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+Project Gutenberg's Madame Roland, Makers of History, by John S. C. Abbott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Madame Roland, Makers of History
+
+Author: John S. C. Abbott
+
+Release Date: March 30, 2009 [EBook #28445]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MADAME ROLAND, MAKERS OF HISTORY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ 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 of
+the French Revolution, that most instructive tragedy which time has
+yet enacted. There is, perhaps, contained in the memoirs of no other
+woman so much to invigorate the mind with the desire for high
+intellectual culture, and so much to animate the spirit heroically to
+meet all the ills of this eventful life. Notwithstanding her
+experience of the heaviest temporal calamities, she found, in the
+opulence of her own intellectual treasures, an unfailing resource.
+These inward joys peopled her solitude with society, and dispelled
+even from the dungeon its gloom. I know not where to look for a career
+more 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 PLATIERE                                                 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.--Gratien
+Phlippon.--His repinings at his lot.--Views of Phlippon.--His hostility
+to the Church.--Origin of the French Revolution.--Character of Madame
+Phlippon.--Birth of Jane Maria.--Adored by her parents.--Discontent
+of Phlippon.--His complainings to his child.--Early traits of
+character.--Love of books.--Jane's thirst for reading.--Her
+love of flowers.--Jane's personal appearance.--Thirst for
+knowledge.--Intellectual gifts.--A walk on the Boulevards.--Phlippon's
+talk to his child.--Youthful dreams.--Influence of Jane's parents
+over her.--Education in convents.--Jane sent to a convent.--Parting
+with her mother.--Madame Roland's account of her first night in
+the convent.--Jane's books of study.--Her proficiency in music and
+drawing.--Scenes in the convent.--Impressions made by them.--Poetic
+enthusiasms.--Taking the veil.--Taking the black veil.--Effect upon
+Jane.--Lofty aspirations.--Remark of Napoleon.--Jane's contempt of
+ease and luxury.--Her self-denial.
+
+
+Many characters of unusual grandeur were developed by the French
+Revolution. Among them all, there are few more illustrious, or more
+worthy of notice, than that of Madame Roland. The eventful story of
+her life contains much to inspire the mind with admiration and with
+enthusiasm, and to stimulate one to live worthily of those
+capabilities with which every human heart is endowed. No person can
+read the record of her lofty spirit and of her heroic acts without a
+higher appreciation of woman's power, and of the mighty influence one
+may wield, who combines the charms of a noble and highly-cultivated
+mind with the fascinations of female delicacy and loveliness. To
+understand 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 Gratien
+Phlippon. He had married a very beautiful woman, whose placid
+temperament and cheerful content contrasted strikingly with the
+restlessness and ceaseless repinings of her husband. The comfortable
+yet humble apartments of the engraver were over the shop where he
+plied his daily toil. He was much dissatisfied with his lowly
+condition in life, and that his family, in the enjoyment of frugal
+competence alone, were debarred from those luxuries which were so
+profusely showered upon others. Bitterly and unceasingly he murmured
+that his lot had been cast in the ranks of obscurity and of unsparing
+labor, while others, by a more fortunate, although no better merited
+destiny, were born to ease and affluence, and honor and luxury. This
+thought of the unjust inequality in man's condition, which soon broke
+forth with all the volcanic energy of the French Revolution, already
+began to ferment in the bosoms of the laboring classes, and no one
+pondered these wide diversities with a more restless spirit, or
+murmured more loudly and more incessantly than Phlippon. When the
+day's toil was ended, he loved to gather around him associates whose
+feelings harmonized with his own, and to descant upon their own
+grievous 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 own
+heart, he contrasted their doom of sleepless labor and of comparative
+penury with the brilliance of the courtly throng, living in idle
+luxury, and squandering millions in the amusements at Versailles, and
+sweeping in charioted splendor through the Champs Elysee.
+
+Phlippon was a philosopher, not a Christian. Submission was a virtue
+he had never learned, and never wished to learn. Christianity, as he
+saw it developed before him only in the powerful enginery of the Roman
+Catholic Church, was, in his view, but a formidable barrier against
+the liberty and the elevation of the people--a bulwark, bristling with
+superstition and bayonets, behind which nobles and kings were securely
+intrenched. He consequently became as hostile to the doctrines of the
+Church as he was to the institutions of the state. The monarch was,
+in his eye, a tyrant, and God a delusion. The enfranchisement of the
+people, in his judgment, required the overthrow of both the earthly
+and the celestial monarch. In these ideas, agitating the heart of
+Phlippon, behold the origin of the French Revolution. They were
+diffused in pamphlets and daily papers in theaters and _cafes_. They
+were urged by workmen in their shops, by students in their closets.
+They became the inspiring spirit of science in encyclopedias and
+reviews, and formed the chorus in all the songs of revelry and
+libertinism. These sentiments spread from heart to heart, through
+Paris, through the provinces, till France rose like a demon in its
+wrath, and the very globe trembled beneath its gigantic and indignant
+tread.
+
+Madame Phlippon was just the reverse of her husband. She was a woman
+in whom faith, and trust, and submission predominated. She surrendered
+her will, without questioning, to all the teachings of the Church of
+Rome. She was placid, contented, and cheerful, and, though uninquiring
+in her devotion, undoubtedly sincere in her piety. In every event of
+life she recognized the overruling hand of Providence, and feeling
+that the comparatively humble lot assigned her was in accordance with
+the will of God, she indulged in no repinings, and envied not the more
+brilliant destiny of lords and ladies. An industrious housewife, she
+hummed the hymns of contentment and peace from morning till evening.
+In the cheerful performance of her daily toil, she was ever pouring
+the balm of her peaceful spirit upon the restless heart of her spouse.
+Phlippon loved his wife, and often felt the superiority of her
+Christian temperament.
+
+Of eight children born to these parents, one only, Jeanne Manon, or
+_Jane Mary_, survived the hour of birth. Her father first received her
+to his arms in 1754, and she became the object of his painful and most
+passionate adoration. Her mother pressed the coveted treasure to her
+bosom with maternal love, more calm, and deep, and enduring. And now
+Jane became the central star in this domestic system. Both parents
+lived in her and for her. She was their earthly all. The mother wished
+to train her for the Church and for heaven, that she might become an
+angel and dwell by the throne of God. These bright hopes gilded a
+prayerful mother's hours of toil and care. The father bitterly
+repined. Why should his bright and beautiful child--who even in these
+her infantile years was giving indication of the most brilliant
+intellect--why should she be doomed to a life of obscurity and toil,
+while the garden of the Tuileries and the Elysian Fields were thronged
+with children, neither so beautiful nor so intelligent, who were
+reveling in boundless wealth, and living in a world of luxury and
+splendor which, to Phlippon's imagination, seemed more alluring than
+any idea he could form of heaven? These thoughts were a consuming
+fire in the bosom of the ambitious father. They burned with
+inextinguishable flame.
+
+The fond parent made the sprightly and fascinating child his daily
+companion. He led her by the hand, and confided to her infantile
+spirit all his thoughts, his illusions, his day-dreams. To her
+listening ear he told the story of the arrogance of nobles, of the
+pride of kings, and of the oppression by which he deemed himself
+unjustly doomed to a life of penury and toil. The light-hearted child
+was often weary of these complainings, and turned for relief to the
+placidity and cheerfulness of her mother's mind. Here she found
+repose--a soothing, calm, and holy submission. Still the gloom of her
+father's spirit cast a pensive shade over her own feelings, and
+infused a tone of melancholy and an air of unnatural reflection into
+her character. By nature, Jane was endowed with a soul of unusual
+delicacy. From early childhood, all that is beautiful or sublime in
+nature, in literature, in character, had charms to rivet her entranced
+attention. She loved to sit alone at her chamber window in the evening
+of a summer's day, to gaze upon the gorgeous hues of sunset. As her
+imagination roved through those portals of a brighter world, which
+seemed thus, through far-reaching vistas of glory, to be opened to
+her, she peopled the sun-lit expanse with the creations of her own
+fancy, and often wept in uncontrollable emotion through the influence
+of these gathering thoughts. Books of impassioned poetry, and
+descriptions of heroic character and achievements, were her especial
+delight. Plutarch's Lives, that book which, more than any other,
+appears to be the incentive of early genius, was hid beneath her
+pillow, and read and re-read with tireless avidity. Those illustrious
+heroes of antiquity became the companions of her solitude and of her
+hourly thoughts. She adored them and loved them as her own most
+intimate personal friends. Her character became insensibly molded to
+their forms, and she was inspired with restless enthusiasm to imitate
+their deeds. When but twelve years of age, her father found her, one
+day, weeping that she was not born a Roman maiden. Little did she then
+imagine that, by talent, by suffering, and by heroism, she was to
+display a character the history of which would eclipse the proudest
+narratives in Greek or Roman story.
+
+Jane appears never to have known the frivolity and thoughtlessness of
+childhood. Before she had entered the fourth year of her age she knew
+how to read. From that time her thirst for reading was so great, that
+her parents found no little difficulty in furnishing her with a
+sufficient supply. She not only read with eagerness every book which
+met her eye, but pursued this uninterrupted miscellaneous reading to
+singular advantage, treasuring up all important facts in her retentive
+memory. So entirely absorbed was she in her books, that the only
+successful mode of withdrawing her from them was by offering her
+flowers, of which she was passionately fond. Books and flowers
+continued, through all the vicissitudes of her life, even till the
+hour of her death, to afford her the most exquisite pleasure. She had
+no playmates, and thought no more of play than did her father and
+mother, who were her only and her constant companions. From infancy
+she was accustomed to the thoughts and the emotions of mature minds.
+In personal appearance she was, in earliest childhood and through
+life, peculiarly interesting rather than beautiful. As mature years
+perfected her features and her form, there was in the contour of her
+graceful figure, and her intellectual countenance, that air of
+thoughtfulness, of pensiveness, of glowing tenderness and delicacy,
+which gave her a power of fascination over all hearts. She sought not
+this power; she thought not of it; but an almost resistless attraction
+and persuasion accompanied all her words and actions.
+
+It was, perhaps, the absence of playmates, and the habitual converse
+with mature minds, which, at so early an age, inspired Jane with that
+insatiate thirst for knowledge which she ever manifested. Books were
+her only resource in every unoccupied hour. From her walks with her
+father, and her domestic employments with her mother, she turned to
+her little library and to her chamber window, and lost herself in the
+limitless realms of thought. It is often imagined that character is
+the 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 with
+which the soul may be endowed as it comes from the hand of the
+Creator, it surely is not difficult to perceive that the peculiar
+training through which the childhood of Jane was conducted was
+calculated to form the peculiar character which she developed.
+
+In a bright summer's afternoon she might be seen sauntering along the
+Boulevards, led by her father's hand, gazing upon that scene of gayety
+with which the eye is never wearied. A gilded coach, drawn by the most
+beautiful horses in the richest trappings, sweeps along the streets--a
+gorgeous vision. Servants in showy livery, and out-riders proudly
+mounted, invest the spectacle with a degree of grandeur, beneath which
+the imagination of a child sinks exhausted. Phlippon takes his little
+daughter in his arms to show her the sight, and, as she gazes in
+infantile wonder and delight, the discontented father says, "Look at
+that lord, and lady, and child, lolling so voluptuously in their
+coach. They have no right there. Why must I and my child walk on this
+hot pavement, while they repose on velvet cushions and revel in all
+luxury? Oppressive laws compel me to pay a portion of my hard earnings
+to support them in their pride and indolence. But a time will come
+when the people will awake to the consciousness of their wrongs, and
+their tyrants will tremble before them." He continues his walk in
+moody silence, brooding over his sense of injustice. They return to
+their home. Jane wishes that her father kept a carriage, and liveried
+servants and out-riders. She thinks of politics, and of the tyranny of
+kings and nobles, and of the unjust inequalities of man. She retires
+to the solitude of her loved chamber window, and reads of Aristides
+the Just, of Themistocles with his Spartan virtues, of Brutus, and of
+the mother of the Gracchi. Greece and Rome rise before her in all
+their ancient renown. She despises the frivolity of Paris, the
+effeminacy of the moderns, and her youthful bosom throbs with the
+desire of being noble in spirit and of achieving great exploits. Thus,
+when other children of her age were playing with their dolls, she was
+dreaming of the prostration of nobles and of the overthrow of
+thrones--of liberty, and fraternity, and equality among mankind.
+Strange dreams for a child, but still more strange in their
+fulfillment.
+
+The infidelity of her father and the piety of her mother contended,
+like counter currents of the ocean, in her bosom. Her active intellect
+and love of freedom sympathized with the speculations of the so-called
+philosopher. Her amiable and affectionate disposition and her pensive
+meditations led her to seek repose in the sublime conceptions and in
+the soul-soothing consolations of the Christian. Her parents were
+deeply interested in her education, and were desirous of giving her
+every advantage for securing the highest attainments. The education of
+young ladies, at that time, in France, was conducted almost
+exclusively by nuns in convents. The idea of the silence and solitude
+of the cloister inspired the highly-imaginative girl with a blaze of
+enthusiasm. Fondly as she loved her home, she was impatient for the
+hour to arrive when, with heroic self-sacrifice, she could withdraw
+from the world and its pleasures, and devote her whole soul to
+devotion, to meditation, and to study. Her mother's spirit of religion
+was exerting a powerful influence over her, and one evening she fell
+at her feet, and, bursting into tears, besought that she might be
+sent to a convent to prepare to receive her first Christian communion
+in a suitable frame of mind.
+
+The convent of the sisterhood of the Congregation in Paris was
+selected for Jane. In the review of her life which she subsequently
+wrote while immured in the dungeons of the Conciergerie, she says, in
+relation to this event, "While pressing my dear mother in my arms, at
+the moment of parting with her for the first time in my life, I
+thought my heart would have broken; but I was acting in obedience to
+the voice of God, and I passed the threshold of the cloister,
+tearfully offering up to him the greatest sacrifice I was capable of
+making. This was on the 7th of May, 1765, when I was eleven years and
+two months old. In the gloom of a prison, in the midst of political
+storms 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 and
+tranquillity I enjoyed at this period of my life? What lively colors
+can express the soft emotions of a young heart endued with tenderness
+and sensibility, greedy of happiness, beginning to be alive to the
+beauties of nature, and perceiving the Deity alone? The first night I
+spent in the convent was a night of agitation. I was no longer under
+the paternal roof. I was at a distance from that kind mother, who was
+doubtless thinking of me with affectionate emotion. A dim light
+diffused itself through the room in which I had been put to bed with
+four children of my own age. I stole softly from my couch, and drew
+near the window, the light of the moon enabling me to distinguish the
+garden, which it overlooked. The deepest silence prevailed around, and
+I listened to it, if I may use the expression, with a sort of respect.
+Lofty trees cast their gigantic shadows along the ground, and promised
+a secure asylum to peaceful meditation. I lifted up my eyes to the
+heavens; they were unclouded and serene. I imagined that I felt the
+presence of the Deity smiling upon my sacrifice, and already offering
+me a reward in the consolatory hope of a celestial abode. Tears of
+delight 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 assiduity
+she pursued her studies. Every hour of the day had its appropriate
+employment, and time flew upon its swiftest wings. Every book which
+fell in her way she eagerly perused, and treasured its knowledge or
+its 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 read
+and meditated upon by this young child. She had no taste for any
+childish amusements; and in the hours of recreation, when the mirthful
+girls around her were forgetting study and care in those games
+appropriate to their years, she would walk alone in the garden,
+admiring the flowers, and gazing upon the fleecy clouds in the sky. In
+all the beauties of nature her eye ever recognized the hand of God,
+and she ever took pleasure in those sublime thoughts of infinity and
+eternity which must engross every noble mind. Her teachers had but
+little to do. Whatever study she engaged in was pursued with such
+spontaneous zeal, that success had crowned her efforts before others
+had hardly made a beginning.
+
+In music and drawing she made great proficiency. She was even more
+fond of all that is beautiful and graceful in the accomplishments of a
+highly-cultivated mind, than in those more solid studies which she
+nevertheless pursued with so much energy and interest.
+
+The scenes which she witnessed in the convent were peculiarly
+calculated to produce an indelible impression upon a mind so
+imaginative. The chapel for prayer, with its somber twilight and its
+dimly-burning tapers; the dirges which the organ breathed upon the
+trembling ear; the imposing pageant of prayer and praise, with the
+blended costumes of monks and hooded nuns; the knell which tolled the
+requiem of a departed sister, as, in the gloom of night and by the
+light of torches, she was conveyed to her burial--all these
+concomitants of that system of pageantry, arranged so skillfully to
+impress the senses of the young and the imaginative, fanned to the
+highest elevation the flames of that poetic temperament she so
+eminently possessed.
+
+God thus became in Jane's mind a vision of poetic beauty. Religion was
+the inspiration of enthusiasm and of sentiment. The worship of the
+Deity was blended with all that was ennobling and beautiful. Moved by
+these glowing fancies, her susceptible spirit, in these tender years,
+turned away from atheism, from infidelity, from irreligion, as from
+that which was unrefined, revolting, vulgar. The consciousness of the
+presence of God, the adoration of his being, became a passion of her
+soul. This state of mind was poetry, not religion. It involved no
+sense of the spirituality of the Divine Law, no consciousness of
+unworthiness, no need of a Savior. It was an emotion sublime and
+beautiful, yet merely such an emotion as any one of susceptible
+temperament might feel when standing in the Vale of Chamouni at
+midnight, or when listening to the crash of thunder as the tempest
+wrecks the sky, or when one gazes entranced upon the fair face of
+nature in a mild and lovely morning of June, when no cloud appears in
+the blue canopy above us, and no breeze ruffles the leaves of the
+grove or the glassy surface of the lake, and the songs of birds and
+the perfume of flowers fill the air. Many mistake the highly poetic
+enthusiasm which such scenes excite for the spirit of piety.
