatest act of life, since it gives birth to ahigher state of existence. Were it not thus there would be somethinggreater than God. It would be the just man immolating himselfuselessly and hopelessly for his country. This supposition is a follyof blasphemy, and I repel it with contempt and horror. No! Vergniaudis not greater than God, but God is more just than Vergniaud; and Hewill not to-morrow suffer him to ascend a scaffold but to justify andavenge him in future ages. "

And now the light of day began to stream in at the windows. "Let us goto bed, " said one, "and sleep until we are called to go forth to ourlast sleep. Life is a thing so trifling that it is not worth the hourof sleep we lose in regretting it. "

"Let us rather watch, " said another, "during the few moments whichremain to us. Eternity is so certain and so terrible that a thousandlives would not suffice to prepare for it. "

They rose from the table, and most of them retired to their cells andthrew themselves upon their beds for a few moments of bodily reposeand meditation. Thirteen, however, remained in the larger apartment, finding a certain kind of support in society. In a low tone of voicethey conversed with each other. They were worn out with excitement, fatigue, and want of sleep. Some wept. Sleep kindly came to some, andlulled their spirits into momentary oblivion. 

At ten o'clock the iron doors grated on their hinges, and the tramp ofthe gens d'armes, with the clattering of their sabers, was heardreverberating through the gloomy corridors and vaults of theirdungeon, as they came, with the executioners, to lead the condemned tothe scaffold. Their long hair was cut from their necks, that the ax, with unobstructed edge, might do its work. Each one left some simpleand affecting souvenir to friends. Gensonné picked up a lock of hisblack hair, and gave it to the Abbé Lambert to give to his wife. "Tellher, " said he, "that it is the only memorial of my love which I cantransmit to her, and that my last thoughts in death were hers. "Vergniaud drew from his pocket his watch, and, with his knife, scratched upon the case a few lines of tender remembrance, and sentthe token to a young lady to whom he was devotedly attached, and towhom he was ere long to have been married. Each gave to the abbé somelegacy of affection to be conveyed to loved ones who were to be leftbehind. Few emotions are stronger in the hour of death than the desireto be embalmed in the affections of those who are dear to us. 

All being ready, the gens d'armes marched the condemned, in a column, into the prison-yard, where five rude carts were awaiting them, toconvey them to the scaffold. The countless thousands of Paris wereswarming around the prison, filling the court, and rolling, like oceantides, into every adjacent avenue. Each cart contained five persons, with the exception of the last, into which the dead body of Valazé hadbeen cast with four of his living companions. 

And now came to the Girondists their hour of triumph. Heroism roseexultant over all ills. The brilliant sun and the elastic air of anOctober morning invigorated their bodies, and the scene of sublimitythrough which they were passing stimulated their spirits to thehighest pitch of enthusiasm. As the carts moved from the court-yard, with one simultaneous voice, clear and sonorous, the Girondists burstinto the Marseillaise Hymn. The crowd gazed in silence as thisfunereal chant, not like the wailings of a dirge, but like the strainsof an exultant song, swelled and died away upon the air. Here andthere some friendly voice among the populace ventured to swell thevolume of sound as the significant words were uttered, "Contre nous de la tyrannie L'étendard sanglant est levé. "

 "And tyranny has wide unfurl'd Her blood-stain'd banner in the sky. "

At the end of each verse their voices sank for a moment into silence. The strain was then again renewed, loud and sonorous. On arriving atthe scaffold, they all embraced in one long, last adieu. It was atoken of their communion in death as in life. They then, in concert, loudly and firmly resumed their funereal chant. One ascended thescaffold, continuing the song with his companions. He was bound to theplank. Still his voice was heard full and strong. The plank slowlyfell. Still his voice, without a tremor, joined in the triumphantchorus. The glittering ax glided like lightning down the groove. Hishead fell into the basket, and one voice was hushed forever. Anotherascended, and another, and another, each with the song bursting loudlyfrom his lips, till death ended the strain. There was no weakness. Nostep trembled, no cheek paled, no voice faltered. But each succeedingmoment the song grew more faint as head after head fell, and thebleeding bodies were piled side by side. At last one voice alonecontinued the song. It was that of Vergniaud, the most illustrious ofthem all. Long confinement had spread deathly pallor over hisintellectual features, but firm and dauntless, and with a voice ofsurpassing richness, he continued the solo into which the chorus hadnow died away. Without the tremor of a nerve, he mounted the scaffold. For a moment he stood in silence, as he looked down upon the lifelessbodies of his friends, and around upon the overawed multitude gazingin silent admiration upon this heroic enthusiasm. As he thensurrendered himself to the executioner, he commenced anew the strain, "Allons! enfans de la patrie, Le jour de glorie est arrivé. "

 "Come! children of your country, come! The day of glory dawns on high. "

In the midst of the exultant tones, the ax glided on its bloodymission, and those lips, which had guided the storm of revolution, andwhose patriotic appeals had thrilled upon the ear of France, weresilent in death. Thus perished the Girondists, the founders of theRepublic and its victims. Their votes consigned Louis and Maria to theguillotine, and they were the first to follow them. One cart conveyedthe twenty-one bodies away, and they were thrown into one pit, by theside of the grave of Louis XVI. 

[Illustration: EXECUTION OF THE GIRONDISTS. ]

They committed many errors. Few minds could discern distinctly thepath of truth and duty through the clouds and vapors of those stormytimes. But they were most sincerely devoted to the liberties ofFrance. They overthrew the monarchy, and established the Republic. They died because they refused to open those sluice-ways of bloodwhich the people demanded. A few of the Girondists had made theirescape. Pétion, Buzot, Barbaroux, and Gaudet wandered in disguise, and hid themselves in the caves of wild and unfrequented mountains. LaFayette, who was one of the most noble and illustrious apostles ofthis creed, was saved from the guillotine by weary years ofimprisonment in the dungeons of Olmutz. Madame Roland lingered in hercell, striving to maintain serenity, while her soul was tortured withthe tidings of carnage and woe which every morning's dawn brought toher ears. 

The Jacobins were now more and more clamorous for blood. They stroveto tear La Fayette from his dungeon, that they might triumph in hisdeath. They pursued, with implacable vigilance, the Girondists who hadescaped from their fury. They trained blood-hounds to scent them outin their wild retreats, where they were suffering, from cold andstarvation, all that human nature can possibly endure. For a time, five of them lived together in a cavern, thirty feet in depth. Thiscavern had a secret communication with the cellar of a house. Theirgenerous hostess, periling her own life for them, daily supplied themwith food. She could furnish them only with the most scanty fare, lestshe should be betrayed by the purchase of provisions necessary for somany mouths. It was mid-winter. No fire warmed them in their damp andgloomy vault, and this living burial must have been worse than death. The search became so rigid that it was necessary for them to disperse. One directed his steps toward the Pyrenees. He was arrested andexecuted. Three toiled along by night, through cold, and snow, andrain, the keen wind piercing their tattered garments, till theirsufferings made them reckless of life. They were arrested, and found, in the blade of the guillotine, a refuge from their woes. At last allwere taken and executed but Pétion and Buzot. Their fate is involvedin mystery. None can tell what their sufferings were during the daysand the nights of their weary wanderings, when no eye but that of Godcould see them. Some peasants found among the mountains, where theyhad taken refuge, human remains rent in pieces by the wolves. Thetattered garments were scattered around where the teeth of theferocious animals had left them. They were all that was left of thenoble Pétion and Buzot. But how did they die? Worn out by sufferingand abandoned to despair, did they fall by their own hands? Did theyperish from exposure to hunger and exhaustion, and the freezing blastsof winter? Or, in their weakness, were they attacked by the famishedwolves of the mountains? The dying scene of Pétion and Buzot isinvolved in impenetrable obscurity. Its tragic accompaniments can onlybe revealed when all mysteries shall be unfolded. 