+
+While Jane was an inmate of the convent, a very interesting young
+lady, from some disappointment weary of the world, took the veil. When
+one enters a convent with the intention of becoming a nun, she first
+takes the white veil, which is an expression of her intention, and
+thus enters the grade of a novice. During the period of her novitiate,
+which continues for several months, she is exposed to the severest
+discipline of vigils, and fastings, and solitude, and prayer, that
+she may distinctly understand the life of weariness and self-denial
+upon which she has entered. If, unintimidated by these hardships, she
+still persists in her determination, she then takes the black veil,
+and utters her solemn and irrevocable vows to bury herself in the
+gloom of the cloister, never again to emerge. From this step there is
+no return. The throbbing heart, which neither cowls nor veils can
+still, finds in the taper-lighted cell its living tomb, till it sleeps
+in death. No one with even an ordinary share of sensibility can
+witness a ceremony involving such consequences without the deepest
+emotion. The scene produced an effect upon the spirit of Jane which
+was never effaced. The wreath of flowers which crowned the beautiful
+victim; the veil enveloping her person; the solemn and dirge-like
+chant, the requiem of her burial to all the pleasures of sense and
+time; the pall which overspread her, emblematic of her consignment to
+a 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 novice
+was making appealed irresistibly to her admiration of the morally
+sublime. There was in that relinquishment of all the joys of earth a
+self-surrender to a passionless life of mortification, and penance,
+and prayer, an apparent heroism, which reminded Jane of her
+much-admired Roman maidens and matrons. She aspired with most romantic
+ardor to do, herself, something great and noble. While her sound
+judgment could not but condemn this abandonment of life, she was
+inspired with the loftiest enthusiasm to enter, in some worthy way,
+upon a life of endurance, of sacrifice, and of martyrdom. She felt
+that she was born for the performance of some great deeds, and she
+looked down with contempt upon all the ordinary vocations of every-day
+life. These were the dreams of a romantic girl. They were not,
+however, the fleeting visions of a sickly and sentimental mind, but
+the deep, soul-moving aspirations of one of the strongest intellects
+over which imagination has ever swayed its scepter. One is reminded by
+these early developments of character of the remark of Napoleon, when
+some 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 for
+renown, but for the inward consciousness of intellectual elevation, of
+moral sublimity, of heroism, had no influence, as is ordinarily the
+case with day-dreams, to give Jane a distaste for life's energetic
+duties. They did not enervate her character, or convert her into a
+mere visionary; on the contrary, they but roused and invigorated her
+to alacrity in the discharge of every duty. They led her to despise
+ease and luxury, to rejoice in self-denial, and to cultivate, to the
+highest possible degree, all her faculties of body and of mind, that
+she might be prepared for any possible destiny. Wild as, at times, her
+imaginings might have been, her most vivid fancy never could have
+pictured a career so extraordinary as that to which reality introduced
+her; and in all the annals of ancient story, she could find no record
+of sufferings and privations more severe than those which she was
+called upon to endure. And neither heroine nor hero of any age has
+shed greater luster upon human nature by the cheerful fortitude with
+which adversity has been braved.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+YOUTH.
+
+Convent life.--Its influence upon Jane.--Jane leaves the convent.--Her
+attachment to one of the nuns.--Jane partakes of the Lord's
+Supper.--Preparations for the solemnity.--Jane's delight in
+meditation.--Departure from the convent.--Jane goes to live with her
+grandmother.--Character of the latter.--Jane's intellectual
+progress.--Her father's delight.--Jane learns to engrave.--Her mother
+impatient for her return.--The visit to Madame De Boismorel.--Remarks
+of servants.--Appearance of Madame De Boismorel.--Her reception of the
+visitors.--Madame De Boismorel's volubility.--Jane's dignified
+rejoinders.--Jane's indignation.--She visits Versailles.--Jane's
+disgust at palace life.--She resorts to the gardens.--Characteristic
+remark.--Jane's meditations.--Jane returns home.--Her manner of
+reading.--Jane devotes herself to domestic duties.--She goes to
+market.--Jane's aptitude for domestic duties.--From the study to the
+kitchen.--Domestic education.--Dissolute lives of the Catholic
+clergy.--New emotions.--Insolence of the aristocracy.--Jane's
+indignation.--New acquaintances.--Jane's contempt for their ignorance
+and pride.--A noble but illiterate lady.--Deference paid to her.--Habits
+of reflection.
+
+
+The influence of those intense emotions which were excited in the
+bosom of Jane by the scenes which she witnessed in her childhood in
+the nunnery were never effaced from her imaginative mind. Nothing can
+be conceived more strongly calculated to impress the feelings of a
+romantic girl, than the poetic attractions which are thrown around the
+Roman Catholic religion by nuns, and cloisters, and dimly-lighted
+chapels, and faintly-burning tapers, and matins, and vespers, and
+midnight dirges. Jane had just the spirit to be most deeply captivated
+by such enchantments. She reveled in those imaginings which clustered
+in the dim shades of the cloister, in an ecstasy of luxurious
+enjoyment. The ordinary motives which influence young girls of her age
+seem to have had no control over her. Her joys were most highly
+intellectual and spiritual, and her aspirations were far above the
+usual conceptions of childhood. She, for a time, became entirely
+fascinated by the novel scenes around her, and surrendered her whole
+soul to the dominion of the associations with which she was engrossed.
+In subsequent years, by the energies of a vigorous philosophy, she
+disenfranchised her intellect from these illusions, and, proceeding to
+another extreme, wandered in the midst of the cheerless mazes of
+unbelief; but her fancy retained the traces of these early impressions
+until the hour of her death. Christianity, even when most heavily
+encumbered with earthly corruption, is infinitely preferable to no
+religion at all. Even papacy has never swayed so bloody a scepter as
+infidelity.
+
+Jane remained in the convent one year, and then, with deep regret,
+left the nuns, to whom she had become extremely attached. With one of
+the sisters, who was allied to the nobility, she formed a strong
+friendship, which continued through life. For many years she kept up a
+constant correspondence with this friend, and to this correspondence
+she attributes, in a great degree, that facility in writing which
+contributed so much to her subsequent celebrity. This letter-writing
+is one of the best schools of composition, and the parent who is
+emulous of the improvement of his children in that respect, will do
+all in his power to encourage the constant use of the pen in these
+familiar epistles. Thus the most important study, the study of the
+power of expression, is converted into a pleasure, and is pursued with
+an avidity which will infallibly secure success. It is a sad mistake
+to frown upon such efforts as a waste of time.
+
+While in the convent, she, for the first time, partook of the
+sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Her spirit was most deeply impressed
+and overawed by the sacredness of the ceremony. During several weeks
+previous to her reception of this solemn ordinance, by solitude,
+self-examination, and prayer, she endeavored to prepare herself for
+that sacred engagement, which she deemed the pledge of her union to
+God, and of her eternal felicity. When the hour arrived, her feelings
+were so intensely excited that she wept convulsively, and she was
+entirely incapable of walking to the altar. She was borne in the arms
+of two of the nuns. This depth of emotion was entirely unaffected, and
+secured 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 harmony
+with all the influences with which she was surrounded in the convent,
+and constituted the very soul of the piety of its inmates. She was
+encouraged by the commendations of all the sisters to deliver her mind
+up to the dominion of these day-dreams, with whose intoxicating power
+every heart is more or less familiar. She loved to retire to the
+solitude of the cloisters, when the twilight was deepening into
+darkness, and alone, with measured steps, to pace to and fro,
+listening to the monotonous echoes of her own footfall, which alone
+disturbed the solemn silence. At the tomb of a departed sister she
+would often linger, and, indulging in those melancholy meditations
+which had for her so many charms, long for her own departure to the
+bosom of her heavenly Father, where she might enjoy that perfect
+happiness for which, at times, her spirit glowed with such intense
+aspirations.
+
+At the close of the year Jane left the peaceful retreat where she had
+enjoyed so much, and where she had received so many impressions never
+to be effaced. Her parents, engrossed with care, were unable to pay
+that attention to their child which her expanding mind required, and
+she was sent to pass her thirteenth year with her paternal grandmother
+and her aunt Angelieu. Her grandmother was a dignified lady of much
+refinement of mind and gracefulness of demeanor, who laid great stress
+upon all the courtesies of life and the elegances of manners and
+address. Her aunt was gentle and warm-hearted, and her spirit was
+deeply imbued with that humble and docile piety, which has so often
+shone out with pure luster even through all the encumbrances of the
+Roman Catholic Church. With them she spent a year, in a seclusion from
+the world almost as entire as that which she found in the solitude of
+the convent. An occasional visit to her parents, and to her old
+friends the nuns, was all that interrupted the quiet routine of daily
+duties. Books continued still her employment and her delight. Her
+habits of reverie continued unbroken. Her lofty dreams gained a daily
+increasing ascendency over her character.
+
+She thus continued to dwell in the boundless regions of the intellect
+and the affections. Even the most commonplace duties of life were
+rendered attractive to her by investing them with a mysterious
+connection with her own limitless being. Absorbed in her own thoughts,
+ever communing with herself, with nature, with the Deity, as the
+object of her highest sentiment and aspirations, though she did not
+despise those of a more humble mental organization, she gave them not
+a thought. The evening twilight of every fine day still found her at
+her chamber window, admiring the glories of the setting sun, and
+feeding her impassioned spirit with those visions of future splendor
+and happiness which the scene appeared to reveal. She fancied she
+could almost see the wings of angels gleaming in the purple sunlight.
+Through those gorgeous avenues, where clouds were piled on golden
+clouds, she imagined, far away, the mansions of the blessed. These
+emotions glowing within her, gave themselves utterance in prayers
+earnest and ardent, while the tears of irrepressible feeling filled
+her eyes as she thought of that exalted Being, so worthy of her pure
+and intensest homage.
+
+The father of Jane was delighted with all these indications of a
+marked and elevated character, and did all in his power to stimulate
+her to greater zeal in her lofty studies and meditations. Jane became
+his idol, and the more her imaginative mind became imbued with the
+spirit of romantic aspirations, the better was he pleased. The ardor
+of her zeal enabled her to succeed in every thing which she undertook.
+Invincible industry and energy were united with these dreams. She was
+ambitious of knowing every thing; and when her father placed in her
+hands the _burin_, wishing to teach her to engrave, she immediately
+acquired such skill as to astonish both of her parents. And she
+afterward passed many pleasant hours in engraving, on highly-polished
+plates of brass, beautiful emblems of flowers as tokens of affection
+for her friends.
+
+The mother of Jane, with far better judgment, endeavored to call back
+her daughter from that unreal world in which she loved to dwell, and
+to interest her in the practical duties of life. She began to be
+impatient for her return home, that she might introduce her to those
+household employments, the knowledge of which is of such unspeakable
+importance to every lady. In this she was far from being unsuccessful;
+for while Jane continued to dream in accordance with the encouragement
+of her father, she also cordially recognized the good sense of her
+mother's counsels, and held herself ever in readiness to co-operate
+with her in all her plans.
+
+[Illustration: THE VISIT.]
+
+A little incident which took place at this time strikingly illustrates
+the reflective maturity which her character had already acquired.
+Before the French Revolution, the haughty demeanor of the nobility of
+France assumed such an aspect as an American, at the present day, can
+but feebly conceive. One morning, the grandmother of Jane, a woman of
+dignity and cultivated mind, took her to the house of Madame De
+Boismorel, a lady of noble rank, whose children she had partly
+educated. It was a great event, and Jane was dressed with the utmost
+care to visit the aristocratic mansion. The aspiring girl, with no
+disposition to come down to the level of those beneath her, and with
+still less willingness to do homage to those above her, was entirely
+unconscious of the mortifying condescension with which she was to be
+received. The porter at the door saluted Madame Phlippon with
+politeness, and all the servants whom she met in the hall addressed
+her with civility. She replied to each with courtesy and with dignity.
+The grandmother was proud of her grand-daughter, and the servants paid
+the young lady many compliments. The instinctive pride of Jane took
+instant alarm. She felt that _servants_ had no right to presume to pay
+_her_ compliments--that they were thus assuming that she was upon
+their level. Alas! for poor human nature. All love to ascend. Few
+are willing to favor equality by stepping down. A tall footman
+announced them at the door of the magnificent saloon. All the
+furnishing and arrangements of this aristocratic apartment were
+calculated to dazzle the eye and bewilder the mind of one unaccustomed
+to such splendor. Madame De Boismorel, dressed with the most
+ostentatious display of wealth, was seated upon an ottoman, in stately
+dignity, employing her fingers with fancy needle-work. Her face was
+thickly covered with rouge, and, as her guests were announced, she
+raised her eyes from her embroidery, and fixing a cold and unfeeling
+glance upon them, without rising to receive them, or even making the
+slightest inclination of her body, in a very patronizing and
+condescending tone said to the grandmother,
+
+"Ah! _Miss_ Phlippon, good morning to you!"
+
+Jane, who was far from pleased with her reception in the hall, was
+exceedingly displeased with her reception in the saloon. The pride of
+the Roman maiden rose in her bosom, and indignantly she exclaimed to
+herself, "So my grandmother is called _Miss_ in this house!"
+
+"I am very glad to see you," continued Madame De Boismorel; "and who
+is this fine girl? your grand-daughter, I suppose? She will make a
+very pretty woman. Come here, my dear. Ah! I see she is a little
+bashful. How old is your grand-daughter, Miss Phlippon? Her complexion
+is rather brown, to be sure, but her skin is clear, and will grow
+fairer 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 from
+the floor, she said, "What a beautiful hand you have got. That hand
+must 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 so
+full-toned! But how grave she is! Pray, my dear, are you not a little
+of 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 the
+veil, do you not?"
+
+"I do not know what may be my destination, neither am I at present
+anxious to conjecture it."
+
+"How very sententious!" Madame De Boismorel replied. "Your
+grand-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 that
+she does not turn author. That would be a pity indeed."
+
+During this conversation the cheeks of Jane were flushed with wounded
+pride, and her heart throbbed most violently. She felt indignant and
+degraded, and was exceedingly impatient to escape from the humiliating
+visit. Conscious that she was, in spirit, in no respect inferior to
+the maidens of Greece and Rome who had so engrossed her admiration,
+she as instinctively recoiled from the arrogance of the haughty
+occupant of the parlor as she had repelled the affected equality of
+the servants in the hall.
+
+A short time after this she was taken to pass a week at the luxurious
+abodes of Maria Antoinette. Versailles was in itself a city of palaces
+and of courtiers, where all that could dazzle the eye in regal pomp
+and princely voluptuousness was concentered. Most girls of her age
+would have been enchanted and bewildered by this display of royal
+grandeur. Jane was permitted to witness, and partially to share, all
+the pomp of luxuriously-spread tables, and presentations, and court
+balls, and illuminations, and the gilded equipages of embassadors and
+princes. But this maiden, just emerging from the period of childhood
+and 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 contrasted
+the boundless profusion and extravagance which filled these palaces
+with the absence of comfort in the dwellings of the over-taxed poor,
+and pondered deeply the value of that regal despotism, which starved
+the millions to pander to the dissolute indulgence of the few. Her
+personal pride was also severely stung by perceiving that her own
+attractions, mental and physical, were entirely overlooked by the
+crowds which were bowing before the shrines of rank and power. She
+soon became weary of the painful spectacle. Disgusted with the
+frivolity of the living, she sought solace for her wounded feelings in
+companionship with the illustrious dead. She chose the gardens for her
+resort, and, lingering around the statues which embellished these
+scenes of almost fairy enchantment, surrendered herself to the luxury
+of those oft-indulged dreams, which lured her thoughts away from the
+trivialities 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 see
+that 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 this
+philosopher of thirteen.
+
+Thus early did she commence her political meditations, and here were
+planted the germs of that enthusiasm which subsequently nerved her to
+such exertions for the disenthralment of the people, and the
+establishment of republican power upon the ruin of the throne of the
+Bourbons. She thought of the ancient republics, encircled by a halo of
+visionary glory, and of the heroes and heroines who had been the
+martyrs of liberty; or, to use her own energetic language, "I sighed
+at the recollection of Athens, where I could have enjoyed the fine
+arts without being annoyed at the sight of despotism. I was out of
+all patience at being a French-woman. Enchanted with the golden period
+of the Grecian republic, I passed over the storms by which it had been
+agitated. I forgot the exile of Aristides, the death of Socrates, and
+the condemnation of Phocion. I little thought that Heaven reserved me
+to be a witness of similar errors, to profess the same principles, and
+to participate in the glory of the same persecutions."
+
+Soon after Jane had entered her fourteenth year, she left her
+grandmother's and returned to her parental home. Her father, though
+far from opulence, was equally removed from poverty, and, without
+difficulty, provided his family with a frugal competence. Jane now
+pursued her studies and her limitless reading with unabated ardor. Her
+mind, demanding reality and truth as basis for thought, in the
+developments of character as revealed in biography, in the rise and
+fall of empires as portrayed in history, in the facts of science, and
+in the principles of mental and physical philosophy, found its
+congenial aliment. She accustomed herself to read with her pen in her
+hand, taking copious abstracts of facts and sentiments which
+particularly interested her. Not having a large library of her own,
+many of the books which she read were borrowed, and she carefully
+extracted from them and treasured in her commonplace book those
+passages which particularly interested her, that she might read them
+again and again. With these abstracts and extracts there were freely
+intermingled her own reflections, and thus all that she read was
+carefully stored up in her own mind and became a portion of her own
+intellectual being.
+
+Jane's mother, conscious of the importance to her child of a knowledge
+of domestic duties, took her to the market to obtain meat and
+vegetables, and occasionally placed upon her the responsibility of
+most of the family purchases; and yet the unaffected, queenly dignity
+with which the imaginative girl yielded herself to these most useful
+yet prosaic avocations was such, that when she entered the market, the
+fruit-women hastened to serve her before the other customers. The
+first comers, instead of being offended by this neglect, stepped
+aside, struck by those indescribable indications of superiority which
+ever gave her such a resistless influence over other minds. It is
+quite remarkable that Jane, apparently, never turned with repugnance
+from these humble avocations of domestic life. It speaks most highly
+in behalf of the intelligence and sound judgment of her mother, that
+she was enabled thus successfully to allure her daughter from her
+proud imaginings and her realms of romance to those unattractive
+practical duties which our daily necessities demand. At one hour, this
+ardent and impassioned maiden might have been seen in her little
+chamber absorbed in studies of deepest research. The highest themes
+which can elevate or engross the mind of man claimed her profound and
+delighted reveries. The next hour she might be seen in the kitchen,
+under the guidance of her placid and pious mother, receiving from her
+judicious lips lessons upon frugality, and industry, and economy. The
+white apron was bound around her waist, and her hands, which, but a
+few moments before, were busy with the circles of the celestial globe,
+were now occupied in preparing vegetables for dinner. There was thus
+united in the character of Jane the appreciation of all that is
+beautiful, chivalric, and sublime in the world of fact and the world
+of imagination, and also domestic skill and practical common sense.
+She was thus prepared to fascinate by the graces and elegances of a
+refined and polished mind, and to create for herself, in the midst of
+all the vicissitudes of life, a region of loveliness in which her
+spirit could ever dwell; and, at the same time, she possessed that
+sagacity and tact, and those habits of usefulness, which prepared her
+to meet calmly all the changes of fortune, and over them all to
+triumph. With that self-appreciation, the expression of which, with
+her, was frankness rather than vanity, she subsequently writes, "This
+mixture of serious studies, agreeable relaxations, and domestic cares,
+was rendered pleasant by my mother's good management, and fitted me
+for every thing. It seemed to forebode the vicissitudes of future
+life, and enabled me to bear them. In every place I am at home. I can
+prepare 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 I
+ought to be employed."
+
+Jane was thus prepared by Providence for that career which she
+rendered so illustrious through her talents and her sufferings. At
+this early period there were struggling in her bosom those very
+emotions which soon after agitated every mind in France, and which
+overthrew in chaotic ruin both the altar and the throne. The
+dissolute lives of many of the Catholic clergy, and their indolence
+and luxury, began to alarm her faith. The unceasing denunciations of
+her father gave additional impulse to every such suggestion. She could
+not but see that the pride and power of the state were sustained by
+the superstitious terrors wielded by the Church. She could not be
+blind to the trickery by which money was wrested from tortured
+consciences, and from ignorance, imbecility, and dotage. She could not
+but admire her mother's placid piety, neither could she conceal from
+herself that her faith was feeling, her principles sentiments. Deeply
+as her own feelings had been impressed in the convent, and much as she
+loved the gentle sisters there, she sought in vain for a foundation
+for the gigantic fabric of spiritual dominion towering above her. She
+looked upon the gorgeous pomp of papal worship, with its gormandizing
+pastors and its starving flocks, with its pageants to excite the sense
+and to paralyze the mind, with its friars and monks loitering in sloth
+and uselessness, and often in the grossest dissipation, and her reason
+gradually began to condemn it as a gigantic superstition for the
+enthrallment of mankind. Still, the influence of Christian sentiments,
+like a guardian angel, ever hovered around her, and when her
+bewildered mind was groping amid the labyrinths of unbelief, her
+_heart_ still clung to all that is pure in Christian morals, and to
+all that is consolatory in the hopes of immortality; and even when
+benighted in the most painful atheistic doubts, _conscience_ became
+her deity; its voice she most reverently obeyed.
+
+She turned from the Church to the state. She saw the sons and the
+daughters of aristocratic pride, glittering in gilded chariots, and
+surrounded by insolent menials, sweep by her, through the Elysian
+Fields, while she trod the dusty pathway. Her proud spirit revolted,
+more and more, at the apparent injustice. She had studied the
+organization of society. She was familiar with the modes of popular
+oppression. She understood the operation of that system of taxes, so
+ingeniously devised to sink the mass of the people in poverty and
+degradation, that princes and nobles might revel in voluptuous
+splendor. Indignation nerved her spirit as she reflected upon the
+usurpation thus ostentatiously displayed. The seclusion in which she
+lived encouraged deep musings upon these vast inequalities of life.
+Piety had not taught her submission. Philosophy had not yet taught her
+the 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 courtly
+splendor they swept by the plebeian maiden, enveloping her in the dust
+of their chariots, that her voice would yet aid to upheave their
+castles from their foundations, and whelm the monarchy and the
+aristocracy of France in one common ruin.
+
+At this time circumstances brought her in contact with several ladies
+connected with noble families. The ignorance of these ladies, their
+pride, their arrogance, excited in Jane's mind deep contempt. She
+could not but feel her own immeasurable superiority over them, and yet
+she perceived with indignation that the accident of birth invested
+them with a factitious dignity, which enabled them to look down upon
+her with condescension. A lady of noble birth, who had lost fortune
+and friends through the fraud and dissipation of those connected with
+her, came to board for a short time in her father's family. This lady
+was forty years of age, insufferably proud of her pedigree, and in her
+manners stiff and repulsive. She was exceedingly illiterate and
+uninformed, being unable to write a line with correctness, and having
+no knowledge beyond that which may be picked up in the ball-room and
+the theater. There was nothing in her character to win esteem. She was
+trying, by a law-suit, to recover a portion of her lost fortune. Jane
+wrote petitions for her, and letters, and sometimes went with her to
+make interest with persons whose influence would be important. She
+perceived that, notwithstanding her deficiency in every personal
+quality to inspire esteem or love, she was treated, in consequence of
+her birth, with the most marked deference. Whenever she mentioned the
+names of her high-born ancestry--and those names were ever upon her
+lips--she was listened to with the greatest respect. Jane contrasted
+the reception which this illiterate descendant of nobility enjoyed
+with the reception which her grandmother encountered in the visit to
+Madame De Boismorel, and it appeared to her that the world was
+exceedingly unjust, and that the institutions of society were highly
+absurd. Thus was her mind training for activity in the arena of
+revolution. She was pondering deeply all the abuses of society. She
+had become enamored of the republican liberty of antiquity. She was
+ready to embrace with enthusiasm any hopes of change. All the games
+and amusements of girlhood appeared to her frivolous, as, day after
+day, her whole mental powers were engrossed by these profound
+contemplations, and by aspirations for the elevation of herself and of
+mankind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+MAIDENHOOD.
+
+1770-1775
+
+First emotions of love.--A youthful artist.--Maiden timidity.--Number
+of suitors.--Jane as a letter writer.--Her sentiments adopted by
+the French ministry.--A rich meat merchant proposes for Jane's
+hand.--Conversation between Jane and her father about
+matrimony.--Views of Jane in regard to marriage.--Jane's objections
+to a tradesman.--She is immovable.--The young physician as a
+lover.--Curious interview.--The physician taken on trial.--The
+connection broken off.--Illness of Jane's mother.--The jeweler.--Jane's
+views of congeniality between man and wife.--Her mother's death.--Jane's
+father becomes dissipated.--Meekness of her mother.--Excursion to
+the country.--Delusive hopes.--Death of Madame Phlippon.--Effects
+upon Jane.--Recovery of Jane.--Character of her mother.--Jane's
+melancholy.--She resorts to writing.--Development of character.--Letter
+from M. Boismorel.--Reply to M. De Boismorel.--Translation.--Character
+of M. De Boismorel.--Jane introduced to the nobility.--Jane's contempt
+for the aristocracy.--Her good taste.--M. Phlippon's progress
+in dissipation.--Jane's painful situation.--Jane secures a small
+income.--Consolations of literature.
+
+
+A soul so active, so imaginative, and so full of feeling as that of
+Jane, could not long slumber unconscious of the emotion of love. In
+the unaffected and touching narrative which she gives of her own
+character, in the Journal which she subsequently wrote in the gloom of
+a prison, she alludes to the first rising of that mysterious passion
+in her bosom. With that frankness which ever marked her character, she
+describes the strange fluttering of her heart, the embarrassment, the
+attraction, and the instinctive diffidence she experienced when in the
+presence of a young man who had, all unconsciously, interested her
+affections. It seems that there was a youthful painter named Taboral,
+of pale, and pensive, and intellectual countenance--an artist with
+soul-inspired enthusiasm beaming from his eye--who occasionally called
+upon 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, and
+dwelt, a welcome guest, in her castles in the air. The diffident young
+man, with all the sensitiveness of genius, could not speak to the
+daughter, of whose accomplishments the father was so justly proud,
+without blushing like a girl. When Jane heard him in the shop, she
+always contrived to make some errand to go in. There was a pencil or
+something else to be sought for. But the moment she was in the
+presence of Taboral, instinctive embarrassment drove her away, and she
+retired more rapidly than she entered, and with a palpitating heart
+ran 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 vigorous
+and intellectual, and her tastes led her far away from those
+enervating love-dreams in which a weaker mind would have indulged. A
+young lady so fascinating in mind and person could not but attract
+much attention. Many suitors began to appear, one after another, but
+she manifested no interest in any of them. The customs of society in
+France were such at that time, that it was difficult for any one who
+sought the hand of Jane to obtain an introduction to her.
+Consequently, the expedient was usually adopted of writing first to
+her parents. These letters were always immediately shown to Jane. She
+judged of the character of the writer by the character of the
+epistles. Her father, knowing her intellectual superiority, looked to
+her as his secretary to reply to all these letters. She consequently
+wrote the answers, which her father carefully copied, and sent in his
+own name. She was often amused with the gravity with which she, as the
+father of herself, with parental prudence discussed her own interests.
+In subsequent years she wrote to kings and to cabinets in the name of
+her husband; and the sentiments which flowed from her pen, adopted by
+the ministry of France as their own, guided the councils of nations.
+
+Her father, regarding commerce as the source of wealth, and wealth as
+the source of power and dignity, was very anxious that his daughter
+should accept some of the lucrative offers she was receiving from
+young men of the family acquaintance who were engaged in trade. But
+Jane had no such thought. Her proud spirit revolted from such a
+connection. From her sublimated position among the ancient heroes,
+and her ambitious aspirings to dwell in the loftiest regions of
+intellect, she could not think of allying her soul with those whose
+energies were expended in buying and selling; and she declared that
+she would have no husband but one with whom she could cherish
+congenial sympathies.
+
+At one time a rich meat merchant of the neighborhood solicited her
+hand. Her father, allured by his wealth, was very anxious that his
+daughter should accept the offer. In reply to his urgency Jane firmly
+replied,
+
+"I can not, dear father, descend from my noble imaginings. What I want
+in a husband is a _soul_, not a _fortune_. I will die single rather
+than prostitute my own mind in a union with a being with whom I have
+no sympathies. Brought up from my infancy in connection with the great
+men of all ages--familiar with lofty ideas and illustrious
+examples--have I lived with Plato, with all the philosophers, all the
+poets, all the politicians of antiquity, merely to unite myself with a
+shop-keeper, who will neither appreciate nor feel any thing as I do?
+Why have you suffered me, father, to contract these intellectual
+habits and tastes, if you wish me to form such an alliance? I know not
+whom I may marry; but it must be one who can share my thoughts and
+sympathize with my pursuits."
+
+"But, my daughter, there are many men of business who have extensive
+information and polished manners."
+
+"That may be," Jane answered, "but they do not possess the kind of
+information, and the character of mind, and the intellectual tastes
+which I wish any one who is my husband to possess."
+
+"Do you not suppose," rejoined her father, "that Mr. ---- and his wife
+are 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 my
+own heart is not fixed on riches. I conceive that the strictest union
+of affection is requisite to conjugal felicity. I can not connect
+myself with any man whose tastes and sympathies are not in accordance
+with my own. My husband must be my superior. Since both nature and the
+laws give him the pre-eminence, I should be ashamed if he did not
+really deserve it."
+
+"I suppose, then, you want a counselor for your husband. But ladies
+are seldom happy with these learned gentlemen. They have a great deal
+of pride, and very little money."
+
+"Father," Jane earnestly replied, "I care not about the profession. I
+wish 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 in
+your own parlor while your husband is accumulating a fortune. Now
+there is Madame Dargens: she understands diamonds as well as her
+husband. She can make good bargains in his absence, and could carry on
+all his business perfectly well if she were left a widow. You are
+intelligent. You perfectly understand that branch of business since
+you studied the treatise on precious stones. You might do whatever you
+please. You would have led a very happy life if you could but have
+fancied Delorme, Dabrieul, or--"
+
+"Father," earnestly exclaimed Jane, "I have discovered that the only
+way to make a fortune in trade is by selling dear that which has been
+bought cheap; by overcharging the customer, and beating down the poor
+workman. I could never descend to such practices; nor could I respect
+a 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 not
+large; and among them I am not likely to find a husband who will
+sympathize with me."
+
+"And what will you do if you do not find the idol of your
+imagination?"
+
+"I will live single."
+
+"Perhaps you will not find that as pleasant as you imagine. You may
+think 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 the
+injustice which would deprive me of it."
+
+"Oh! now you are in the clouds again, my child. It is very pleasant to
+soar to such a height, but it is not easy to keep the elevation."
+
+The judicious mother of Jane, anxious to see her daughter settled in
+life, endeavored to form a match for her with a young physician. Much
+maneuvering was necessary to bring about the desired result. The young
+practitioner was nothing loth to lend his aid. The pecuniary
+arrangements were all made, and the bargain completed, before Jane
+knew any thing of the matter. The mother and daughter went out one
+morning to make a call upon a friend, at whose house the prospective
+husband of Jane, by previous appointment, was accidentally to be. It
+was a curious interview. The friends so overacted their part, that
+Jane immediately saw through the plot. Her mother was pensive and
+anxious. Her friends were voluble, and prodigal of sly intimations.
+The young gentleman was very lavish of his powers of pleasing, loaded
+Jane with flippant compliments, devoured confectionary with high
+relish, and chattered most flippantly in the most approved style of
+fashionable inanition. The high-spirited girl had no idea of being
+thus disposed of in the matrimonial bazaar. The profession of the
+doctor was pleasing to her, as it promised an enlightened mind, and
+she was willing to consent to make his acquaintance. Her mother urged
+her to decide at once.
+
+"What, mother!" she exclaimed, "would you have me take one for my
+husband upon the strength of a single interview?"
+
+"It is not exactly so," she replied. "This young gentleman's intimacy
+with our friends enables us to judge of his conduct and way of life.
+We know his disposition. These are the main points. You have attained
+the proper age to be settled in the world. You have refused many
+offers from tradesmen, and it is from that class alone that you are
+likely to receive addresses. You seem fully resolved never to marry a
+man in business. You may never have another such offer. The present
+match is very eligible in every external point of view. Beware how you
+reject it too lightly."
+
+Jane, thus urged, consented to see the young physician at her father's
+house, 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 saved
+all further trouble in the matter by a dispute which arose between her
+lover and her father respecting the pecuniary arrangements, and which
+broke off all further connection between the parties.
+
+Her mother's health now began rapidly to decline. A stroke of palsy
+deprived her of her accustomed elasticity of spirits, and, secluding
+herself from society, she became silent and sad. In view of
+approaching death, she often lamented that she could not see her
+daughter well married before she left the world. An offer which Jane
+received from a very honest, industrious, and thrifty jeweler, aroused
+anew a mother's maternal solicitude.
+
+"Why," she exclaimed, with melancholy earnestness, "will you reject
+this young man? He has an amiable disposition, and high reputation for
+integrity and sobriety. He is already in easy circumstances, and is in
+a fair way of soon acquiring a brilliant fortune. He knows that you
+have a superior mind. He professes great esteem for you, and will be
+proud of following your advice. You might lead him in any way you
+like."
+
+"But, my dear mother, I do not want a husband who is to be led. He
+would 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 do
+you think you would like a husband who was your master and tyrant?"
+
+"I certainly," Jane replied, "should not like a man who assumed airs
+of authority, for that would only provoke me to resist. But I am sure
+that I could never love a husband whom it was necessary for me to
+govern. I should be ashamed of my own power."
+
+"I understand you, Jane. You would like to have a man _think_ himself
+the master, while he obeyed you in every particular."
+
+"No, mother, it is not that either. I hate servitude; but empire would
+only embarrass me. I wish to gain the affections of a man who would
+make his happiness consist in contributing to mine, as his good sense
+and regard for me should dictate."
+
+"But, my daughter, there would be hardly such a thing in the world as
+a happy couple, if happiness could not exist without that perfect
+congeniality of taste and opinions which you imagine to be so
+necessary."
+
+"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 may
+be some far preferable to remaining always single. I may be called out
+of the world sooner than you imagine. Your father is still young. I
+can not tell you all the disagreeable things my fondness for you makes
+me fear. I should be indeed happy, could I see you united to some
+worthy man before I die."
+
+This was the first time that the idea of her mother's death ever
+seriously entered the mind of Jane. With an eager gaze, she fixed her
+eye upon her pale and wasted cheek and her emaciate frame, and the
+dreadful truth, with the suddenness of a revelation, burst upon her.
+Her whole frame shook with emotion, and she burst into a flood of
+tears. Her mother, much moved, tried to console her.