CHAPTER XI. 

PRISON LIFE. 

1793

Liberation of Madame Roland. --She is re-arrested. --Infamous crueltyof the Jacobins. --Anguish of Madame Roland. --Madame Roland recoversher composure. --Intellectual enjoyments. --More comfortableapartments. --Kindness of the jailer's wife. --Madame Roland entreatedto escape. --Rigorous treatment. --Visit of an English lady. --Kindnessof the jailers. --Cheerful aspect of Madame Roland's cell. --HenrietteCannet. --Vain entreaties. --Robespierre in the zenith of hispower. --Madame Roland's letter to Robespierre. --Supports ofphilosophy. --Influence of the Roman Catholic religion. --Energy ofMadame Roland. --She prepares for voluntary death. --Madame Roland'sprayer. --Notes to her husband and child. --Apostrophe tofriends. --Farewell to Nature. --Maternal love triumphs. --The struggleended. --Descriptions of Tacitus. --Madame Roland writes her memoirs. --Thespirit wanders among happier scenes. --Striking contrasts. --Madame Rolandconveyed to the Conciergerie. --Dismal cell. --Description of theConciergerie. --Narrow courts. --Quadrangular tower. --The daughter of theCæsars. --The daughter of the artisan. 

Madame Roland remained for four months in the Abbayé prison. On the24th day of her imprisonment, to her inexpressible astonishment, anofficer entered her cell, and informed her that she was liberated, asno charge could be found against her. Hardly crediting hersenses--fearing that she should wake up and find her freedom but theblissful delirium of a dream--she took a coach and hastened to her owndoor. Her eyes were full of tears of joy, and her heart almostbursting with the throbbings of delight, in the anticipation of againpressing her idolized child to her bosom. Her hand was upon the doorlatch--she had not yet passed the threshold--when two men, who hadwatched at the door of her dwelling, again seized her in the name ofthe law. In spite of her tears and supplications, they conveyed her tothe prison of St. Pélagié. This loathsome receptacle of crime wasfilled with the abandoned females who had been swept, in impurity anddegradation, from the streets of Paris. It was, apparently, a studiedhumiliation, to compel their victim to associate with beings from whomher soul shrunk with loathing. She had resigned herself to die, butnot to the society of infamy and pollution. 

The Jacobins, conscious of the illegality of her first arrest, anddreading her power, were anxious to secure her upon a more legalfooting. They adopted, therefore, this measure of liberating her andarresting her a second time. Even her firm and resigned spirit was fora moment vanquished by this cruel blow. Her blissful dream ofhappiness was so instantaneously converted into the blackness ofdespair, that she buried her face in her hands, and, in the anguish ofa bruised and broken heart, wept aloud. The struggle, though short, was very violent ere she regained her wonted composure. She soon, however, won the compassionate sympathy of her jailers, and wasremoved from this degrading companionship to a narrow cell, where shecould enjoy the luxury of being alone. An humble bed was spread forher in one corner, and a small table was placed near the few rays oflight which stole feebly in through the iron grating of theinaccessible window. Summoning all her fortitude to her aid, sheagain resumed her usual occupations, allotting to each hour of the dayits regular employment. She engaged vigorously in the study of theEnglish language, and passed some hours every day in drawing, of whichaccomplishment she was very fond. She had no patterns to copy; but herimagination wandered through the green fields and by the murmuringbrooks of her rural home. Now she roved with free footsteps throughthe vineyards which sprang up beneath her creative pencil. Now shefloated upon the placid lake, reclining upon the bosom of her husbandand caressing her child, beneath the tranquil sublimity of the eveningsky. Again she sat down at the humble fireside of the peasant, ministering to the wants of the needy, and receiving the recompense ofgrateful hearts. Thus, on the free wing of imagination, she penetratedall scenes of beauty, and spread them out in vivid reality before hereye. At times she almost forgot that she was a captive. Well might shehave exclaimed, in the language of Maria Antoinette, "What a resource, amid the calamities of life, is a highly-cultivated mind!"

A few devoted friends periled their own lives by gaining occasionalaccess to her. During the dark hours of that reign of terror and ofblood, no crime was more unpardonable than the manifestation ofsympathy for the accused. These friends, calling as often as prudencewould allow, brought to her presents of fruit and of flowers. At lastthe jailer's wife, unable to resist the pleadings of her own heart forone whom she could not but love and admire, ventured to remove her toa more comfortable apartment, where the daylight shone brightly inthrough the iron bars of the window. Here she could see the clouds andthe birds soaring in the free air. She was even allowed, through herfriends, to procure a piano-forte, which afforded her many hours ofrecreation. Music, drawing, and flowers were the embellishments of herlife. Madame Bouchaud, the wife of the jailer, conceived for herprisoner the kindest affection, and daily visited her, doing everything in her power to alleviate the bitterness of her imprisonment. Atlast her sympathies were so aroused, that, regardless of allprudential considerations, she offered to aid her in making herescape. Madame Roland was deeply moved by this proof of devotion, and, though she was fully aware that she must soon place her head upon thescaffold, she firmly refused all entreaties to escape in any waywhich might endanger her friend. Others united with Madame Bouchaud inentreating her to accept of her generous offer. Their efforts wereentirely unavailing. She preferred to die herself rather than to incurthe possibility of exposing those who loved her to the guillotine. Thekindness with which Madame Roland was treated was soon spied out bythose in power. The jailer was severely reprimanded, and orderedimmediately to remove the piano-forte from the room, and to confineMadame Roland rigorously in her cell. This change did not disturb theequanimity of her spirit. She had studied so deeply and admired soprofoundly all that was noble in the most illustrious characters ofantiquity, that her mind instinctively assumed the same model. Shefound elevated enjoyment in triumphing over every earthly ill. 

An English lady, then residing in France, who had often visited her inthe days of her power, when her home presented all that earth couldgive of splendor, and when wealth and rank were bowing obsequiouslyaround her, thus describes a visit which she paid to her cell in thesedark days of adversity. 