+
+"Do not be alarmed, my dear child," said she, tenderly. "I am not
+dangerously ill. But in forming our plans, we should take into
+consideration all chances. A worthy man offers you his hand. You have
+now attained your twentieth year. You can not expect as many suitors
+as you have had for the last five years. I may be suddenly taken from
+you. Do not, then, reject a husband who, it is true, has not all the
+refinement you could desire, but who will love you, and with whom you
+can be happy."
+
+"Yes, my dear mother," exclaimed Jane, with a deep and impassioned
+sigh, "as happy as _you_ have been."
+
+The expression escaped her in the excitement of the moment. Never
+before had she ventured in the remotest way to allude to the total
+want of congeniality which she could not but perceive existed between
+her father and her mother. Indeed, her mother's character for patience
+and placid submission was so remarkable, that Jane did not know how
+deeply she had suffered, nor what a life of martyrdom she was leading.
+The effect of Jane's unpremeditated remark opened her eyes to the sad
+reality. Her mother was greatly disconcerted. Her cheek changed color.
+Her lip trembled. She made no reply. She never again opened her lips
+upon the subject of the marriage of her child.
+
+The father of Jane, with no religious belief to control his passions
+or guide his conduct, was gradually falling into those habits of
+dissipation to which he was peculiarly exposed by the character of the
+times. He neglected his business. He formed disreputable
+acquaintances. He became irritable and domineering over his wife, and
+was often absent from home, with convivial clubs, until a late hour of
+the night. Neither mother nor daughter ever uttered one word to each
+other in reference to the failings of the husband and father. Jane,
+however, had so powerful an influence over him, that she often, by her
+persuasive skill, averted the storm which was about to descend upon
+her meek and unresisting parent.
+
+The poor mother, in silence and sorrow, was sinking to the tomb far
+more rapidly than Jane imagined. One summer's day, the father, mother,
+and daughter took a short excursion into the country. The day was warm
+and beautiful. In a little boat they glided over the pleasant waters
+of the Seine, feasting their eyes with the beauties of nature and art
+which fringed the shores. The pale cheek of the dying wife became
+flushed with animation as she once again breathed the invigorating air
+of the country, and the daughter beguiled her fears with the delusive
+hope that it was the flush of returning health. When they reached
+their home, Madame Phlippon, fatigued with the excursion, retired to
+her chamber for rest. Jane, accompanied by her maid, went to the
+convent to call upon her old friends the nuns. She made a very short
+call.
+
+"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 of
+solicitude 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, who
+informed her that her mother was very dangerously ill. She flew to the
+room, and found her almost lifeless. Another stroke of paralysis had
+done its work, and she was dying. She raised her languid eyes to her
+child, but her palsied tongue could speak no word of tenderness. One
+arm only obeyed the impulse of her will. She raised it, and
+affectionately patted the cheek of her beloved daughter, and wiped the
+tears which were flowing down her cheeks. The priest came to
+administer the last consolations of religion. Jane, with her eyes
+riveted 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 this
+swoon her mother was dead.
+
+Jane was entirely overwhelmed with uncontrollable and delirious
+sorrow. For many days it was apprehended that her own life would fall
+a sacrifice to the blow which her affections had received. Instead of
+being a support to the family in this hour of trial, she added to the
+burden and the care. The Abbe Legrand, who stood by her bedside as her
+whole frame was shaken by convulsions, very sensibly remarked, "It is
+a good thing to possess sensibility. It is very unfortunate to have so
+much of it." Gradually Jane regained composure, but life, to her, was
+darkened. She now began to realize all those evils which her fond
+mother had apprehended. Speaking of her departed parent, she says,
+"The world never contained a better or a more amiable woman. There was
+nothing brilliant in her character, but she possessed every quality to
+endear her to all by whom she was known. Naturally endowed with the
+sweetest disposition, virtue seemed never to cost her any effort. Her
+pure and tranquil spirit pursued its even course like the docile
+stream that bathes with equal gentleness, the foot of the rock which
+holds it captive, and the valley which it at once enriches and adorns.
+With her death was concluded the tranquillity of my youth, which till
+then was passed in the enjoyment of blissful affections and beloved
+occupations."
+
+Jane soon found her parental home, indeed, a melancholy abode. She was
+truly alone in the world. Her father now began to advance with more
+rapid footsteps in the career of dissipation. A victim to that
+infidelity which presents no obstacle to crime, he yielded himself a
+willing captive to the dominion of passion, and disorder reigned
+through the desolated household. Jane had the mortification of seeing
+a woman received into the family to take her mother's place, in a
+union unsanctified by the laws of God. A deep melancholy settled down
+upon the mind of the wounded girl, and she felt that she was desolate
+and an alien in her own home. She shut herself up in her chamber with
+her thoughts and her books. All the chords of her sensitive nature now
+vibrated only responsive to those melancholy tones which are the
+dirges of the broken heart. As there never was genius untinged by
+melancholy, so may it be doubted whether there ever was greatness of
+character which had not been nurtured in the school of great
+affliction. Her heart now began to feel irrepressible longings for the
+sympathy of some congenial friend, upon whose supporting bosom she
+could lean her aching head. In lonely musings she solaced herself, and
+nurtured her own thoughts by writing. Her pen became her friend, and
+the resource of every weary hour. She freely gave utterance in her
+diary to all her feelings and all her emotions. Her manuscripts of
+abstracts, and extracts, and original thoughts, became quite
+voluminous. In this way she was daily cultivating that power of
+expression and that force of eloquence which so often, in subsequent
+life, 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 early
+life, and of these impressions thus powerfully stamped upon her
+nature. Philosophy, romance, and religious sentiment, an impassioned
+mind and a glowing heart, admiration of heroism, and emulation of
+martyrdom in some noble cause, all conspired to give her sovereignty
+over the affections of others, and to enable her to sway human wills
+almost at pleasure.
+
+M. Boismorel, husband of the aristocratic lady to whom Jane once paid
+so disagreeable a visit, called one day at the shop of M. Phlippon,
+and the proud father could not refrain from showing him some of the
+writings of Jane. The nobleman had sense enough to be very much
+pleased with the talent which they displayed, and wrote her a very
+flattering letter, offering her the free use of his very valuable
+library, and urging her to devote her life to literary pursuits, and
+at once to commence authorship. Jane was highly gratified by this
+commendation, and most eagerly availed herself of his most valuable
+offer. In reply to his suggestion respecting authorship, she inclosed
+the following lines:
+
+     "Aux hommes ouvrant la carriere
+       Des grands et des nobles talents,
+     Ils n'ont mis aucune barriere
+       A leurs plus sublimes elans.
+
+     "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'etre admis
+       A toutes ces sortes de glorie
+     Pour nous le temple de memoire
+       Est dans le coeurs de nos amis."
+
+These lines have been thus vigorously translated in the interesting
+sketch 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 intelligent
+man, and became so much interested in his young friend, that he wished
+to connect her in marriage with his son. This young man was indolent
+and irresolute in character, and his father thought that he would be
+greatly benefited by a wife of decision and judgment. Jane, however,
+was no more disposed to fall in love with rank than with wealth, and
+took no fancy whatever to the characterless young nobleman. The
+judicious father saw that it would be utterly unavailing to urge the
+suit, and the matter was dropped.
+
+Through the friendship of M. De Boismorel, she was often introduced to
+the great world of lords and ladies. Even his formal and haughty wife
+became much interested in the fascinating young lady, and her
+brilliant talents and accomplishments secured her invitations to many
+social interviews to which she would not have been entitled by her
+birth. This slight acquaintance with the nobility of France did not,
+however, elevate them in her esteem. She found the conversation of
+the old marquises and antiquated dowagers who frequented the salons of
+Madame De Boismorel more insipid and illiterate than that of the
+tradespeople who visited her father's shop, and upon whom those nobles
+looked down with such contempt. Jane was also disgusted with the many
+indications she saw, not only of indolence and voluptuousness, but of
+dissipation and utter want of principle. Her good sense enabled her to
+move among these people as a studious observer of this aspect of human
+nature, neither adopting their costume nor imitating their manners.
+She was very unostentatious and simple in her style of dress, and
+never, in the slightest degree, affected the mannerism of mindless and
+heartless fashion.
+
+Madame De Boismorel, at one time eulogizing her taste in these
+respects, remarked,
+
+"You do not love feathers, do you, Miss Phlippon? How very different
+you are from the giddy-headed girls around us!"
+
+"I never wear feathers," Jane replied, "because I do not think that
+they would correspond with the condition in life of an artist's
+daughter who is going about on foot."
+
+"But, were you in a different situation in life, would you then wear
+feathers?"
+
+"I do not know what I should do in that case. I attach very slight
+importance to such trifles. I merely consider what is suitable for
+myself, and should be very sorry to judge of others by the superficial
+information afforded by their dress."
+
+M. Phlippon now began to advance more rapidly in the career of
+dissipation. Jane did every thing in her power to lure him to love his
+home. All her efforts were entirely unavailing. Night after night he
+was absent until the latest hours at convivial clubs and card-parties.
+He formed acquaintance with those with whom Jane could not only have
+no congeniality of taste, but who must have excited in her emotions of
+the deepest repugnance. These companions were often at his house; and
+the comfortable property which M. Phlippon possessed, under this
+course of dissipation was fast melting away. Jane's situation was now
+painful in the extreme. Her mother, who had been the guardian angel of
+her life, was sleeping in the grave. Her father was advancing with the
+most rapid strides in the road to ruin. Jane was in danger of soon
+being left an orphan and utterly penniless. Her father was daily
+becoming more neglectful and unkind to his daughter, as he became more
+dissatisfied with himself and with the world. Under these
+circumstances, Jane, by the advice of friends, had resort to a legal
+process, by which there was secured to her, from the wreck of her
+mother's fortune, an annual income of about one hundred dollars.
+
+In these gloomy hours which clouded the morning of life's tempestuous
+day, Jane found an unfailing resource and solace in her love of
+literature. With pen in hand, extracting beautiful passages and
+expanding suggested thoughts, she forgot her griefs and beguiled many
+hours, which would otherwise have been burdened with intolerable
+wretchedness. Maria Antoinette, woe-worn and weary, in tones of
+despair uttered the exclamation, "Oh! what a resource, amid the
+casualties of life, must there be in a highly-cultivated mind." The
+plebeian maiden could utter the same exclamation in accents of
+joyfulness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MARRIAGE.
+
+1776-1785
+
+Sophia Cannet.--Roland de la Platiere.--M. Roland.--His personal
+appearance.--Character of M. Roland.--First impressions.--Jane's
+appreciation of M. Roland.--Minds and hearts.--Journal of M.
+Roland.--His notes on Italy.--The light in which Jane and M. Roland
+regard each other.--M. Roland professes his attachment.--Feelings
+of Jane.--M. Roland writes to Jane's father.--Insulting letter of
+M. Phlippon.--Jane retires to a convent.--Her mode of life
+there.--Correspondence with M. Roland.--He returns to Paris.--M.
+Roland renews his offers to Jane.--They are married.--First year
+of married life.--Madame Roland's devotion to her husband.--Birth
+of a daughter.--Literary pursuits.--Application for letters-patent
+of nobility.--Visit to England.--Removal to Lyons.--La Platiere
+and its inmates.--Death of M. Roland's mother.--Situation of La
+Platiere.--Description of La Platiere.--Surrounding scenery.--Years
+of happiness.--Mode of life.--Eudora.--Domestic duties.--Literary
+employments.--Pleasant rambles.--Distinguished guests.--Rural
+pleasures.--Knowledge of medicine.--Kindness to the
+peasantry.--Gratitude of the peasantry.--Popular rights.
+
+
+When Jane was in the convent, she became acquainted with a young lady
+from Amiens, Sophia Cannet. They formed for each other a strong
+attachment, and commenced a correspondence which continued for many
+years. There was a gentleman in Amiens by the name of Roland de la
+Platiere, born of an opulent family, and holding the quite important
+office of inspector of manufactures. His time was mainly occupied in
+traveling and study. Being deeply interested in all subjects relating
+to political economy, he had devoted much attention to that noble
+science, and had written several treatises upon commerce, mechanics,
+and agriculture, which had given him, in the literary and scientific
+world, no little celebrity. He frequently visited the father of
+Sophia. She often spoke to him of her friend Jane, showed him her
+portrait, and read to him extracts from her glowing letters. The calm
+philosopher 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 written
+to Jane of her father's friend, whom she regarded with so much
+reverence.
+
+One day Jane was sitting alone in her desolate home, absorbed in
+pensive musings, when M. Roland entered, bearing a letter of
+introduction to her from Sophia. "You will receive this letter," her
+friend wrote, "by the hand of the philosopher of whom I have so often
+written to you. M. Roland is an enlightened man, of antique manners,
+without reproach, except for his passion for the ancients, his
+contempt for the moderns, and his too high estimation of his own
+virtue."
+
+The gentleman thus introduced to her was about forty years old. He was
+tall, slender, and well formed, with a little stoop in his gait, and
+manifested in his manners that self-possession which is the result of
+conscious worth and intellectual power, while, at the same time, he
+exhibited that slight and not displeasing awkwardness which one
+unavoidably acquires in hours devoted to silence and study. Still,
+Madame Roland says, in her description of his person, that he was
+courteous and winning; and though his manners did not possess all the
+easy elegance of the man of fashion, they united the politeness of the
+well-bred man with the unostentatious gravity of the philosopher. He
+was thin, with a complexion much tanned. His broad and intellectual
+brow, covered with but few hairs, added to the imposing attractiveness
+of his features. When listening, his countenance had an expression of
+deep thoughtfulness, and almost of sadness; but when excited in
+speaking, a smile of great cheerfulness spread over his animated
+features. His voice was rich and sonorous; his mode of speech brief
+and sententious; his conversation full of information, and rich in
+suggestive thought.
+
+Jane, the enthusiastic, romantic Jane, saw in the serene philosopher
+one of the sages of antiquity, and almost literally bowed and
+worshiped. All the sentiments of M. Roland were in accordance with the
+most cherished emotions which glowed in her own mind. She found what
+she had ever been seeking, but had never found before, a truly
+sympathetic soul. She thought not of love. She looked up to M. Roland
+as to a superior being--to an oracle, by whose decisions she could
+judge whether her own opinions were right or wrong. It is true that
+M. Roland, cool and unimpassioned in all his mental operations, never
+entered those airy realms of beauty and those visionary regions of
+romance where Jane loved, at times, to revel. And perhaps Jane
+venerated him still more for his more stern and unimaginative
+philosophy. But his meditative wisdom, his abstraction from the
+frivolous pursuits of life, his high ambition, his elevated pleasures,
+his consciousness of superiority over the mass of his fellow-men, and
+his sleepless desire to be a benefactor of humanity, were all traits
+of character which resistlessly attracted the admiration of Jane. She
+adored him as a disciple adores his master. She listened eagerly to
+all his words, and loved communion with his thoughts. M. Roland was by
+no means insensible to this homage, and though he looked upon her with
+none of the emotions of a lover, he was charmed with her society
+because she was so delighted with his own conversation. By the faculty
+of attentively listening to what others had to say, Madame Roland
+affirms that she made more friends than by any remarks she ever made
+of her own. The two _minds_, not _hearts_, were at once united; but
+this platonic union soon led to one more tender.
+
+M. Roland had recently been traveling in Germany, and had written a
+copious journal of his tour. As he was about to depart from Paris for
+Italy, he left this journal, with other manuscripts, in the hands of
+Jane. "These manuscripts," she writes, "made me better acquainted with
+him, during the eighteen months he passed in Italy, than frequent
+visits could have done. They consisted of travels, reflections, plans
+of literary works, and personal anecdotes. A strong mind, strict
+principles, and personal taste, were evident in every page." He also
+introduced Jane to his brother, a Benedictine monk. During the
+eighteen months of his absence from Paris, he was traveling in Italy,
+Switzerland, Sicily, and Malta, and writing notes upon those
+countries, which he afterward published. These notes he communicated
+to his brother the monk, and he transmitted them to Jane. She read
+them with intense interest. At length he returned again to Paris, and
+their acquaintance was renewed. M. Roland submitted to her his
+literary projects, and was much gratified in finding that she approved
+of all that he did and all that he contemplated. She found in him an
+invaluable friend. His gravity, his intellectual life, his almost
+stoical philosophy impressed her imagination and captivated her
+understanding. Two or three years passed away ere either of them
+seemed to have thought of the other in the light of a lover. She
+regarded him as a guide and friend. There was no ardor of youthful
+love warming her heart. There were no impassioned affections glowing
+in her bosom and impelling her to his side. Intellectual enthusiasm
+alone animated her in welcoming an intellectual union with a noble
+mind. M. Roland, on the other hand, looked with placid and paternal
+admiration upon the brilliant girl. He was captivated by her genius
+and the charms of her conversation, and, above all, by her profound
+admiration of himself. They were mutually happy in each other's
+society, and were glad to meet and loth to part. They conversed upon
+literary projects, upon political reforms, upon speculations in
+philosophy and science. M. Roland was naturally self-confident,
+opinionated, and domineering. Jane regarded him with so much reverence
+that she received his opinions for law. Thus he was flattered and she
+was happy.
+
+M. Roland returned to his official post at Amiens, and engaged in
+preparing his work on Italy for the press. They carried on a
+voluminous and regular correspondence. He forwarded to her, in
+manuscript, all the sheets of his proposed publication, and she
+returned them with the accompanying thoughts which their perusal
+elicited. Now and then an expression of decorous endearment would
+escape from each pen in the midst of philosophic discussions and
+political speculations. It was several years after their acquaintance
+commenced before M. Roland made an avowal of his attachment. Jane knew
+very well the pride of the Roland family, and that her worldly
+circumstances were such that, in their estimation, the connection
+would not seem an advantageous one. She also was too proud to enter
+into a family who might feel dishonored by the alliance. She therefore
+frankly told him that she felt much honored by his addresses, and that
+she esteemed him more highly than any other man she had ever met. She
+assured him that she should be most happy to make him a full return
+for his affection, but that her father was a ruined man, and that, by
+his increasing debts and his errors of character, still deeper
+disgrace might be entailed upon all connected with him; and she
+therefore could not think of allowing M. Roland to make his generosity
+to 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 was
+perfectly sincere, the more earnestly did M. Roland persist in his
+plea. At last Jane, influenced by his entreaties, consented that he
+should make proposals to her father. He wrote to M. Phlippon. In
+reply, 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 man
+of such rigid principles, who would ever be reproaching him for all
+his little errors. He also told his daughter that she would find in a
+man of such austere virtue, not a companion and an equal, but a censor
+and 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, she
+would marry no one else, she wrote to M. Roland, requesting him to
+abandon 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 high
+esteem, was cordial in the extreme. The scanty income she had saved
+from her mother's property rendered it necessary for her to live with
+the utmost frugality. She determined to regulate her expenses in
+accordance with this small sum. Potatoes, rice, and beans, with a
+little salt, and occasionally the luxury of a little butter, were her
+only 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 her
+father, 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 soothed
+to pensive thought, and lulled her to sleep by night. She carefully
+secluded herself from association with the other inmates of the
+convent, receiving only a visit of an hour each evening from the
+much-loved Sister Agatha. Her time she devoted, with unremitting
+diligence, to those literary avocations in which she found so much
+delight. The quiet and seclusion of this life had many charms for
+Jane. Indeed, a person with such resources for enjoyment within
+herself could never be very weary. The votaries of fashion and gayety
+are they to whom existence grows languid and life a burden. Several
+months thus glided away in tranquillity. She occasionally walked in
+the garden, at hours when no one else was there. The spirit of
+resignation, which she had so long cultivated; the peaceful
+conscience she enjoyed, in view of duty performed; the elevation of
+spirit, which enabled her to rise superior to misfortune; the
+methodical arrangement of time, which assigned to each hour its
+appropriate duty; the habit of close application, which riveted her
+attention to her studies; the highly-cultivated taste and
+buoyantly-winged imagination, which opened before her all the fairy
+realms of fancy, were treasures which gilded her cell and enriched her
+heart. She passed, it is true, some melancholy hours; but even that
+melancholy had its charms, and was more rich in enjoyment than the
+most 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 with
+which he submitted to her father's stern refusal. In the course of
+five or six months he again visited Paris, and called at the convent
+to see Jane. He saw her pale and pensive face behind a grating, and
+the sight of one who had suffered so much from her faithful love for
+him, and the sound of her voice, which ever possessed a peculiar
+charm, revived in his mind those impressions which had been somewhat
+fading away. He again renewed his offer, and entreated her to allow
+the marriage ceremony at once to be performed by his brother the
+prior. Jane was in much perplexity. She did not feel that her father
+was in a situation longer to control her, and she was a little
+mortified by the want of ardor which her philosophical lover had
+displayed. The illusion of romantic love was entirely dispelled from
+her mind, and, at the same time, she felt flattered by his
+perseverance, by the evidence that his most mature judgment approved
+of his choice, and by his readiness to encounter all the unpleasant
+circumstances in which he might be involved by his alliance with her.
+Jane, without much delay, yielded to his appeals. They were married in
+the winter of 1780. Jane was then twenty-five years of age. Her
+husband was twenty years her senior.
+
+The first year of their marriage life they passed in Paris. It was to
+Madame Roland a year of great enjoyment. Her husband was publishing a
+work upon the arts, and she, with all the energy of her enthusiastic
+mind, entered into all his literary enterprises. With great care and
+accuracy, she prepared his manuscripts for the press, and corrected
+the proofs. She lived in the study with him, became the companion of
+all his thoughts, and his assistant in all his labors. The only
+recreations in which she indulged, during the winter, were to attend a
+course of lectures upon natural history and botany. M. Roland had
+hired ready-furnished lodgings. She, well instructed by her mother in
+domestic duties, observing that all kinds of cooking did not agree
+with him, took pleasure in preparing his food with her own hands. Her
+husband engrossed her whole time, and, being naturally rather austere
+and imperious, he wished so to seclude her from the society of others
+as to monopolize all her capabilities of friendly feeling. She
+submitted to the exaction without a murmur, though there were hours in
+which she felt that she had made, indeed, a serious sacrifice of her
+youthful and buoyant affections. Madame Roland devoted herself so
+entirely to the studies in which her husband was engaged that her
+health was seriously impaired. Accustomed as she was to share in all
+his pursuits, he began to think that he could not do without her at
+any 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 nurtured
+with the most assiduous care. Her literary labors were, however,
+unremitted, and, though a mother and a nurse, she still lived in the
+study with her books and her pen. M. Roland was writing several
+articles for an encyclopedia. She aided most efficiently in collecting
+the materials and arranging the matter. Indeed, she wielded a far more
+vigorous pen than he did. Her copiousness of language, her facility of
+expression, and the play of her fancy, gave her the command of a very
+fascinating style; and M. Roland obtained the credit for many passages
+rich in diction and beautiful in imagery for which he was indebted to
+the glowing imagination of his wife. Frequent sickness of her husband
+alarmed her for his life. The tenderness with which she watched over
+him strengthened the tie which united them. He could not but love a
+young and beautiful wife so devoted to him. She could not but love one
+upon whom she was conferring such rich blessings. They remained in
+Amiens for four years. Their little daughter Eudora was a source of
+great delight to the fond parents, and Madame Roland took the deepest
+interest 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 of
+illustrious descent--for the ancestors of M. Roland had been nobles.
+He now, with his accumulated wealth, was desirous of being reinstated
+in that ancestral rank which the family had lost with the loss of
+fortune. Neither must we blame our republican heroine too much that,
+under this change of circumstances, she was not unwilling that he
+should resume that exalted social position to which she believed him
+to be so richly entitled. It could hardly be unpleasant to her to be
+addressed as _Lady_ Roland. It is the infirmity of our frail nature
+that it is more agreeable to ascend to the heights of those who are
+above us, than to aid those below to reach the level we have attained.
+Encountering some embarrassments in their application for
+letters-patent of nobility, the subject was set aside for the time,
+and was never after renewed. The attempt, however, subsequently
+exposed them to great ridicule from their democratic opponents.
+
+About this time they visited England. They were received with much
+attention, and Madame Roland admired exceedingly the comparatively
+free institutions of that country. She felt that the English, as a
+nation, were immeasurably superior to the French, and returned to her
+own home more than ever dissatisfied with the despotic monarchy by
+which 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 as
+Inspector General of Commerce and Manufactures. In the winter they
+resided in the city. During the summer they retired to M. Roland's
+paternal estate, La Platiere, a very beautiful rural retreat but a few
+miles from Lyons. The mother of M. Roland and an elder brother resided
+on the same estate. They constituted the ingredient of bitterness in
+their cup of joy. It seems that in this life it must ever be that each
+pleasure shall have its pain. No happiness can come unalloyed. La
+Platiere possessed for Madame Roland all the essentials of an earthly
+paradise; but those trials which are the unvarying lot of fallen
+humanity obtained entrance there. Her mother-in-law was proud,
+imperious, ignorant, petulant, and disagreeable in every development
+of character. There are few greater annoyances of life than an
+irritable woman, rendered doubly morose by the infirmities of years.
+The brother was coarse and arrogant, without any delicacy of feeling
+himself, and apparently unconscious that others could be troubled by
+any such sensitiveness. The disciplined spirit of Madame Roland
+triumphed over even these annoyances, and she gradually infused
+through the discordant household, by her own cheerful spirit, a great
+improvement in harmony and peace. It is not, however, possible that
+Madame Roland should have shed many tears when, on one bright autumnal
+day, this hasty tongue and turbulent spirit were hushed in that repose
+from which there is no awaking. Immediately after this event,
+attracted by the quiet of this secluded retreat, they took up their
+abode there for both summer and winter.
+
+[Illustration: LA PLATIERE.]
+
+La Platiere, the paternal inheritance of M. Roland, was an estate
+situated at the base of the mountains of Beaujolais, in the valley of
+the Saone. It is a region solitary and wild, with rivulets, meandering
+down from the mountains, fringed with willows and poplars, and
+threading their way through narrow, yet smooth and fertile meadows,
+luxuriant with vineyards. A large, square stone house, with regular
+windows, and a roof, nearly flat, of red tiles, constituted the
+comfortable, spacious, and substantial mansion. The eaves projected
+quite a distance beyond the walls, to protect the windows from the
+summer'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 was
+entered by ascending five massive stone steps, which were surmounted
+by a rusty iron balustrade. Barns, wine-presses, dove-cotes and
+sheep-pens were clustered about, so that the farm-house, with its
+out-buildings, almost presented the aspect of a little village. A
+vegetable garden; a flower garden, with serpentine walks and arbors
+embowered in odoriferous and flowering shrubs; an orchard, casting the
+shade of a great variety of fruit-trees over the closely-mown
+greensward, and a vineyard, with long lines of low-trimmed grape
+vines, gave a finish to this most rural and attractive picture. In the
+distance was seen the rugged range of the mountains of Beaujolais,
+while still further in the distance rose towering above them the
+snow-capped summits of the Alps. Here, in this social solitude, in
+this harmony of silence, in this wide expanse of nature, Madame
+Roland passed five of the happiest years of her life--five such years
+as few mortals enjoy on earth. She, whose spirit had been so often
+exhilarated by the view of the tree tops and the few square yards of
+blue sky which were visible from the window of her city home, was
+enchanted 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 a
+range equally boundless. Nature and imagination were her friends, and
+in their realms she found her home. Enjoying an ample income, engaged
+constantly in the most ennobling literary pursuits, rejoicing in the
+society of her husband and her little Eudora, and superintending her
+domestic concerns with an ease and skill which made that
+superintendence a pleasure, time flew upon its swiftest wings.
+
+Her mode of life during these five calm and sunny years which
+intervened between the cloudy morning and the tempestuous evening of
+her days, must have been exceedingly attractive. She rose with the
+sun, devoted sundry attentions to her husband and child, and
+personally superintended the arrangements for breakfast, taking an
+affectionate pleasure in preparing very nicely her husband's frugal
+food with her own hands. That social meal, ever, in a loving family,
+the most joyous interview of the day, being passed, M. Roland entered
+the library for his intellectual toil, taking with him, for his silent
+companion, the idolized little Eudora. She amused herself with her
+pencil, or reading, or other studies, which her father and mother
+superintended. Madame Roland, in the mean time, devoted herself, with
+most systematic energy, to her domestic concerns. She was a perfect
+housekeeper, and each morning all the interests of her family, from
+the cellar to the garret, passed under her eye. She superintended the
+preservation of the fruit, the storage of the wine, the sorting of the
+linen, and those other details of domestic life which engross the
+attention of a good housewife. The systematic division of time, which
+seemed to be an instinctive principle of her nature, enabled her to
+accomplish all this in two hours. She had faithful and devoted
+servants to do the work. The superintendence was all that was
+required. This genius to superintend and be the head, while others
+contribute the hands, is not the most common of human endowments.
+Madame Roland, having thus attended to her domestic concerns, laid
+aside those cares for the remainder of the day, and entered the study
+to join her husband in his labors there. These intellectual
+employments ever possessed for her peculiar attractions. The
+scientific celebrity of M. Roland, and his political position,
+attracted many visitors to La Platiere; consequently, they had, almost
+invariably, company to dine. At the close of the literary labors of
+the morning, Madame Roland dressed for dinner, and, with all that
+fascination of mind and manners so peculiarly her own, met her guests
+at the dinner-table. The labor of the day was then over. The repast
+was prolonged with social converse. After dinner, they walked in the
+garden, sauntered through the vineyard, and looked at the innumerable
+objects of interest which are ever to be found in the yard of a
+spacious farm. Madame Roland frequently retired to the library, to
+write letters to her friends, or to superintend the lessons of Eudora.
+Occasionally, of a fine day, leaning upon her husband's arm, she would
+walk for several miles, calling at the cottages of the peasantry, whom
+she greatly endeared to her by her unvarying kindness. In the evening,
+after tea, they again resorted to the library. Guests of
+distinguished name and influence were frequently with them, and the
+hours glided swiftly, cheered by the brilliance of philosophy and
+genius. The journals of the day were read, Madame Roland being usually
+called upon as reader. When not thus reading, she usually sat at her
+work-table, employing her fingers with her needle, while she took a
+quiet and unobtrusive part in the conversation. "This kind of life,"
+says Madame Roland, "would be very austere, were not my husband a man
+of great merit, whom I love with my whole heart. Tender friendship and
+unbounded confidence mark every moment of existence, and stamp a value
+upon all things, which nothing without them would have. It is the life
+most favorable to virtue and happiness. I appreciate its worth. I
+congratulate myself on enjoying it; and I exert my best endeavors to
+make it last." Again she draws the captivating picture of rural
+pleasures. "I am preserving pears, which will be delicious. We are
+drying raisins and prunes. We make our breakfast upon wine; overlook
+the servants busy in the vineyard; repose in the shady groves, and on
+the green meadows; gather walnuts from the trees; and, having
+collected our stock of fruit for the winter, spread it in the garret
+to dry. After breakfast this morning, we are all going in a body to
+gather almonds. Throw off, then, dear friend, your fetters for a
+while, and come and join us in our retreat. You will find here true
+friendship and real simplicity of heart."
+
+Madame Roland, among her other innumerable accomplishments, had
+acquired no little skill in the science of medicine. Situated in a
+region where the poor peasants had no access to physicians, she was
+not 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 a
+distance of ten or twelve miles to visit the sick. From such appeals
+she never turned away. On Sundays, her court-yard was filled with
+peasants, who had assembled from all the region round, some as
+invalids, to seek relief, and others who came with such little tokens
+of their gratitude as their poverty enabled them to bring. Here
+appears a little rosy-cheeked boy with a basket of chestnuts; or a
+care-worn mother, pale and thin, but with a grateful eye presenting to
+her benefactrice a few small, fragrant cheeses, made of goat's milk;
+and there is an old man, hobbling upon crutches, with a basket of
+apples from his orchard. She was delighted with these indications of
+gratitude and sensibility on the part of the unenlightened and lowly
+peasantry. Her republican notions, which she had cherished so fondly
+in her early years, but from which she had somewhat swerved when
+seeking a patent of nobility for her husband, began now to revive in
+her bosom with new ardor. She was regarded as peculiarly the friend of
+the poor and the humble; and at all the hearth-fires in the cottages
+of that retired valley, her name was pronounced in tones almost of
+adoration. More and more Madame Roland and her husband began to
+identify their interests with those of the poor around them, and to
+plead with tongue and pen for popular rights. Her intercourse with the
+poor led her to feel more deeply the oppression of laws, framed to
+indulge the few in luxury, while the many were consigned to penury and
+hopeless ignorance. She acquired boundless faith in the virtue of the
+people, and thought that their disenthralment would usher in a
+millennium of unalloyed happiness. She now saw the ocean of human
+passions reposing in its perfect calm. She afterward saw that same
+ocean when lashed by the tempest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.
+
+1791-1792
+
+Portentous mutterings.--Welcomed as blessings.--Enthusiasm of Madame
+Roland.--Louis XVI.--Maria Antoinette.--Character of Maria
+Antoinette.--Character of Louis.--M. Roland elected to the
+Assembly.--Ardor of his wife.--Popularity of the Rolands.--They
+go to Paris.--Reception of the Rolands at Paris.--Sittings of
+the Assembly.--Tastes and principles.--Conflict for power.--The
+Girondists.--The Jacobins.--Meetings at Madame Roland's.--Appearance
+of Robespierre.--His character.--Remains of the court party.--Influence
+of Madame Roland.--Madame Roland's mode of action.--Her
+delicacy.--Robespierre at Madame Roland's.--Horrors of the
+Revolution.--Fears of the Girondists.--Violence of the
+Jacobins.--Resolution of the Girondists.--Warning of Madame
+Roland.--Danger of Robespierre.--He is concealed by Madame
+Roland.--Baseness of Robespierre.--The Assembly dissolved.--The
+Rolands again at La Platiere.--They return to Paris.--Plots
+and counterplots.--Political maneuvering.--Massacres and
+conflagrations.--The king insulted and a prisoner.--The king
+surrenders.--M. Roland Minister of the Interior.--Madame Roland in
+a palace.--M. Roland's first appearance at court.--Horror of the
+courtiers.--M. Roland's opinion of the king.--Madame Roland's
+advice.--Her opinion of kings and courtiers.
+
+
+Madame Roland was thus living at La Platiere, in the enjoyment of all
+that this world can give of peace and happiness, when the first
+portentous mutterings of that terrible moral tempest, the French
+Revolution, fell upon her ears. She eagerly caught the sounds, and,
+believing them the precursor of the most signal political and social
+blessings, rejoiced in the assurance that the hour was approaching
+when long-oppressed humanity would reassert its rights and achieve its
+triumph. Little did she dream of the woes which in surging billows
+were to roll over her country, and which were to ingulf her, and all
+whom she loved, in their resistless tide. She dreamed--a very
+pardonable dream for a philanthropic lady--that an ignorant and
+enslaved people could be led from Egyptian bondage to the promised
+land without the weary sufferings of the wilderness and the desert.