"I visited her in the prison of Sainte Pélagié, where her soul, superior to circumstances, retained its accustomed serenity, and sheconversed with the same animated cheerfulness in her cheerless dudgeonas she used to do in the hotel of the minister. She had providedherself with a few books, and I found her reading Plutarch. She toldme that she expected to die, and the look of placid resignation withwhich she said it convinced me that she was prepared to meet deathwith a firmness worthy of her exalted character. When I inquired afterher daughter, an only child of thirteen years of age, she burst intotears; and, at the overwhelming recollection of her husband and child, the courage of the victim of liberty was lost in the feelings of thewife and the mother. "

The merciless commissioners had ordered her to be incarcerated in acell which no beam of light could penetrate. But her compassionatekeepers ventured to misunderstand the orders, and to place her in aroom where a few rays of the morning sun could struggle through thegrated windows, and where the light of day, though seen but dimly, might still, in some degree, cheer those eyes so soon to be closedforever. The soul, instinctively appreciative of beauty, will underthe most adverse circumstances, evoke congenial visions. Her friendsbrought her flowers, of which from childhood she had been mostpassionately fond. These cherished plants seemed to comprehend andrequite unaffected love. At the iron window of her prison theyappeared to grow with the joy and luxuriance of gratitude. Withintertwining leaf and blossom, they concealed the rusty bars, tillthey changed the aspect of the grated cell into a garden bower, wherebirds might nestle and sing, and poets might love to linger. 

[Illustration: MADAME ROLAND IN PRISON. ]

When in the convent, she had formed a strong attachment for one of hercompanions, which the lapse of time had not diminished. Through allthe vicissitudes of their lives they had kept up a constantcorrespondence. This friend, Henriette Cannet, one day obtained accessto her prison, and, in the exercise of that romantic friendship ofwhich this world can present but few parallels, urged Madame Roland toexchange garments with her, and thus escape from prison and thescaffold. "If you remain, " said Henriette, "your death is inevitable. If I remain in your place, they will not take my life, but, after ashort imprisonment, I shall be liberated. None fear me, and I am tooobscure to attract attention in these troubled times. I, " shecontinued, "am a widow, and childless. There are no responsibilitieswhich claim my time. You have a husband, advanced in years, and alovely little child, both needing your utmost care. " Thus she pleadedwith her to exchange attire, and endeavor to escape. But neitherprayers nor tears availed. "They would kill thee, my good Henriette!"exclaimed Madame Roland, embracing her friend with tears of emotion. "Thy blood would ever rest on me. Sooner would I suffer a thousanddeaths than reproach myself with thine. " Henriette, finding all herentreaties in vain, sadly bade her adieu, and was never permitted tosee her more. 

Robespierre was now in the zenith of his power. He was the arbiter oflife and death. One word from him would restore Madame Roland toliberty. But he had steeled his heart against every sentiment ofhumanity, and was not willing to deprive the guillotine of a singlevictim. One day Madame Roland was lying sick in the infirmary of theprison. A physician attended her, who styled himself the friend ofRobespierre. The mention of his name recalled to her remembrance theirearly friendship, and her own exertions to save his life when it wasin imminent peril. This suggested to her the idea of writing to him. She obeyed the impulse, and wrote as follows:

 "Robespierre! I am about to put you to the proof, and to repeat to you what I said respecting your character to the friend who has undertaken to deliver this letter. You may be very sure that it is no suppliant who addresses you. I never asked a favor yet of any human being, and it is not from the depths of a prison I would supplicate him who could, if he pleased, restore me to liberty. No! prayers and entreaties belong to the guilty or to slaves. Neither would murmurs or complaints accord with my nature. I know how to bear all. I also well know that at the beginning of every republic the revolutions which effected them have invariably selected the principal actors in the change as their victims. It is their fate to experience this, as it becomes the task of the historian to avenge their memories. Still I am at a loss to imagine how I, a mere woman, should be exposed to the fury of a storm, ordinarily suffered to expend itself upon the great leaders of a revolution. You, Robespierre, were well acquainted with my husband, and I defy you to say that you ever thought him other than an honorable man. He had all the roughness of virtue, even as Cato possessed its asperity. Disgusted with business, irritated by persecution, weary of the world, and worn out with years and exertions, he desired only to bury himself and his troubles in some unknown spot, and to conceal himself there to save the age he lived in from the commission of a crime. 

 "My pretended confederacy would be amusing, were it not too serious a matter for a jest. Whence, then, arises that degree of animosity manifested toward me? I never injured a creature in my life, and can not find it in my heart to wish evil even to those who injure and oppress me. Brought up in solitude, my mind directed to serious studies, of simple tastes, an enthusiastic admirer of the Revolution--excluded, by my sex, from participating in public affairs, yet taking delight in conversing of them--I despised the first calumnies circulated respecting me, attributing them to the envy felt by the ignorant and low-minded at what they were pleased to style my elevated position, but to which I infinitely preferred the peaceful obscurity in which I had passed so many happy days. 

 "Yet I have now been for five months the inhabitant of a prison, torn from my beloved child, whose innocent head may never more be pillowed upon a mother's breast; far from all I hold dear; the mark for the invectives of a mistaken people; constrained to hear the very sentinels, as they keep watch beneath my windows, discussing the subject of my approaching execution, and outraged by reading the violent and disgusting diatribes poured forth against me by hirelings of the press, who have never once beheld me. I have wearied no one with requests, petitions, or demands. On the contrary, I feel proudly equal to battle with my own ill fortune, and it may be to trample it under my feet. 

 "Robespierre! I send not this softened picture of my condition to excite your pity. No! such a sentiment, expressed by you, would not only offend me, but be rejected as it deserves. I write for your edification. Fortune is fickle--popular favor equally so. Look at the fate of those who led on the revolutions of former ages--the idols of the people, and afterward their governors--from Vitellius to Cæsar, or from Hippo, the orator of Syracuse, down to our Parisian speakers. Scylla and Marius proscribed thousands of knights and senators, besides a vast number of other unfortunate beings; but were they enabled to prevent history from handing down their names to the just execration of posterity, and did they themselves enjoy happiness? Whatever may be the fate awarded to me, I shall know how to submit to it in a manner worthy of myself, or to anticipate it should I deem it advisable. After receiving the honors of persecution, am I to expect the still greater one of martyrdom? Speak! It is something to know your fate, and a spirit such as mine can boldly face it, be it as it may. Should you bestow upon my letter a fair and impartial perusal, it will neither be useless to you nor to my country. But, under any circumstances, this I say, Robespierre--and you can not deny the truth of my assertion--none who have ever known me can persecute me without a feeling of remorse. "

Madame Roland preferred to die rather than to owe her life to the_compassion_ of her enemies. Could she obtain a triumphant acquittal, through the force of her own integrity, she would greatly exult. Buther imperial spirit would not stoop to the acceptance of a pardon fromthose who deserved the execrations of mankind; such a pardon she wouldhave torn in fragments, and have stepped resolutely upon thescaffold. 

There is something cold and chilling in the supports which pride andphilosophy alone can afford under the calamities of life. MadameRoland had met with Christianity only as it appeared in the pomp andparade of the Catholic Church, and in the openly-dissolute lives ofits ignorant or voluptuous priesthood. While her poetic temperamentwas moved by the sublime conception of a God ruling over the world ofmatter and the world of mind, revealed religion, as her spiritencountered it, consisted only in gorgeous pageants, and ridiculousdogmas, and puerile traditions. The spirit of piety and pure devotionshe could admire. Her natural temperament was serious, reflective, andprayerful. Her mind, so far as religion was concerned, was very muchin the state of that of any intellectual, high-minded, uncorruptibleRoman, who renounced, without opposing, the idolatry of the benightedmultitude; who groped painfully for some revelation of God and oftruth; who at times believed fully in a superintending providence, andagain had fears whether there were any God or any immortality. In theprocessions, the relics, the grotesque garb, and the spiritualterrors wielded by the Roman Catholic priesthood, she could behold butbarefaced deception. The papal system appeared to her but as acolossal monster, oppressing the people with hideous superstition, andsustaining, with its superhuman energies, the corruption of the noblesand of the throne. In rejecting this system, she had no friend toconduct her to the warm, sheltered, and congenial retreats ofevangelical piety. She was led almost inevitably, by the philosophy ofthe times, to those chilling, barren, storm-swept heights, where thesoul can find no shelter but in its own indomitable energies ofendurance. These energies Madame Roland displayed in such a degree asto give her a name among the very first of those in any age who by_heroism_ have shed luster upon human nature. 