+Her faith in the regenerative capabilities of human nature was so
+strong, that she could foresee no obstacles and no dangers in the way
+of immediate and universal disfranchisement from every custom, and
+from all laws and usages which her judgment disapproved. Her whole
+soul was aroused, and she devoted all her affections and every energy
+of her mind to the welfare of the human race. It is hardly to be
+supposed, human nature being such as it is, but that the
+mortifications she met in early life from the arrogance of those above
+her, and the difficulties she encountered in obtaining letters-patent
+of nobility, exerted some influence in animating her zeal. Her
+enthusiastic devotion stimulated the ardor of her less excitable
+spouse; and all her friends, by her fascinating powers of eloquence
+both of voice and pen, were gradually inspired by the same intense
+emotions which had absorbed her whole being.
+
+Louis XVI. and Maria Antoinette had but recently inherited the throne
+of the Bourbons. Louis was benevolent, but destitute of the decision
+of character requisite to hold the reins of government in so stormy a
+period. Maria Antoinette had neither culture of mind nor knowledge of
+the world. She was an amiable but spoiled child, with great native
+nobleness of character, but with those defects which are the natural
+and inevitable consequence of the frivolous education she had
+received. She thought never of duty and responsibility; always and
+only of pleasure. It was her misfortune rather than her fault, that
+the idea never entered her mind that kings and queens had aught else
+to do than to indulge in luxury. It would be hardly possible to
+conceive of two characters less qualified to occupy the throne in
+stormy times than were Louis and Maria. The people were slowly, but
+with resistless power, rising against the abuses, enormous and hoary
+with age, of the aristocracy and the monarchy. Louis, a man of
+unblemished kindness, integrity, and purity, was made the scape-goat
+for the sins of haughty, oppressive, profligate princes, who for
+centuries had trodden, with iron hoofs, upon the necks of their
+subjects. The accumulated hate of ages was poured upon his devoted
+head. The irresolute monarch had no conception of his position.
+
+The king, in pursuance of his system of conciliation, as the clamors
+of 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 all
+parts of France. M. Roland, who was quite an idol with the populace of
+Lyons and its vicinity, and who now was beginning to lose caste with
+the aristocracy, was chosen, by a very strong vote, as the
+representative to the Assembly from the city of Lyons. In that busy
+city the revolutionary movement had commenced with great power, and
+the name of Roland was the rallying point of the people now struggling
+to escape from ages of oppression. M. Roland spent some time in his
+city residence, drawn thither by the intense interest of the times,
+and in the saloon of Madame Roland meetings were every evening held by
+the most influential gentlemen of the revolutionary party. Her ardor
+stimulated their zeal, and her well-stored mind and fascinating
+conversational eloquence guided their councils. The impetuous young
+men of the city gathered around this impassioned woman, from whose
+lips words of liberty fell so enchantingly upon their ears, and with
+chivalric devotion surrendered themselves to the guidance of her mind.
+
+In this rising conflict between plebeian and patrician, between
+democrat and aristocrat, the position in which M. Roland and wife were
+placed, as most conspicuous and influential members of the
+revolutionary party, arrayed against them, with daily increasing
+animosity, all the aristocratic community of Lyons. Each day their
+names were pronounced by the advocates of reform with more enthusiasm,
+and by their opponents with deepening hostility. The applause and the
+censure alike invigorated Madame Roland, and her whole soul became
+absorbed in the one idea of popular liberty. This object became her
+passion, and she devoted herself to it with the concentration of every
+energy of mind and heart.
+
+On the 20th of February, 1791, Madame Roland accompanied her husband
+to Paris, as he took his seat, with a name already prominent, in the
+National Assembly. Five years before, she had left the metropolis in
+obscurity and depression. She now returned with wealth, with elevated
+rank, with brilliant reputation, and exulting in conscious power. Her
+persuasive influence was dictating those measures which were driving
+the ancient nobility of France from their chateaux, and her vigorous
+mind was guiding those blows before which the throne of the Bourbons
+trembled. The unblemished and incorruptible integrity of M. Roland,
+his simplicity of manners and acknowledged ability, invested him
+immediately with much authority among his associates. The brilliance
+of his wife, and her most fascinating colloquial powers, also
+reflected much luster upon his name. Madame Roland, with her glowing
+zeal, had just written a pamphlet upon the new order of things, in
+language so powerful and impressive that more than sixty thousand
+copies had been sold--an enormous number, considering the comparative
+fewness of readers at that time. She, of course, was received with the
+most flattering attention, and great deference was paid to her
+opinions. She attended daily the sittings of the Assembly, and
+listened with the deepest interest to the debates. The king and queen
+had already been torn from their palaces at Versailles, and were
+virtually prisoners in the Tuileries. Many of the nobles had fled from
+the perils which seemed to be gathering around them, and had joined
+the 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 efforts
+to defend the ancient prerogatives of the crown and of the Church.
+Madame Roland witnessed with mortification, which she could neither
+repress nor conceal, the decided superiority of the court party in
+dignity, and polish of manners, and in general intellectual culture,
+over those of plebeian origin, who were struggling, with the energy of
+an 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 unrefined
+exterior and clumsy speech of the democratic leaders with the courtly
+bearing and elegant diction of those who rallied around the throne,
+she was aroused to a more vehement desire for the social and
+intellectual elevation of those with whom she had cast in her lot. The
+conflict with the nobles was of short continuance. The energy of
+rising democracy soon vanquished them. Violence took the place of law.
+And now the conflict for power arose between those of the Republicans
+who were _more_ and those who were _less_ radical in their plans of
+reform. The most moderate party, consisting of those who would sustain
+the throne, but limit its powers by a free constitution, retaining
+many of the institutions and customs which antiquity had rendered
+venerable, was called the _Girondist party_. It was so called because
+their most prominent leaders were from the department of the Gironde.
+They would deprive the king of many of his prerogatives, but not of
+his crown. They would take from him his despotic power, but not his
+life. They would raise the mass of the people to the enjoyment of
+liberty, but to liberty controlled by vigorous law. Opposed to them
+were the Jacobins--far more radical in their views of reform. They
+would overthrow both throne and altar, break down all privileged
+orders, confiscate the property of the nobles, and place prince and
+beggar on the footing of equality. These were the two great parties
+into which revolutionary France was divided and the conflict between
+them was the most fierce and implacable earth has ever witnessed.
+
+M. Roland and wife, occupying a residence in Paris, which was a
+convenient place of rendezvous, by their attractions gathered around
+them every evening many of the most influential members of the
+Assembly. They attached themselves, with all their zeal and energy, to
+the Girondists. Four evenings of every week, the leaders of this party
+met in the saloon of Madame Roland, to deliberate respecting their
+measures. Among them there was a young lawyer from the country, with
+a stupid expression of countenance, sallow complexion, and ungainly
+gestures, who had made himself excessively unpopular by the prosy
+speeches with which he was ever wearying the Assembly. He had often
+been floored by argument and coughed down by contempt, but he seemed
+alike insensible to sarcasm and to insult. Alone in the Assembly,
+without a friend, he attacked all parties alike, and was by all
+disregarded. But he possessed an indomitable energy, and unwavering
+fixedness of purpose, a profound contempt for luxury and wealth, and a
+stoical indifference to reputation and to personal indulgence, which
+secured to him more and more of an ascendency, until, at the name of
+Robespierre, all France trembled. This young man, silent and moody,
+appeared with others in the saloon of Madame Roland. She was struck
+with his singularity, and impressed with an instinctive consciousness
+of his peculiar genius. He was captivated by those charms of
+conversation in which Madame Roland was unrivaled. Silently--for he
+had no conversational powers--he lingered around her chair, treasured
+up her spontaneous tropes and metaphors, and absorbed her sentiments.
+He had a clear perception of the state of the times, was perhaps a
+sincere patriot, and had no ties of friendship, no scruples of
+conscience, no instincts of mercy, to turn him aside from any measures
+of blood or woe which might accomplish his plans.
+
+[Illustration: ROBESPIERRE.]
+
+Though the Girondists and the Jacobins were the two great parties now
+contending in the tumultuous arena of French revolution, there still
+remained the enfeebled and broken remains of the court party, with
+their insulted and humiliated king at their head, and also numerous
+cliques and minor divisions of those struggling for power. At the
+political evening reunions in the saloon of Madame Roland, she was
+invariably present, not as a prominent actor in the scenes, taking a
+conspicuous part in the social debates, but as a quiet and modest
+lady, of well-known intellectual supremacy, whose active mind took the
+liveliest interest in the agitations of the hour. The influence she
+exerted was the polished, refined, attractive influence of an
+accomplished woman, who moved in her own appropriate sphere. She made
+no Amazonian speeches. She mingled not with men in the clamor of
+debate. With an invisible hand she gently and winningly touched the
+springs of action in other hearts. With feminine conversational
+eloquence, she threw out sagacious suggestions, which others eagerly
+adopted, and advocated, and carried into vigorous execution. She did
+no violence to that delicacy of perception which is woman's tower and
+strength. She moved not from that sphere where woman reigns so
+resistlessly, and dreamed not of laying aside the graceful and
+polished weapons of her own sex, to grasp the heavier and coarser
+armor of man, which no woman can wield. By such an endeavor, one does
+but excite the repugnance of all except the unfortunate few, who can
+see no peculiar sacredness in woman's person, mind, or heart.
+
+As the gentlemen assembled in the retired parlor, or rather library
+and study, appropriated to these confidential interviews, Madame
+Roland took her seat at a little work-table, aside from the circle
+where her husband and his friends were discussing their political
+measures. Busy with her needle or with her pen, she listened to every
+word that was uttered, and often bit her lips to check the almost
+irrepressible desire to speak out in condemnation of some feeble
+proposal 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 were
+attracted to her side. Robespierre, at such times silent and
+thoughtful, was ever bending over her chair. He studied Madame Roland
+with even more of stoical apathy than another man would study a book
+which he admires. The next day his companions would smile at the
+effrontery with which Robespierre would give utterance, in the
+Assembly, not only to the sentiments, but even to the very words and
+phrases which he had so carefully garnered from the exuberant diction
+of his eloquent instructress. Occasionally, every eye would be riveted
+upon him, and every ear attentive, as he gave utterance to some lofty
+sentiment, in impassioned language, which had been heard before, in
+sweeter tones, from more persuasive lips.
+
+But the Revolution, like a spirit of destruction, was now careering
+onward with resistless power. Liberty was becoming lawlessness. Mobs
+rioted through the streets, burned chateaux, demolished convents,
+hunted, even to death, priests and nobles, sacked the palaces of the
+king, and defiled the altars of religion. The Girondists, illustrious,
+eloquent, patriotic men, sincerely desirous of breaking the arm of
+despotism and of introducing a well-regulated liberty, now began to
+tremble. They saw that a spirit was evoked which might trample every
+thing sacred in the dust. Their opponents, the Jacobins, rallying the
+populace around them with the cry, "Kill, burn, destroy," were for
+rushing onward in this career of demolition, till every vestige of
+gradations of rank and every restraint of religion should be swept
+from the land. The Girondists paused in deep embarrassment. They could
+not retrace their steps and try to re-establish the throne. The
+endeavor would not only be utterly unavailing, but would, with
+certainty, involve them in speedy and retrieveless ruin. They could
+not unite with the Jacobins in their reckless onset upon every thing
+which time had rendered venerable, and substitute for decency, and
+law, and order, the capricious volitions of an insolent, ignorant, and
+degraded mob. The only hope that remained for them was to struggle to
+continue firm in the position which they had already assumed. It was
+the only hope for France. The restoration of the monarchy was
+impossible. The triumph of the Jacobins was ruin. Which of these two
+parties in the Assembly shall array around its banners the millions of
+the populace of France, now aroused to the full consciousness of
+their power? Which can bid highest for the popular vote? Which can
+pander most successfully to the popular palate? The Girondists had
+talent, and integrity, and incorruptible patriotism. They foresaw
+their peril, but they resolved to meet it, and, if they must perish,
+to perish with their armor on. No one discerned this danger at an
+earlier period than Madame Roland. She warned her friends of its
+approach, even before they were conscious of the gulf to which they
+were tending. She urged the adoption of precautionary measures, by
+which a retreat might be effected when their post should be no longer
+tenable. "I once thought," said Madame Roland, "that there were no
+evils worse than regal despotism. I now see that there are other
+calamities vastly more to be dreaded."
+
+Robespierre, who had associated with the Girondists with rather a
+sullen and Ishmaelitish spirit, holding himself in readiness to go
+here or there, as events might indicate to be politic, began now to
+incline toward the more popular party, of which he subsequently became
+the inspiring demon. Though he was daily attracting more attention, he
+had not yet risen to popularity. On one occasion, being accused of
+advocating some unpopular measure, the clamors of the multitude were
+raised against him, and vows of vengeance were uttered, loud and deep,
+through the streets of Paris. His enemies in the Assembly took
+advantage of this to bring an act of accusation against him, which
+would relieve them of his presence by the decisive energy of the ax of
+the guillotine. Robespierre's danger was most imminent, and he was
+obliged to conceal himself. Madame Roland, inspired by those
+courageous impulses which ever ennobled her, went at midnight,
+accompanied by her husband, to his retreat, to invite him to a more
+secure asylum in their own house. Madame Roland then hastened to a
+very influential friend, M. Busot, allowing no weariness to interrupt
+her philanthropy, and entreated him to hasten immediately and endeavor
+to exculpate Robespierre, before an act of accusation should be issued
+against him. M. Busot hesitated, but, unable to resist the earnest
+appeal of Madame Roland, replied, "I will do all in my power to save
+this unfortunate young man, although I am far from partaking the
+opinion of many respecting him. He thinks too much of himself to love
+liberty; but he serves it, and that is enough for me. I will defend
+him." Thus was the life of Robespierre saved. He lived to reward his
+benefactors by consigning them all to prison and to death. Says
+Lamartine sublimely, "Beneath the dungeons of the Conciergerie, Madame
+Roland remembered that night with satisfaction. If Robespierre
+recalled it in his power, this memory must have fallen colder upon his
+heart than the ax of the headsman."
+
+The powerful influence which Madame Roland was thus exerting could not
+be concealed. Her husband became more illustrious through that
+brilliance she was ever anxious to reflect upon him. She appeared to
+have no ambition for personal renown. She sought only to elevate the
+position and expand the celebrity of her companion. It was whispered
+from ear to ear, and now and then openly asserted in the Assembly,
+that the bold and decisive measures of the Girondists received their
+impulse from the youthful and lovely wife of M. Roland.
+
+In September, 1791, the Assembly was dissolved, and M. and Madame
+Roland returned to the rural quiet of La Platiere. But in pruning the
+vines, and feeding the poultry, and cultivating the flowers which so
+peacefully bloomed in their garden, they could not forget the exciting
+scenes through which they had passed, and the still more exciting
+scenes which they foresaw were to come. She kept up a constant
+correspondence with Robespierre and Busot, and furnished many very
+able articles for a widely-circulated journal, established by the
+Girondists for the advocacy of their political views. The question now
+arose between herself and her husband whether they should relinquish
+the agitations and the perils of a political life in these stormy
+times, and cloister themselves in rural seclusion, in the calm luxury
+of literary and scientific enterprise, or launch forth again upon the
+storm-swept ocean of revolution and anarchy. Few who understand the
+human heart will doubt of the decision to which they came. The
+chickens were left in the yard, the rabbits in the warren, and the
+flowers were abandoned to bloom in solitude; and before the snows of
+December had whitened the hills, they were again installed in
+tumultuous Paris. A new Assembly had just been convened, from which
+all the members of the one but recently dissolved were by law
+excluded. Their friends were rapidly assembling in Paris from their
+summer 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 mold
+public opinion, and to overawe the Assembly. It was a period of
+darkness and of gloom; but there is something so intoxicating in the
+draughts of homage and power, that those who have once quaffed them
+find all milder stimulants stale and insipid. No sooner were M. and
+Madame Roland established in their city residence, than they were
+involved in all the plots and the counterplots of the Revolution. M.
+Roland was grave, taciturn, oracular. He had no brilliance of talent
+to excite envy. He displayed no ostentation in dress, or equipage, or
+manners, to provoke the desire in others to humble him. His reputation
+for stoical virtue gave a wide sweep to his influence. His very
+silence invested him with a mysterious wisdom. Consequently, no one
+feared him as a rival, and he was freely thrust forward as the
+unobjectionable head of a party by all who hoped through him to
+promote their own interests. He was what we call in America an
+_available_ candidate. Madame Roland, on the contrary, was animated
+and brilliant. Her genius was universally admired. Her bold
+suggestions, her shrewd counsel, her lively repartee, her capability
+of cutting sarcasm, rarely exercised, her deep and impassioned
+benevolence, her unvarying cheerfulness, the sincerity and enthusiasm
+of her philanthropy, and the unrivaled brilliance of her
+conversational powers, made her the center of a system around which
+the brightest intellects were revolving. Vergniaud, Petion, Brissot,
+and others, whose names were then comparatively unknown, but whose
+fame has since resounded through the civilized world, loved to do her
+homage.
+
+The spirit of the Revolution was still advancing with gigantic
+strides, and the already shattered throne was reeling beneath the
+redoubled blows of the insurgent people. Massacres were rife all over
+the kingdom. The sky was nightly illumined by conflagrations. The
+nobles were abandoning their estates, and escaping from perils and
+death to take refuge in the bosom of the little army of emigrants at
+Coblentz. The king, insulted and a prisoner, reigned but in name.
+Under these circumstances, Louis was compelled to dismiss his ministry
+and to call in another more acceptable to the people. The king hoped,
+by the appointment of a Republican ministry, to pacify the democratic
+spirit. There was no other resource left him but abdication. It was a
+bitter cup for him to drink. His proud and spirited queen declared
+that she would rather die than throw herself into the arms of
+_Republicans_ for protection. He yielded to the pressure, dismissed
+his ministers, and surrendered himself to the Girondists for the
+appointment of a new ministry. The Girondists called upon M. Roland to
+take the important post of Minister of the Interior. It was a perilous
+position to fill, but what danger will not ambition face? In the
+present posture of affairs, the Minister of the Interior was the
+monarch of France. M. Roland, whose quiet and hidden ambition had been
+feeding upon its success, smiled nervously at the power which, thus
+unsolicited, was passing into his hands. Madame Roland, whose
+all-absorbing passion it now was to elevate her husband to the highest
+summits of greatness, was gratified in view of the honor and agitated
+in view of the peril; but, to her exalted spirit, the greater the
+danger, the more heroic the act. "The burden is heavy," she said; "but
+Roland has a great consciousness of his own powers, and would derive
+fresh strength from the feeling of being useful to liberty and his
+country."
+
+In March, 1792, he entered upon his arduous and exalted office. The
+palace formerly occupied by the Controller General of Finance, most
+gorgeously furnished by Madame Necker in the days of her glory, was
+appropriated to their use. Madame Roland entered this splendid
+establishment, and, elevated in social eminence above the most exalted
+nobles of France, fulfilled all the complicated duties of her station
+with a grace and dignity which have never been surpassed. Thus had
+Jane risen from that humble position in which the daughter of the
+engraver, in solitude, communed with her books, to be the mistress of
+a palace of aristocratic grandeur, and the associate of statesmen and
+princes.
+
+When M. Roland made his first appearance at court as the minister of
+his royal master, instead of arraying himself in the court-dress which
+the customs of the times required, he affected, in his costume, the
+simplicity of his principles. He wished to appear in his exalted
+station still the man of the people. He had not forgotten the
+impression produced in France by Franklin, as in the most republican
+simplicity of dress he moved among the glittering throng at
+Versailles. He accordingly presented himself at the Tuileries in a
+plain black coat, with a round hat, and dusty shoes fastened with
+ribbons instead of buckles. The courtiers were indignant. The king was
+highly displeased at what he considered an act of disrespect. The
+master of ceremonies was in consternation, and exclaimed with a look
+of horror to General Damuriez, "My dear sir, he has not even buckles
+in his shoes!" "Mercy upon us!" exclaimed the old general, with the
+most laughable expression of affected gravity, "we shall then all go
+to ruin together!"
+
+The king, however, soon forgot the neglect of etiquette in the
+momentous questions which were pressing upon his attention. He felt
+the importance of securing the confidence and good will of his
+ministers, and he approached them with the utmost affability and
+conciliation. M. Roland returned from his first interview with the
+monarch quite enchanted with his excellent disposition and his
+patriotic spirit. He assured his wife that the community had formed a
+totally erroneous estimate of the king; that he was sincerely a friend
+to the reforms which were taking place, and was a hearty supporter of
+the Constitution which had been apparently forced upon him. The prompt
+reply of Madame Roland displayed even more than her characteristic
+sagacity. "If Louis is sincerely a friend of the Constitution, he must
+be virtuous beyond the common race of mortals. Mistrust your own
+virtue, M. Roland. You are only an honest countryman wandering amid a
+crowd of courtiers--virtue in danger amid a myriad of vices. They
+speak our language; we do not know theirs. No! Louis _can not_ love
+the chains that fetter him. He may feign to caress them. He thinks
+only of how he can spurn them. Fallen greatness loves not its
+decadence. No man likes his humiliation. Trust in human nature; that
+never deceives. Distrust courts. Your virtue is too elevated to see
+the snares which courtiers spread beneath your feet."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE MINISTRY OF M. ROLAND.
+
+1792
+
+Parlor of Madame Roland.--Vacillation of Louis.--Measures of the
+Girondists.--Their perilous position.--Rumors of invasion.--The
+rabble.--Danger of the Girondists.--Their demand of the king.--Letter
+to the king.--Its character.--Refusal of the king.--Dismissal of M.
+Roland.--The letter read to the Assembly.--Its celebrity.--Increasing
+influence of the Rolands.--Barbaroux.--Project of a republic.--Seconded
+by Madame Roland.--Barbaroux's opinion of the Rolands.--The Girondists
+desert the king.--Madame Roland's influence over the Girondists.--Buzot
+adores her.--Madame Roland's opinion of Buzot.--Effect of her
+death.--Danton at Madame Roland's.--New scenes of violence.--Outrages
+of the mob.--Recall of M. Roland.--Perilous situation of M. Roland.--His
+wife's mode of living.--Library of Madame Roland.--Meetings
+there.--Striking contrast.--Labors of Madame Roland.--French
+artists at Rome.--Letter to the pope.--Anecdote.--Reverses of
+fortune.--Increasing anarchy.--Baseness of the Jacobins.--The throne
+demolished.--Cry for a republic.--The Republic.--Waning of M. Roland's
+power.--Madame Roland's disgust at the horrors of the Revolution.
+
+
+From all the spacious apartments of the magnificent mansion allotted
+as the residence of the Minister of the Interior, Madame Roland
+selected a small and retired parlor, which she had furnished with
+every attraction as a library and a study. This was her much-loved
+retreat, and here M. Roland, in the presence of his wife, was
+accustomed to see his friends in all their confidential intercourse.
+Thus she was not only made acquainted with all the important
+occurrences of the times, but she formed an intimate personal
+acquaintance with the leading actors in these eventful movements.
+Louis, adopting a vacillating policy, in his endeavors to conciliate
+each party was losing the confidence and the support of all. The
+Girondists, foreseeing the danger which threatened the king and all
+the institutions of government, were anxious that he should be
+persuaded to abandon these mistaken measures, and firmly and openly
+advocate the reforms which had already taken place. They felt that if
+he would energetically take his stand in the position which the
+Girondists had assumed, there was still safety for himself and the
+nation. The Girondists, at this time, wished to sustain the throne,
+but they wished to limit its power and surround it by the institutions
+of republican liberty. The king, animated by his far more
+strong-minded, energetic, and ambitious queen, was slowly and
+reluctantly surrendering point by point as the pressure of the
+multitude compelled, while he was continually hoping that some change
+in affairs would enable him to regain his lost power.
+
+The position of the Girondists began to be more and more perilous. The
+army of emigrant nobles at Coblentz, within the dominions of the King
+of Prussia, was rapidly increasing in numbers. Frederic was
+threatening, in alliance with all the most powerful crowns of Europe,
+to march with a resistless army to Paris, reinstate the king in his
+lost authority, and take signal vengeance upon the leaders of the
+Revolution. There were hundreds of thousands in France, the most
+illustrious in rank and opulence, who would join such an army. The
+Roman Catholic priesthood, to a man, would lend to it the influence
+of all its spiritual authority. Paris was every hour agitated by
+rumors of the approach of the armies of invasion. The people all
+believed 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 have
+rallied those hosts around her banner. Such was the position of the
+Girondists in reference to the Royalists. They were ready to adopt the
+most energetic measures to repel the interference of this armed
+confederacy.
+
+On the other hand, they saw another party, noisy, turbulent,
+sanguinary, rising beneath them, and threatening with destruction all
+connected in any way with the execrated throne. This new party, now
+emerging from the lowest strata of society, upheaving all its
+superincumbent masses, consisted of the wan, the starving, the
+haggard, the reckless. All of the abandoned and the dissolute rallied
+beneath its banners. They called themselves the people. Amazonian
+fish-women; overgrown boys, with the faces and the hearts of demons;
+men and girls, who had no homes but the kennels of Paris, in countless
+thousands swelled its demonstrations of power, whenever it pleased
+its leaders to call them out. This was the Jacobin party.
+
+The Girondists trembled before this mysterious apparition now looming
+up before them, and clamoring for the overthrow of all human
+distinctions. The crown had been struck from the head of the king, and
+was snatched at by the most menial and degraded of his subjects. The
+Girondists, through Madame Roland, urged the Minister of the Interior
+that he should demand of the king an immediate proclamation of war
+against the emigrants and their supporters, and that he should also
+issue a decree against the Catholic clergy who would not support the
+measures of the Revolution. It was, indeed, a bitter draught for the
+king to drink. Louis declared that he would rather die than sign such
+a decree. The pressure of the populace was so tremendous, displayed in
+mobs, and conflagrations, and massacres, that these decisive measures
+seemed absolutely indispensable for the preservation of the Girondist
+party and the safety of the king. M. Roland was urged to present to
+the throne a most earnest letter of expostulation and advice. Madame
+Roland sat down at her desk and wrote the letter for her husband. It
+was expressed in that glowing and impassioned style so eminently at
+her command. Its fervid eloquence was inspired by the foresight she
+had of impending perils. M. Roland, impressed by its eloquence, yet
+almost trembling in view of its boldness and its truths, presented the
+letter to the king. Its last paragraphs will give one some idea of its
+character.
+
+    "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 the
+enfeebled monarch. The adoption of the course it recommended was
+apparently his only chance of refuge from certain destruction. We must
+respect the magnanimity of the king in refusing to sign the decree
+against the firmest friends of his throne, and we must also respect
+those who were struggling against despotic power for the establishment
+of civil and religious freedom. When we think of the king and his
+suffering family, our sympathies are so enlisted in behalf of their
+woes that we condemn the letter as harsh and unfeeling. When we think
+for how many ages the people of France had been crushed into poverty
+and debasement, we rejoice to hear stern and uncompromising truth fall
+upon the ear of royalty. And yet Madame Roland's letter rather excites
+our admiration for her wonderful abilities than allures us to her by
+developments of female loveliness. This celebrated letter was
+presented 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 was
+dismissed from office. It is impossible to refrain from applauding the
+king for this manifestation of spirit and self-respect. Had he
+exhibited more of this energy, he might at least have had the honor of
+dying more gloriously; but, as the intrepid wife of the minister
+dictated the letter to the king, we can not doubt that it was the
+imperious wife of the king who dictated the dismissal in reply. Maria
+Antoinette and Madame Roland met as Greek meets Greek.
+
+"Here am I, dismissed from office," was M. Roland's exclamation to his
+wife on his return home.
+
+"Present your letter to the Assembly, that the nation may see for what
+counsel you have been dismissed," replied the undaunted wife.
+
+M. Roland did so. He was received as a martyr to patriotism. The
+letter was read amid the loudest applauses. It was ordered to be
+printed, and circulated by tens of thousands through the eighty-three
+departments of the kingdom; and from all those departments there came
+rolling back upon the metropolis the echo of the most tumultuous
+indignation and applause. The famous letter was read by all
+France--nay, more, by all Europe. Roland was a hero. The plaudits of
+the million fell upon the ear of the defeated minister, while the
+execrations of the million rose more loudly and ominously around the
+tottering throne. This blow, struck by Madame Roland, was by far the
+heaviest the throne of France had yet received. She who so loved to
+play the part of a heroine was not at all dismayed by defeat, when it
+came with such an aggrandizement of power. Upon this wave of
+enthusiastic popularity Madame Roland and her husband retired from the
+magnificent palace where they had dwelt for so short a time, and, with
+a little pardonable ostentation, selected for their retreat very
+humble apartments in an apparently obscure street of the agitated
+metropolis. It was the retirement of a philosopher proud of the gloom
+of his garret. But M. Roland and wife were more powerful now than ever
+before. The famous letter had placed them in the front ranks of the
+friends of reform, and enshrined them in the hearts of the ever fickle
+populace. Even the Jacobins were compelled to swell the universal
+voice of commendation. M. Roland's apartments were ever thronged. All
+important plans were discussed and shaped by him and his wife before
+they were presented in the Assembly.
+
+There was a young statesman then in Paris named Barbaroux, of
+remarkable beauty of person, and of the richest mental endowments. The
+elegance of his stature and the pensive melancholy of his classic
+features invested him with a peculiar power of fascination. Between
+him and Madame Roland there existed the most pure, though the
+strongest friendship. One day he was sitting with M. Roland and wife,
+in social conference upon the desperate troubles of the times, when
+the dismissed minister said to him, "What is to be done to save
+France? 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 is
+lost. In six weeks the Austrians will be at Paris. Have we, then,
+labored at the most glorious of revolutions for so many years, to see
+it overthrown in a single day? If liberty dies in France, it is lost
+forever to mankind. All the hopes of philosophy are deceived.
+Prejudice and tyranny will again grasp the world. Let us prevent this
+misfortune. 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 this
+bold proposal, so heroic in its conception, so full of hazard, and
+demanding such miracles of self-sacrifice and devotion. Madame Roland,
+who perhaps originally suggested the idea to her husband, urged it
+with all her impassioned energy. Barbaroux was just the man to have
+his whole soul inflamed by an enterprise of such grandeur. He drew a
+rapid sketch of the resources and hopes of liberty in the south, and,
+taking a map, traced the limits of the republic, from the Doubs, the
+Aire, and the Rhone, to La Dordogne; and from the inaccessible
+mountains of Auvergne, to Durance and the sea. A serene joy passed
+over the features of the three, thus quietly originating a plan which
+was, with an earthquake's power, to make every throne in Europe
+totter, and to convulse Christendom to its very center. Barbaroux left
+them deeply impressed with a sense of the grandeur and the perils of
+the enterprise, and remarked to a friend, "Of all the men of modern
+times, Roland seems to me most to resemble Cato; but it must be owned
+that it is to his wife that his courage and talents are due." Previous
+to this hour the Girondists had wished to sustain the throne, and
+merely to surround it with free institutions. They had taken the
+government of England for their model. From this day the Girondists,
+freed from all obligations to the king, conspired secretly in Madame
+Roland's chamber, and publicly in the tribune, for the entire
+overthrow of the monarchy, and the establishment of a republic like
+that of the United States. They rivaled the Jacobins in the endeavor
+to see who could strike the heaviest blows against the throne. It was
+now a struggle between life and death. The triumph of the invading
+army would be the utter destruction of all connected with the
+revolutionary movement. And thus did Madame Roland exert an influence
+more powerful, perhaps, than that of any other one mind in the
+demolition of the Bourbon despotism.
+
+Her influence over the Girondist party was such as no _man_ ever can
+exert. Her conduct, frank and open-hearted, was irreproachable, ever
+above even the slightest suspicion of indiscretion. She could not be
+insensible to the homage, the admiration of those she gathered around
+her. Buzot adored Madame Roland as the inspiration of his mind, as the
+idol of his worship. She had involuntarily gained that entire
+ascendency over his whole being which made her the world to him. The
+secret of this resistless enchantment was concealed until her death;
+it was then disclosed, and revealed the mystery of a spiritual
+conflict such as few can comprehend. She writes of Buzot, "Sensible,
+ardent, melancholy, he seems born to give and share happiness. This
+man would forget the universe in the sweetness of private virtues.
+Capable of sublime impulses and unvarying affections, the vulgar, who
+like to depreciate what it can not equal, accuse him of being a
+dreamer. Of sweet countenance, elegant figure, there is always in his
+attire that care, neatness, and propriety which announce the respect
+of self as well as of others. While the dregs of the nation elevate
+the flatterers and corrupters of the people to station--while
+cut-throats swear, drink, and clothe themselves in rags, in order to
+fraternize with the populace, Buzot possesses the morality of
+Socrates, and maintains the decorum of Scipio. So they pull down his
+house, and banish him as they did Aristides. I am astonished that they
+have not issued a decree that his name should be forgotten."
+
+These words Madame Roland wrote in her dungeon the night before her
+execution. Buzot was then an exile, pursued by unrelenting fury, and
+concealed in the caves of St. Emilion. When the tidings reached him of
+the death of Madame Roland, he fell to the ground as if struck by
+lightning. For many days he was in a state of phrensy, and was never
+again restored to cheerfulness.
+
+Danton now appeared in the saloon of Madame Roland, with his gigantic
+stature, and shaggy hair, and voice of thunder, and crouched at the
+feet of this mistress of hearts, whom his sagacity perceived was soon
+again to be the dispenser of power. She comprehended at a glance his
+herculean abilities, and the important aid he could render the
+Republican cause. She wished to win his co-operation, and at first
+tried to conciliate him, "as a woman would pat a lion;" but soon,
+convinced of his heartlessness and utter want of principle, she
+spurned him with abhorrence. He subsequently endeavored, again and
+again, to reinstate himself in her favor, but in vain. Every hour
+scenes of new violence were being enacted in Paris and throughout all
+France. Roland was the idol of the nation. The famous letter was the
+subject of universal admiration. The outcry against his dismission was
+falling in thunder tones on the ear of the king. This act had fanned
+to increased intensity those flames of revolutionary phrensy which
+were now glaring with portentous flashes in every part of France. The
+people, intoxicated and maddened by the discovery of their power, were
+now 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 of
+humiliation to its lowest dregs. Austria and Prussia, united with the
+emigrants at Coblentz, prepared to march to Paris to reinstate the
+king upon his throne. Excitement, consternation, phrensy, pervaded all
+hearts. A vast assemblage of countless thousands of women, and boys,
+and wan and starving men, gathered in the streets of Paris. Harangues
+against the king and the aristocrats rendered them delirious with
+rage. They crowded all the avenues to the Tuileries, burst through the
+gates and over the walls, dashed down the doors and stove in the
+windows, and, with obscene ribaldry, rioted through all the apartments
+sacred to royalty. They thrust the dirty red cap of Jacobinism upon
+the head of the King. They poured into the ear of the humiliated queen
+the most revolting and loathsome execrations. There was no hope for
+Louis but in the recall of M. Roland. The court party could give him
+no protection. The Jacobins were upon him in locust legions. M. Roland
+alone could bring the Girondists, as a shield, between the throne and
+the mob. He was recalled, and again moved, in calm triumph, from his
+obscure chambers to the regal palace of the minister. If Madame
+Roland's letter dismissed him from office, her letter also restored
+him again with an enormous accumulation of power.