Under the influence of these feelings, she came to the conclusion thatit would be more honorable for her to die by her own hand than to bedragged to the guillotine by her foes. She obtained some poison, andsat down calmly to write her last thoughts, and her last messages oflove, before she should plunge into the deep mystery of the unknown. There is something exceedingly affecting in the vague and shadowyprayer which she offered on this occasion. It betrays a painfuluncertainty whether there were any superintending Deity to hear hercry, and yet it was the soul's instinctive breathing for a supporthigher and holier than could be found within itself. 

"Divinity! Supreme Being! Spirit of the Universe! great principle ofall that I feel great, or good, or immortal within myself--whoseexistence I believe in, because I must have emanated from somethingsuperior to that by which I am surrounded--I am about to reunitemyself to thy essence. " In her farewell note to her husband, shewrites, "Forgive me, my esteemed and justly-honored husband, fortaking upon myself to dispose of a life I had consecrated to you. Believe me, I could have loved life and you better for yourmisfortunes, had I been permitted to share them with you. At present, by my death, you are only freed from a useless object of unavailinganguish. "

All the fountains of a mother's love gush forth as she writes to heridolized Eudora: "Pardon me, my beloved child, my sweet daughter, whose gentle image dwells within my heart, and whose very remembranceshakes my sternest resolution. Never would your fond mother have leftyou helpless in the world, could she but have remained to guide andguard you. "

Then, apostrophizing her friends, she exclaims, "And you, my cherishedfriends, transfer to my motherless child the affection you have evermanifested for me. Grieve not at a resolution which ends my many andsevere trials. You know me too well to believe that weakness or terrorhave instigated the step I am about to take. "

She made her will, bequeathing such trifling souvenirs of affection asstill remained in her possession to her daughter, her friends, and herservants. She then reverted to all she had loved and admired of thebeauties of nature, and which she was now to leave forever. "Farewell!" she wrote, "farewell, glorious sun! that never failed togild my windows with thy golden rays, ere thou hiddest thy brightnessin the heavens. Adieu, ye lonely banks of the Saône, whose wild beautycould fill my heart with such deep delight. And you too, poor buthonest people of Thizy, whose labors I lightened, whose distress Irelieved, and whose sick beds I tended--farewell! Adieu, oh! peacefulchambers of my childhood, where I learned to love virtue andtruth--where my imagination found in books and study the food todelight it, and where I learned in silence to command my passions andto despise my vanity. Again farewell, my child! Remember your mother. Doubtless your fate will be less severe than hers. Adieu, belovedchild! whom I nourished at my breast, and earnestly desired to imbuewith every feeling and opinion I myself entertained. "

The cup of poison was in her hand. In her heart there was noconsciousness that she should violate the command of any higher powerby drinking it. But love for her child triumphed. The smile of Eudorarose before her, and for her sake she clung to life. She threw awaythe poison, resolved never again to think of a voluntary withdrawalfrom the cares and sorrows of her earthly lot, but with unwaveringfortitude to surrender herself to those influences over which shecould no longer exert any control. This brief conflict ended, sheresumed her wonted composure and cheerfulness. 

Tacitus was now her favorite author. Hours and days she passed instudying his glowing descriptions of heroic character and deeds. Heroism became her religion; magnanimity and fortitude the idols ofher soul. With a glistening eye and a bosom throbbing with loftyemotion, she meditated upon his graphic paintings of the martyrdom ofpatriots and philosophers, where the soul, by its inherent energies, triumphed over obloquy, and pain, and death. Anticipating that eachday might conduct her to the scaffold, she led her spirit through allthe possible particulars of the tragic drama, that she might becomefamiliar with terror, and look upon the block and the ax with anundaunted eye. 

Many hours of every day she beguiled in writing the memoirs of her ownlife. It was an eloquent and a touching narrative, written with theexpectation that each sentence might be interrupted by the entrance ofthe executioners to conduct her to trial and to the guillotine. Inthis unveiling of the heart to the world, one sees a noble nature, generous and strong, animated to benevolence by native generosity, andnerved to resignation by fatalism. The consciousness of spiritualelevation constituted her only religion and her only solace. Theanticipation of a lofty reputation after death was her only heaven. The Christian must pity while he must admire. No one can read thethoughts she penned but with the deepest emotion. 

Now her mind wanders to the hours of her precocious and dreamychildhood, and lingers in her little chamber, gazing upon the goldensunset, and her eye is bathed in tears as she reflects upon her earlyhome, desolated by death, and still more desolated by that unhonoredunion which the infidelity of the times tolerated, when one took theposition of the wife unblessed by the sanction of Heaven. Again herspirit wings its flight through the gloomy bars of the prison to thebeautiful rural home to which her bridal introduced her, where shespent her happiest years, and she forgets the iron, and the stone, andthe dungeon-glooms which surround her, as in imagination she walksagain among her flowers and through the green fields, and, at thevintage, eats the rich, ripe clusters of the grape. Her pleasanthousehold cares, her dairy, the domestic fowls recognizing her voice, and fed from her own hand; her library and her congenial intellectualpursuits rise before her, an entrancing vision, and she mourns, likeEve, the loss of Eden. The days of celebrity and of power engross herthoughts. Her husband is again minister of the king. The mostinfluential statesmen and brilliant orators are gathered around herchair. Her mind is guiding the surging billows of the Revolution, andinfluencing the decisions of the proudest thrones of Europe. 

The slightest movement dispels the illusion. From dreams she awakes toreality. She is a prisoner in a gloomy cell of stone and iron, fromwhich there is no possible extrication. A bloody death awaits her. Herhusband is a fugitive, pursued by human blood-hounds more mercilessthan the brute. Her daughter, the object of her most idolatrous love, is left fatherless and motherless in this cold world. The guillotinehas already consigned many of those whom she loved best to the grave. But a few more days of sorrow can dimly struggle through her prisonwindows ere she must be conducted to the scaffold. Woman's naturetriumphs over philosophic fortitude, and she finds momentary relief ina flood of tears. 

The Girondists were led from their dungeons in the Conciergerie totheir execution on the 31st of October, 1793. Upon that very dayMadame Roland was conveyed from the prison of St. Pélagié to the samegloomy cells vacated by the death of her friends. She was cast into abare and miserable dungeon, in that subterranean receptacle of woe, where there was not even a bed. Another prisoner, moved withcompassion, drew his own pallet into her cell, that she might not becompelled to throw herself for repose upon the cold, wet stones. Thechill air of winter had now come, and yet no covering was allowed her. Through the long night she shivered with the cold. 

The prison of the Conciergerie consists of a series of dark and dampsubterranean vaults situated beneath the floor of the Palace ofJustice. Imagination can conceive of nothing more dismal than thesesomber caverns, with long and winding galleries opening into cells asdark as the tomb. You descend by a flight of massive stone steps intothis sepulchral abode, and, passing through double doors, whose ironstrength time has deformed but not weakened, you enter upon the vastlabyrinthine prison, where the imagination wanders affrighted throughintricate mazes of halls, and arches, and vaults, and dungeons, rendered only more appalling by the dim light which struggles throughthose grated orifices which pierced the massive walls. The Seine flowsby upon one side, separated only by the high way of the quays. The bedof the Seine is above the floor of the prison. The surrounding earthwas consequently saturated with water, and the oozing moisturediffused over the walls and the floors the humidity of the sepulcher. The plash of the river; the rumbling of carts upon the pavementsoverhead; the heavy tramp of countless footfalls, as the multitudepoured into and out of the halls of justice, mingled with the moaningof the prisoners in those solitary cells. There were one or two narrowcourts scattered in this vast structure, where the prisoners couldlook up the precipitous walls, as of a well, towering high above them, and see a few square yards of sky. The gigantic quadrangular tower, reared above these firm foundations, was formerly the imperial palacefrom which issued all power and law. Here the French kings reveled involuptuousness, with their prisoners groaning beneath their feet. Thisstrong-hold of feudalism had now become the tomb of the monarchy. Inone of the most loathsome of these cells, Maria Antoinette, thedaughter of the Cæsars, had languished in misery as profound asmortals can suffer, till, in the endurance of every conceivableinsult, she was dragged to the guillotine. 

It was into a cell adjoining that which the hapless queen had occupiedthat Madame Roland was cast. Here the proud daughter of the emperorsof Austria and the humble child of the artisan, each, after a careerof unexampled vicissitudes, found their paths to meet but a few stepsfrom the scaffold. The victim of the monarchy and the victim of theRevolution were conducted to the same dungeons and perished on thesame block. They met as antagonists in the stormy arena of the FrenchRevolution. They were nearly of equal age. The one possessed theprestige of wealth, and rank, and ancestral power; the other, theenergy of a vigorous and cultivated mind. Both were endowed withunusual attractions of person, spirits invigorated by enthusiasm, and the loftiest heroism. From the antagonism of life they met indeath. 

CHAPTER XII

TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF MADAME ROLAND. 

1793

Examination of Madame Roland. --Her esteem for the Girondists. --Eloquentdefence of Madame Roland. --Madame Roland's reasons for notescaping. --Madame Roland's opinion of the Girondists. --Madame Roland'sopinion of the Revolution. --Madame Roland's estimate of herhusband. --Madame Roland's correspondence with Duperret. --Effects ofprejudices and violent animosities. --Madame Roland avows heropinions. --Madame Roland's apostrophe to Liberty. --Repeatedexaminations. --Madame Roland's self-possession. --Madame Roland'senthusiasm. --Her influence upon the prisoners. --Madame Roland'saddresses to the prisoners. --Effects of her eloquence. --Madame Roland'smusical voice. --Her friendship for the Girondists. --Charming characterof Madame Roland. --She is loved and esteemed. --Madame Roland'sadvocate. --Her appearance at the tribunal. --Demand of thepresident. --Madame Roland's refusal. --The sentence. --Madame Roland'sdignity and calmness. --She returns to her cell. --Madame Roland'srequiem. --She attires herself for the bridal of death. --The passage tothe guillotine. --Horrible pastime. --Madame Roland's appearance in thecart. --She addresses the mob. --Powerful emotions of Madame Roland. --Workof the executioners. --Scene at the scaffold. --Execution of the oldman. --Situation of the guillotine. --Death of Madame Roland. --Wonderfulattachment. --Grief of M. Roland. --Death of M. Roland. --Subsequent lifeof Eudora. 

The day after Madame Roland was placed in the Conciergerie, she wasvisited by one of the notorious officers of the revolutionary party, and very closely questioned concerning the friendship she hadentertained for the Girondists. She frankly avowed the elevatedaffection and esteem with which she cherished their memory, but shedeclared that she and they were the cordial friends of republicanliberty; that they wished to preserve, not to destroy, theConstitution. The examination was vexatious and intolerant in theextreme. It lasted for three hours, and consisted in an incessanttorrent of criminations, to which she was hardly permitted to offerone word in reply. This examination taught her the nature of theaccusations which would be brought against her. She sat down in hercell that very night, and, with a rapid pen, sketched that defensewhich has been pronounced one of the most eloquent and touchingmonuments of the Revolution. It so beautifully illustrates the heroismof her character, the serenity of her spirit, and the beauty andenergy of her mental operations, that it will ever be read with theliveliest interest. 

 "I am accused, " she writes, "of being the accomplice of men called conspirators. My intimacy with a few of these gentlemen is of much older date than the occurrences in consequence of which they are now deemed rebels. Our correspondence, since they left Paris, has been entirely foreign to public affairs. Properly speaking, I have been engaged in no political correspondence whatever, and in that respect I might confine myself to a simple denial. I certainly can not be called upon to give an account of my particular affections. I have, however, the right to be proud of these friendships. I glory in them. I wish to conceal nothing. I acknowledge that, with expressions of regret at my confinement, I received an intimation that Duperret had two letters for me, whether written by one or by two of my friends, before or after their leaving Paris, I can not say. Duperret had delivered them into other hands, and they never came to mine. Another time I received a pressing invitation to break my chains, and an offer of services, to assist me in effecting my escape in any way I might think proper, and to convey me whithersoever I might afterward wish to go. I was dissuaded from listening to such proposals by duty and by honor: by duty, that I might not endanger the safety of those to whose care I was confided; and by honor, because I preferred the risk of an unjust trial to exposing myself to the suspicion of guilt by a flight unworthy of me. When I consented to my arrest, it was not with the intention of afterward making my escape. Without doubt, if all means of communication had not been cut off, or if I had not been prevented by confinement, I should have endeavored to learn what had become of my friends. I know of no law by which my doing so is forbidden. In what age or in what nation was it ever considered a crime to be faithful to those sentiments of esteem and brotherly affection which bind man to man?

 "I do not pretend to judge of the measures of those who have been proscribed, but I will never believe in the evil intentions of men of whose probity and patriotism I am thoroughly convinced. If they erred, it was unintentionally. They fall without being abased, and I regard them as being unfortunate without being liable to blame. I am perfectly easy as to their glory, and willingly consent to participate in the honor of being oppressed by their enemies. They are accused of having conspired against their country, but I know that they were firm friends of the Republic. They were, however, humane men, and were persuaded that good laws were necessary to procure the Republic the good will of persons who doubted whether the Republic could be maintained. It is more difficult to conciliate than to kill. The history of every age proves that it requires great talents to lead men to virtue by wise institutions, while force suffices to oppress them by terror, or to annihilate them by death. I have often heard them assert that abundance, as well as happiness, can only proceed from an equitable, protecting, and beneficent government. The omnipotence of the bayonet may produce fear, but not bread. I have seen them animated by the most lively enthusiasm for the good of the people, disdaining to flatter them, and resolved rather to fall victims to their delusion than to be the means of keeping it up. I confess that these principles and this conduct appeared to me totally different from the sentiments and proceedings of tyrants, or ambitious men, who seek to please the people to effect their subjugation. It inspired me with the highest esteem for those generous men. This error, if an error it be, will accompany me to the grave, whither I shall be proud of following those whom I was not permitted to accompany. 

 "My defense is more important for those who wish for the truth than it is for myself. Calm and contented in the consciousness of having done my duty, I look forward to futurity with perfect peace of mind. My serious turn and studious habits have preserved me alike from the follies of dissipation and from the bustle of intrigue. A friend to liberty, on which reflection had taught me to set a just value, I beheld the Revolution with delight, persuaded it was destined to put an end to the arbitrary power I detested, and to the abuses I had so often lamented, when reflecting with pity upon the indigent classes of society. I took an interest in the progress of the Revolution, and spoke with warmth of public affairs, but I did not pass the bounds prescribed by my sex. Some small talents, a considerable share of philosophy, a degree of courage more uncommon, and which did not permit me to weaken my husband's energy in dangerous times--such, perhaps, are the qualities which those who know me may have indiscreetly extolled, and which may have made me enemies among those to whom I am unknown. M. Roland sometimes employed me as a secretary, and the famous letter to the king, for instance, is copied entirely in my hand-writing. This would be an excellent item to add to my indictment, if the _Austrians_ were trying me, and if they should have thought fit to extend a minister's responsibility to his wife. But M. Roland long ago manifested his knowledge of, and his attachment to, the great principles of political economy. The proof is to be found in his numerous works published during the last fifteen years. His learning and his probity are all his own. He stood in no need of a wife to make him an able minister. Never were secret councils held at his house. His colleagues and a few friends met once a week at his table, and there conversed, in a public manner, on matters in which every body was concerned. His writings, which breathe throughout a love of order and peace, and which enforce the best principles of public prosperity and morals, will forever attest his wisdom. His accounts prove his integrity. 

 "As to the offense imputed to me, I observe that I never was intimate with Duperret. I saw him occasionally at the time of M. Roland's administration. He never came to our house during the six months that my husband was no longer in office. The same remark will apply to other members, our friends, which surely does not accord with the plots and conspiracies laid to our charge. It is evident, by my first letter to Duperret, I only wrote to him because I knew not to whom else to address myself, and because I imagined he would readily consent to oblige me. My correspondence with him could not, then, be concerted. It could not be the consequence of any previous intimacy, and could have only one object in view. It gave me afterward an opportunity of receiving accounts from those who had just absented themselves, and with whom I was connected by the ties of friendship, independently of all political considerations. The latter were totally out of the question in the kind of correspondence I kept up with them during the early part of their absence. No written memorial bears witness against me in that respect. Those adduced only lead to the belief that I partook of the opinions and sentiments of the persons called conspirators. This deduction is well founded. I confess it without reserve. I am proud of the conformity. But I never manifested my opinion in a way which can be construed into a crime, or which tended to occasion any disturbance. Now, to become an accomplice in any plan whatever, it is necessary to give advice, or to furnish means of execution. I have done neither. There is no law to condemn me. 

 "I know that, in revolutions, law as well as justice is often forgotten, and the proof of it is that I am here. I owe my trial to nothing but the prejudices and violent animosities which arise in times of great agitation, and which are generally directed against those who have been placed in conspicuous situations, or are known to possess any energy or spirit. It would have been easy for my courage to put me out of the reach of the sentence which I foresaw would be pronounced against me. But I thought it rather became me to undergo that sentence. I thought that I owed the example to my country. I thought that if I were to be condemned, it must be right to leave to tyranny all the odium of sacrificing a woman, whose crime is that of possessing some small talent, which she never misapplied, a zealous desire to promote the welfare of mankind, and courage enough to acknowledge her friends when in misfortune, and to do homage to virtue at the risk of life. Minds which have any claim to greatness are capable of divesting themselves of selfish considerations. They feel that they belong to the whole human race. Their views are directed to posterity. I am the wife of a virtuous man exposed to persecution. I was the friend of men who have been proscribed and immolated by delusion, and the hatred of jealous mediocrity. It is necessary that I should perish in my turn, because it is a rule with tyranny to sacrifice those whom it has grievously oppressed, and to annihilate the very witnesses of its misdeeds. I have this double claim to death at your hands, and I expect it. When innocence walks to the scaffold at the command of error and perversity, every step she takes is an advance toward glory. May I be the last victim sacrificed to the furious spirit of party. I shall leave with joy this unfortunate earth, which swallows up the friends of virtue and drinks the blood of the just. 

 "Truth! friendship! my country! sacred objects, sentiments dear to my heart, accept my last sacrifice. My life was devoted to you, and you will render my death easy and glorious. 

 "Just Heaven! enlighten this unfortunate people for whom I desired liberty. Liberty! it is for noble minds, who despise death, and who know how, upon occasion, to give it to themselves. It is not for weak beings, who enter into a composition with guilt, and cover selfishness and cowardice with the name of prudence. It is not for corrupt wretches, who rise from the bed of debauchery, or from the mire of indigence, to feast their eyes upon the blood that streams from the scaffold. It is the portion of a people who delight in humanity, practice justice, despise their flatterers, and respect the truth. While you are not such a people, O my fellow-citizens! you will talk in vain of liberty. Instead of liberty you will have licentiousness, to which you will all fall victims in your turn. You will ask for bread; dead bodies will be given you, and you at last will bow down your own necks to the yoke. 

 "I have neither concealed my sentiments nor my opinions. I know that a Roman lady was sent to the scaffold for lamenting the death of her son. I know that, in times of delusion and party rage, he who dares avow himself the friend of the condemned or of the proscribed exposes himself to their fate. But I have no fear of death. I never feared any thing but guilt, and I will not purchase life at the expense of a base subterfuge. Woe to the times! woe to the people among whom doing homage to disregarded truth can be attended with danger; and happy is he who, in such circumstances, is bold enough to brave it. 

 "It is now your part to see whether it answer your purpose to condemn me without proof upon mere matter of opinion, and without the support or justification of any law. "

Having concluded this magnanimous defense, which she wrote in oneevening with the rapidity which characterized all her mentaloperations, she retired to rest, and slept with the serenity of achild. She was called upon several times by committees sent from therevolutionary tribunal for examination. They were resolved to take herlife, but were anxious to do it, if possible, under the forms of law. She passed through all their examinations with the most perfectcomposure and the most dignified self-possession. Her enemies couldnot withhold their expressions of admiration as they saw her in hersepulchral cell of stone and of iron, cheerful, fascinating, andperfectly at ease. She knew that she was to be led from that cell to aviolent death, and yet no faltering of soul could be detected. Herspirit had apparently achieved a perfect victory over all earthlyills. 

The upper part of the door of her cell was an iron grating. Thesurrounding cells were filled with the most illustrious ladies andgentlemen of France. As the hour of death drew near, her courage andanimation seemed to increase. Her features glowed with enthusiasm; herthoughts and expressions were refulgent with sublimity, and her wholeaspect assumed the impress of one appointed to fill some great andlofty destiny. She remained but a few days in the Conciergerie beforeshe was led to the scaffold. During those few days, by her example andher encouraging words, she spread among the numerous prisoners therean enthusiasm and a spirit of heroism which elevated, above the fearof the scaffold, even the most timid and depressed. This glow offeeling and exhilaration gave a new impress of sweetness andfascination to her beauty. The length of her captivity, the calmnesswith which she contemplated the certain approach of death, gave to hervoice that depth of tone and slight tremulousness of utterance whichsent her eloquent words home with thrilling power to every heart. Those who were walking in the corridor, or who were the occupants ofadjoining cells, often called for her to speak to them words ofencouragement and consolation. 

Standing upon a stool at the door of her own cell, she grasped withher hands the iron grating which separated her from her audience. Thiswas her tribune. The melodious accents of her voice floated along thelabyrinthine avenues of those dismal dungeons, penetrating cell aftercell, and arousing energy in hearts which had been abandoned todespair. It was, indeed, a strange scene which was thus witnessed inthese sepulchral caverns. The silence, as of the grave, reigned there, while the clear and musical tones of Madame Roland, as of an angel ofconsolation, vibrated through the rusty bars, and along the dark, dampcloisters. One who was at that time an inmate of the prison, andsurvived those dreadful scenes, has described, in glowing terms, thealmost miraculous effects of her soul-moving eloquence. She wasalready past the prime of life, but she was still fascinating. Combined with the most wonderful power of expression, she possessed avoice so exquisitely musical, that, long after her lips were silencedin death, its tones vibrated in lingering strains in the souls ofthose by whom they had ever been heard. The prisoners listened withthe most profound attention to her glowing words, and regarded heralmost as a celestial spirit, who had come to animate them to heroicdeeds. She often spoke of the Girondists who had already perished uponthe guillotine. With perfect fearlessness she avowed her friendshipfor them, and ever spoke of them as _our friends_. She, however, wascareful never to utter a word which would bring tears into the eye. She wished to avoid herself all the weakness of tender emotions, andto lure the thoughts of her companions away from every contemplationwhich could enervate their energies. 

Occasionally, in the solitude of her cell, as the image of her husbandand of her child rose before her, and her imagination dwelt upon herdesolated home and her blighted hopes--her husband denounced andpursued by lawless violence, and her child soon to be anorphan--woman's tenderness would triumph over the heroine's stoicism. Burying, for a moment, her face in her hands, she would burst into aflood of tears. Immediately struggling to regain composure, she wouldbrush her tears away, and dress her countenance in its accustomedsmiles. She remained in the Conciergerie but one week, and during thattime so endeared herself to all as to become the prominent object ofattention and love. Her case is one of the most extraordinary thehistory of the world has presented, in which the very highest degreeof heroism is combined with the most resistless charms of feminineloveliness. An unfeminine woman can never be _loved_ by men. She maybe respected for her talents, she may be honored for her philanthropy, but she can not win the warmer emotions of the heart. But MadameRoland, with an energy of will, an infallibility of purpose, afirmness of stoical endurance which no mortal man has ever exceeded, combined that gentleness, and tenderness, and affection--thatinstinctive sense of the proprieties of her sex--which gathered aroundher a love as pure and as enthusiastic as woman ever excited. Andwhile her friends, many of whom were the most illustrious men inFrance, had enthroned her as an idol in their hearts, the breath ofslander never ventured to intimate that she was guilty even of animpropriety. 

The day before her trial, her advocate, Chauveau de la Garde, visitedher to consult respecting her defense. She, well aware that no onecould speak a word in her favor but at the peril of his own life, andalso fully conscious that her doom was already sealed, drew a ringfrom her finger, and said to him, "To-morrow I shall be no more. I know the fate which awaits me. Yourkind assistance can not avail aught for me, and would but endangeryou. I pray you, therefore, not to come to the tribunal, but to acceptof this last testimony of my regard. "

The next day she was led to her trial. She attired herself in a whiterobe, as a symbol of her innocence, and her long dark hair fell inthick curls on her neck and shoulders. She emerged from her dungeon avision of unusual loveliness. The prisoners who were walking in thecorridors gathered around her, and with smiles and words ofencouragement she infused energy into their hearts. Calm andinvincible she met her judges. She was accused of the crimes of beingthe wife of M. Roland and the friend of his friends. Proudly sheacknowledged herself guilty of both those charges. Whenever sheattempted to utter a word in her defense, she was brow-beaten by thejudges, and silenced by the clamors of the mob which filled thetribunal. The mob now ruled with undisputed sway in both legislativeand executive halls. The serenity of her eye was untroubled, and thecomposure of her disciplined spirit unmoved, save by the exaltation ofenthusiasm, as she noted the progress of the trial, which was bearingher rapidly and resistlessly to the scaffold. It was, however, difficult to bring any accusation against her by which, under the formof law, she could be condemned. France, even in its darkest hour, wasrather ashamed to behead a woman, upon whom the eyes of all Europewere fixed, simply for being the _wife of her husband and the friendof his friends_. At last the president demanded of her that she shouldreveal her husband's asylum. She proudly replied, "I do not know of any law by which I can be obliged to violate thestrongest feelings of nature. " This was sufficient, and she wasimmediately condemned. Her sentence was thus expressed:

 "The public accuser has drawn up the present indictment against Jane Mary Phlippon, the wife of Roland, late Minister of the Interior for having wickedly and designedly aided and assisted in the conspiracy which existed against the unity and indivisibility of the Republic, against the liberty and safety of the French people, by assembling, at her house, in secret council, the principal chiefs of that conspiracy, and by keeping up a correspondence tending to facilitate their treasonable designs. The tribunal, having heard the public accuser deliver his reasons concerning the application of the law, condemns Jane Mary Phlippon, wife of Roland, to the punishment of death. "

She listened calmly to her sentence, and then, rising, bowed withdignity to her judges, and, smiling, said, "I thank you, gentlemen, for thinking me worthy of sharing the fate ofthe great men whom you have assassinated. I shall endeavor to imitatetheir firmness on the scaffold. "

With the buoyant step of a child, and with a rapidity which almostbetokened joy, she passed beneath the narrow portal, and descended toher cell, from which she was to be led, with the morning light, to abloody death. The prisoners had assembled to greet her on her return, and anxiously gathered around her. She looked upon them with a smileof perfect tranquillity, and, drawing her hand across her neck, madea sign expressive of her doom. But a few hours elapsed between hersentence and her execution. She retired to her cell, wrote a few wordsof parting to her friends, played, upon a harp which had found its wayinto the prison, her requiem, in tones so wild and mournful, that, floating, in the dark hours of the night, through those sepulchralcaverns, they fell like unearthly music upon the despairing soulsthere incarcerated. 

The morning of the 10th of November, 1793, dawned gloomily upon Paris. It was one of the darkest days of that reign of terror which, for solong a period, enveloped France in its somber shades. The ponderousgates of the court-yard of the Conciergerie opened that morning to along procession of carts loaded with victims for the guillotine. Madame Roland had contemplated her fate too long, and had disciplinedher spirit too severely, to fail of fortitude in this last hour oftrial. She came from her cell scrupulously attired for the bridal ofdeath. A serene smile was upon her cheek, and the glow of joyousanimation lighted up her features as she waved an adieu to the weepingprisoners who gathered around her. The last cart was assigned toMadame Roland. She entered it with a step as light and elastic as ifit were a carriage for a pleasant morning's drive. By her side stoodan infirm old man, M. La Marche. He was pale and trembling, and hisfainting heart, in view of the approaching terror, almost ceased tobeat. She sustained him by her arm, and addressed to him words ofconsolation and encouragement, in cheerful accents and with abenignant smile. The poor old man felt that God had sent an angel tostrengthen him in the dark hour of death. As the cart heavily rumbledalong the pavement, drawing nearer and nearer to the guillotine, twoor three times, by her cheerful words, she even caused a smile faintlyto play upon his pallid lips. 

The guillotine was now the principal instrument of amusement for thepopulace of Paris. It was so elevated that all could have a good viewof the spectacle it presented. To witness the conduct of nobles and ofladies, of boys and of girls, while passing through the horrors of asanguinary death, was far more exciting than the unreal and bombastictragedies of the theater, or the conflicts of the cock-pit and thebear garden. A countless throng flooded the streets, men, women, andchildren, shouting, laughing, execrating. The celebrity of MadameRoland, her extraordinary grace and beauty, and her aspect, not onlyof heroic fearlessness, but of joyous exhilaration, made her theprominent object of the public gaze. A white robe gracefully envelopedher perfect form, and her black and glossy hair, which for some reasonthe executioners had neglected to cut, fell in rich profusion to herwaist. A keen November blast swept the streets, under the influence ofwhich, and the excitement of the scene, her animated countenanceglowed with all the ruddy bloom of youth. She stood firmly in thecart, looking with a serene eye upon the crowds which lined thestreets, and listening with unruffled serenity to the clamor whichfilled the air. A large crowd surrounded the cart in which MadameRoland stood, shouting, "To the guillotine! to the guillotine!" Shelooked kindly upon them, and, bending over the railing of the cart, said to them, in tones as placid as if she were addressing her ownchild, "My friends, I _am_ going to the guillotine. In a few moments Ishall be there. They who send me thither will ere long follow me. I goinnocent. They will come stained with blood. You who now applaud ourexecution will then applaud theirs with equal zeal. "

Madame Roland had continued writing her memoirs until the hour inwhich she left her cell for the scaffold. When the cart had almostarrived at the foot of the guillotine, her spirit was so deeply movedby the tragic scene--such emotions came rushing in upon her soul fromdeparting time and opening eternity, that she could not repress thedesire to pen down her glowing thoughts. She entreated an officer tofurnish her for a moment with pen and paper. The request was refused. It is much to be regretted that we are thus deprived of that unwrittenchapter of her life. It can not be doubted that the words she wouldthen have written would have long vibrated upon the ear of a listeningworld. Soul-utterances will force their way over mountains, andvalleys, and oceans. Despotism can not arrest them. Time can notenfeeble them. 

The long procession arrived at the guillotine, and the bloody workcommenced. The victims were dragged from the carts, and the ax roseand fell with unceasing rapidity. Head after head fell into thebasket, and the pile of bleeding trunks rapidly increased in size. Theexecutioners approached the cart where Madame Roland stood by the sideof her fainting companion. With an animated countenance and acheerful smile, she was all engrossed in endeavoring to infusefortitude into his soul. The executioner grasped her by the arm. "Stay, " said she, slightly resisting his grasp; "I have one favor toask, and that is not for myself. I beseech you grant it me. " Thenturning to the old man, she said, "Do you precede me to the scaffold. To see my blood flow would make you suffer the bitterness of deathtwice over. I must spare you the pain of witnessing my execution. " Thestern officer gave a surly refusal, replying, "My orders are to takeyou first. " With that winning smile and that fascinating grace whichwere almost resistless, she rejoined, "You can not, surely, refuse awoman her last request. " The hard-hearted executor of the law wasbrought within the influence of her enchantment. He paused, looked ather for a moment in slight bewilderment, and yielded. The poor oldman, more dead than alive, was conducted upon the scaffold and placedbeneath the fatal ax. Madame Roland, without the slightest change ofcolor, or the apparent tremor of a nerve, saw the ponderousinstrument, with its glittering edge, glide upon its deadly mission, and the decapitated trunk of her friend was thrown aside to giveplace for her. With a placid countenance and a buoyant step, sheascended the platform. The guillotine was erected upon the vacant spotbetween the gardens of the Tuileries and the Elysian Fields, thenknown as the Place de la Revolution. This spot is now called the Placede la Concorde. It is unsurpassed by any other place in Europe. Twomarble fountains now embellish the spot. The blood-stained guillotine, from which crimson rivulets were ever flowing, then occupied the spaceupon which one of these fountains has been erected; and a clay statueto Liberty reared its hypocritical front where the Egyptian obelisknow rises. Madame Roland stood for a moment upon the elevatedplatform, looked calmly around upon the vast concourse, and thenbowing before the colossal statue, exclaimed, "O Liberty! Liberty! howmany crimes are committed in thy name. " She surrendered herself to theexecutioner, and was bound to the plank. The plank fell to itshorizontal position, bringing her head under the fatal ax. Theglittering steel glided through the groove, and the head of MadameRoland was severed from her body. 

[Illustration: EXECUTION OF MADAME ROLAND. ]

Thus died Madame Roland, in the thirty-ninth year of her age. Herdeath oppressed all who had known her with the deepest grief. Herintimate friend Buzot, who was then a fugitive, on hearing thetidings, was thrown into a state of perfect delirium, from which hedid not recover for many days. Her faithful female servant was sooverwhelmed with grief, that she presented herself before thetribunal, and implored them to let her die upon the same scaffoldwhere her beloved mistress had perished. The tribunal, amazed at suchtransports of attachment, declared that she was mad, and ordered herto be removed from their presence. A man-servant made the sameapplication, and was sent to the guillotine. 

The grief of M. Roland, when apprised of the event, was unbounded. Fora time he entirely lost his senses. Life to him was no longerendurable. He knew not of any consolations of religion. Philosophycould only nerve him to stoicism. Privately he left, by night, thekind friends who had hospitably concealed him for six months, andwandered to such a distance from his asylum as to secure hisprotectors from any danger on his account. Through the long hours ofthe winter's night he continued his dreary walk, till the first grayof the morning appeared in the east. Drawing a long stiletto from theinside of his walking-stick, he placed the head of it against thetrunk of a tree, and threw himself upon the sharp weapon. The pointpierced his heart, and he fell lifeless upon the frozen ground. Somepeasants passing by discovered his body. A piece of paper was pinnedto the breast of his coat, upon which there were written these words:"Whoever thou art that findest these remains, respect them as those ofa virtuous man. After hearing of my wife's death, I would not stayanother day in a world so stained with crime. "

The daughter of Madame Roland succeeded in escaping the fury of thetyrants of the Revolution. She lived surrounded by kind protectors, and in subsequent years was married to M. Champeneaux, the son of oneof her mother's intimate friends. 

Such was the wonderful career of Madame Roland. It is a history fullof instruction, and ever reminds us that truth is stranger thanfiction. 

 THE END. 

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors, and toensure consistent spelling and punctuation in this etext; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the original book. 

2. The sidenotes used in this text were originally published asbanners in the page headers, and have been collected at the beginningof each chapter for the reader's convenience.