+
+[Illustration: THE LIBRARY.]
+
+His situation was not an enviable one. Elevated as it was in dignity
+and influence, it was full of perplexity, toil, and peril. The spirit
+of revolution was now rampant, and no earthly power could stay it. It
+was inevitable that those who would not recklessly ride upon its
+billows must be overwhelmed by its resistless surges. Madame Roland
+was far more conscious of the peril than her husband. With intense
+emotion, but calmly and firmly, she looked upon the gathering storm.
+The peculiarity of her character, and her great moral courage, was
+illustrated by the mode of life she vigorously adopted. Raised from
+obscurity to a position so commanding, with rank and wealth bowing
+obsequiously around her, she was entirely undazzled, and resolved
+that, consecrating all her energies to the demands of the tempestuous
+times, she would waste no time in fashionable parties and heartless
+visits. "My love of study," she said, "is as great as my detestation
+of cards, and the society of silly people affords me no amusement."
+Twice a week she gave a dinner to the members of the ministry, and
+other influential men in the political world, with whom her husband
+wished to converse. The palace was furnished to their hands by its
+former occupants with Oriental luxury. Selecting for her own use, as
+before, one of the smallest parlors, she furnished it as her library.
+Here she lived, engrossed in study, busy with her pen, and taking an
+unostentatious and unseen, but most active part, in all those measures
+which were literally agitating the whole civilized world. Her little
+library was the sanctuary for all confidential conversation upon
+matters of state. Here her husband met his political friends to mature
+their measures. The gentlemen gathered, evening after evening, around
+the table in the center of the room, M. Roland, with his serene,
+reflective brow, presiding at their head, while Madame Roland, at her
+work-table by the fireside, employed herself with her needle or her
+pen. Her mind, however, was absorbed by the conversation which was
+passing. M. Roland, in fact, in giving his own views, was but
+recapitulating those sentiments with which his mind was imbued from
+previous conference with his companion.
+
+It is not possible that one endowed with the ardent and glowing
+imagination of Madame Roland should not, at times, feel inwardly the
+spirit of exultation in the consciousness of this vast power. From the
+windows of her palace she looked down upon the shop of the mechanic
+where her infancy was cradled, and upon those dusty streets where she
+had walked an obscure child, while proud aristocracy swept by her in
+splendor--that very aristocracy looking now imploringly to her for a
+smile. She possessed that peculiar tact, which enabled her often to
+guide the course of political measures without appearing to do so. She
+was only anxious to promote the glory of her husband, and was never
+more happy than when he was receiving plaudits for works which she had
+performed. She wrote many of his proclamations, his letters, his state
+papers, and with all the glowing fervor of an enthusiastic woman.
+"Without me," she writes, "my husband would have been quite as good a
+minister, for his knowledge, his activity, his integrity were all his
+own; but with me he attracted more attention, because I infused into
+his writings that mixture of spirit and gentleness, of authoritative
+reason and seducing sentiment, which is, perhaps, only to be found in
+the 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 noblest
+men of France.
+
+A curious circumstance occurred at this time, which forcibly and even
+ludicrously struck Madame Roland's mind, as she reflected upon the
+wonderful changes of life, and the peculiar position which she now
+occupied. Some French artists had been imprisoned by the pope at Rome.
+The Executive Council of France wished to remonstrate and demand their
+release. Madame Roland sat down to write the letter, severe and
+authoritative, to his holiness, threatening him with the severest
+vengeance if he refused to comply with the request. As in her little
+library she prepared this communication to the head of the Papal
+States and of the Catholic Church, she paused, with her pen in her
+hand, and reflected upon her situation but a few years before as the
+humble daughter of an engraver. She recalled to mind the emotions of
+superstitious awe and adoration with which, in the nunnery, she had
+regarded his holiness as next to the Deity, and almost his equal. She
+read over some of the imperious passages which she had now addressed
+to the pope in the unaffected dignity of conscious power, and the
+contrast was so striking, and struck her as so ludicrous, that she
+burst into an uncontrollable paroxysm of laughter.
+
+When Jane was a diffident maiden of seventeen, she went once with her
+aunt to the residence of a nobleman of exalted rank and vast wealth,
+and had there been invited to dine _with the servants_. The proud
+spirit of Jane was touched to the quick. With a burning brow she sat
+down in the servants' hall, with stewards, and butlers, and cooks, and
+footmen, and _valet de chambres_, and ladies' maids of every degree,
+all dressed in tawdry finery, and assuming the most disgusting airs of
+self-importance. She went home despising in her heart both lords and
+menials, and dreaming, with new aspirations, of her Roman republic.
+One day, when Madame Roland was in power, she had just passed from her
+splendid dining-room, where she had been entertaining the most
+distinguished men of the empire, into her drawing-room, when a
+gray-headed gentleman entered, and bowing profoundly and most
+obsequiously before her, entreated the honor of an introduction to the
+Minister of the Interior. This gentleman was M. Haudry, with whose
+servants 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 formerly
+been exalted above her. She remembered the many scenes in which her
+spirit had been humiliated by haughty assumptions. She could not but
+feel the triumph to which circumstances had borne her, though
+magnanimity restrained its manifestation.
+
+Anarchy now reigned throughout France. The king and the royal family
+were imprisoned in the Temple. The Girondists in the Legislative
+Assembly, which had now assumed the name of the National Convention,
+and M. Roland at the head of the ministry, were struggling, with
+herculean exertions, to restore the dominion of law, and, if possible,
+to save the life of the king. The Jacobins, who, unable to resist the
+boundless popularity of M. Roland, had, for a time, co-operated with
+the Girondists, now began to separate themselves again more and more
+widely from them. They flattered the mob. They encouraged every
+possible demonstration of lawless violence. They pandered to the
+passions of the multitude by affecting grossness and vulgarity in
+person, and language, and manners; by clamoring for the division of
+property, and for the death of the king. In tones daily increasing in
+boldness and efficiency, they declared the Girondists to be the
+friends of the monarch, and the enemies of popular liberty. Upon this
+tumultuous wave of polluted democracy, now rising with resistless and
+crested billow, Danton and Robespierre were riding into their terrific
+power. Humanity shut its eyes in view of the hideous apparition of wan
+and haggard beggary and crime. The deep mutterings of this rising
+storm, which no earthly hand might stay, rolled heavily upon the ear
+of Europe. Christendom looked astounded upon the spectacle of a
+barbarian invasion bursting forth from the cellars and garrets of
+Paris. Oppressed and degraded humanity was about to take vengeance for
+its ages of accumulated wrongs. The throne was demolished. The
+insulted royal family, in rags and almost in starvation, were in a
+dungeon. The universal cry from the masses of the people was now for a
+republic. Jacobins and Girondists united in this cry; but the Jacobins
+accused the Girondists of being insincere, and of secretly plotting
+for the restoration of the king.
+
+Madame Roland, in the name of her husband, drew up for the Convention
+the plan of a republic as a substitute for the throne. From childhood
+she had yearned for a republic, with its liberty and purity,
+fascinated by the ideal of Roman virtue, from which her lively
+imagination had banished all human corruption. But now that the throne
+and hereditary rank were virtually abolished, and all France clamoring
+for a republic, and the pen in her hand to present to the National
+Assembly a Constitution of popular liberty, her heart misgave her. Her
+husband was nominally Minister of the Interior, but his power was
+gone. The mob of Paris had usurped the place of king, and
+Constitution, and law. The Jacobins were attaining the decided
+ascendency. The guillotine was daily crimsoned with the blood of the
+noblest citizens of France. The streets and the prisons were polluted
+with the massacre of the innocent. The soul of Madame Roland recoiled
+with horror at the scenes she daily witnessed. The Girondists
+struggled in vain to resist the torrent, but they were swept before
+it. The time had been when the proclamation of a republic would have
+filled her soul with inexpressible joy. Now she could see no gleam of
+hope for her country. The restoration of the monarchy was impossible.
+The substitution of a republic was inevitable. No earthly power could
+prevent it. In that republic she saw only the precursor of her own
+ruin, the ruin of all dear to her, and general anarchy. With a
+dejected spirit she wrote to a friend, "We are under the knife of
+Robespierre and Marat. You know my enthusiasm for the Revolution. I am
+ashamed 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.--Consternation
+at Paris.--Speech of Danton.--Despotic measures.--Domiciliary
+visits.--Opening of the catacombs.--Terror of the people.--Scenes of
+terror.--Vain attempts at concealment.--Numbers arrested.--The
+priests.--A human fiend.--Butchery of the priests.--Arrival at the
+prison.--Prison tribunal.--Massacre in the prisons.--Fiendish
+orgies.--Female spectators.--Character of the victims.--The
+Bicetre.--Numbers massacred.--Girls sent to the guillotine.--Their
+heroism.--The assassins rewarded.--They threaten their
+instigators.--Ascendency of the mob.--Peril of the Girondists.--The
+Assembly surrounded.--Adroitness of the Jacobins.--Advance of the
+allies.--Robespierre and Danton.--Bold measures proposed by Madame
+Roland.--Decisive stand taken by MM. Roland and Vergniaud.--The
+Girondists defeated.--Resignation of M. Roland.--Attacks upon Madame
+Roland.--How received in the Assembly.--Letter from M. Roland.--Its
+lofty tone.--Danton seeks a reconciliation.--His failure.--Plans of
+the Jacobins.--Fearlessness of Madame Roland.
+
+
+The Prussians were now advancing on their march to Paris. One after
+another of the frontier cities of France were capitulating to the
+invaders as the storm of bomb-shells, from the batteries of the allied
+army, was rained down upon their roofs. The French were retreating
+before their triumphant adversaries. Sanguine hopes sprung up in the
+bosoms of the friends of the monarchy that the artillery of the
+Prussians would soon demolish the iron doors of the Temple, where the
+king and the royal family were imprisoned, and reinstate the captive
+monarch upon his throne. The Revolutionists were almost frantic in
+view of their peril. They knew that there were tens of thousands in
+Paris, of the most wealthy and the most influential, and hundreds of
+thousands in France, who would, at the slightest prospect of success,
+welcome the Prussians as their deliverers. Should the king thus prove
+victorious, the leaders in the revolutionary movement had sinned too
+deeply to hope for pardon. Death was their inevitable doom.
+Consternation pervaded the metropolis. The magnitude of this peril
+united all the revolutionary parties for their common defense. Even
+Vergniaud, the most eloquent leader of the Girondists, proposed a
+decree of death against every citizen of a besieged city who should
+speak of surrender.
+
+It was midnight in the Assembly. The most extraordinary and despotic
+measures were adopted by acclamation to meet the fearful emergency.
+"We must rouse the whole populace of France," exclaimed Danton, in
+those tones which now began to thrill so portentously upon the ear of
+Europe, "and hurl them, _en masse_, upon our invaders. There are
+traitors in Paris, ready to join our foes. We must arrest them all,
+however numerous they may be. The peril is imminent. The precautions
+adopted must be correspondingly prompt and decisive. With the morning
+sun we must visit every dwelling in Paris, and imprison those whom we
+have reason to fear will join the enemies of the nation, even though
+they be thirty thousand in number."
+
+The decree passed without hesitation. The gates of Paris were to be
+locked, that none might escape. Carriages were to be excluded from
+the streets. All citizens were ordered to be at home. The sections,
+the tribunals, the clubs were to suspend their sittings, that the
+public attention might not be distracted. All houses were to be
+brilliantly lighted in the evening, that the search might be more
+effectually conducted. Commissaries, accompanied by armed soldiers,
+were, in the name of the law, to enter every dwelling. Each citizen
+should show what arms he had. If any thing excited suspicion, the
+individual and his premises were to be searched with the utmost
+vigilance. If the slightest deception had been practiced, in denying
+or in not fully confessing any suspicious appearances, the person was
+to be arrested and imprisoned. If a person were found in any dwelling
+but his own, he was to be imprisoned as under suspicion. Guards were
+to be placed in all unoccupied houses. A double cordon of soldiers
+were stationed around the walls, to arrest all who should attempt to
+escape. Armed boats floated upon the Seine, at the two extremities of
+Paris, 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 a
+body of workmen were sent, with torches and suitable tools, to open an
+access to the subterranean burial-grounds extending under a portion of
+Paris, that a speedy disposal might be made of the anticipated
+multitude of dead bodies. The decree, conveying terror to ten thousand
+bosoms, spread with the rapidity of lightning through the streets and
+the dwellings of Paris. Every one who had expressed a sentiment of
+loyalty; 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 the
+sanguinary atrocities of the Revolution; every one who inherited an
+illustrious name, or who had an unfriendly neighbor or an inimical
+servant, trembled at the swift approach of the impending doom.
+
+Bands of men, armed with pikes, brought into power from the dregs of
+society, insolent, merciless, and resistless, accompanied by martial
+music, traversed the streets in all directions. As the commissaries
+knocked at a door, the family within were pale and paralyzed with
+terror. The brutal inquisitors appeared to delight in the anguish
+which their stern office extorted, and the more refined the family in
+culture or the more elevated in rank, the more severely did vulgarity
+in power trample them in the dust of humiliation. They took with them
+workmen acquainted with all possible modes of concealment. They broke
+locks, burst in panels, cut open beds and mattresses, tore up floors,
+sounded wells, explored garrets and cellars for secret doors and
+vaults, and could they find in any house an individual whom affection
+or hospitality had sheltered, a rusty gun, an old picture of any
+member of the royal family, a button with the royal arms, a letter
+from a suspected person, or containing a sentiment against the "Reign
+of Terror," the father was instantly and rudely torn from his home,
+his wife, his children, and hurried with ignominious violence, as a
+traitor unfit to live, through the streets, to the prison. It was a
+night of woe in Paris.
+
+The friends of the monarchy soon found all efforts at concealment
+unavailing. They had at first crept into chimneys, from which they
+were 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 the
+eye of pursuit by coverings of barrels, or lumber, or wood, or coal.
+But the stratagems of affection were equally matched by the sagacity
+of revolutionary phrensy, and the doomed were dragged to light. Many
+of the Royalists had fled to the hospitals, where, in the wards of
+infection, they shared the beds of the dead and the dying. But even
+there they were followed and arrested. The domiciliary visits were
+continued for three days. "The whole city was like a prisoner, whose
+limbs are held while he is searched and fettered." Ten thousand
+suspected persons were seized and committed to the prisons. Many were
+massacred in their dwellings or in the streets. Some were subsequently
+liberated, as having been unjustly arrested.
+
+Thirty priests were dragged into a room at the Hotel de Ville. Five
+coaches, each containing six of the obnoxious prisoners, started to
+convey them to the prison of the Abbaye. A countless mob gathered
+around them as an alarm-gun gave the signal for the coaches to proceed
+on their way. The windows were open that the populace might see those
+whom they deemed traitors to their country, and whom they believed to
+be ready to join the army of invasion, now so triumphantly
+approaching. Every moment the mob increased in density, and with
+difficulty the coaches wormed their way through the tumultuous
+gatherings. Oaths and execrations rose on every side. Gestures and
+threats of violence were fearfully increasing, when a vast multitude
+of men, and women, and boys came roaring down a cross-street, and so
+completely blocked up the way that a peaceful passage was impossible.
+The carriages stopped. A man with his shirt-sleeves rolled up to the
+elbows, and a glittering saber in his hand, forced his way through the
+escort, and, deliberately standing upon the steps of one of the
+coaches, clinging with one hand to the door, plunged again, and again,
+and again his saber into the bodies of the priests, wherever chance
+might direct it. He drew it out reeking with blood, and waved it
+before the people. A hideous yell of applause rose from the multitude,
+and again he plunged his saber into the carriage. The assassin then
+passed to the next coach, and again enacted the same act of horrid
+butchery upon the struggling priests crowded into the carriages, with
+no shield and with no escape. Thus he went, from one to the other,
+through the whole line of coaches, while the armed escort looked on
+with derisive laughter, and shouts of fiendish exultation rose from
+the phrensied multitude. The mounted troops slowly forced open a
+passage for the carriages, and they moved along, marking their passage
+by the streams of blood which dripped, from their dead and dying
+inmates, upon the pavements. When they arrived at the prison, eight
+dead bodies were dragged from the floor of the vehicles, and many of
+those not dead were horridly mutilated and clotted with gore. The
+wretched victims precipitated themselves with the utmost consternation
+into the prison, as a retreat from the billows of rage surging and
+roaring around them.
+
+But the scene within was still more terrible than that without. In the
+spacious hall opening into the court-yard of the prison there was a
+table, around which sat twelve men. Their brawny limbs, and coarse and
+brutal countenances, proclaimed them familiar with debauch and blood.
+Their attire was that of the lowest class in society, with woolen caps
+on their heads, shirt sleeves rolled up, unembarrassed by either vest
+or coat, and butchers' aprons bound around them. At the head of the
+table sat Maillard, at that time the idol of the blood-thirsty mob of
+Paris. These men composed a self-constituted tribunal to award life or
+instant death to those brought before them. First appeared one
+hundred and fifty Swiss officers and soldiers who had been in the
+employ of the king. They were brought _en masse_ before the tribunal.
+"You have assassinated the people," said Maillard, "and they demand
+vengeance." The door was open. The assassins in the court-yard, with
+weapons reeking with blood, were howling for their prey. The soldiers
+were driven into the yard, and they fell beneath the blows of
+bayonets, sabers, and clubs, and their gory bodies were piled up, a
+hideous mound, in the corners of the court. The priests, without
+delay, met with the same fate. A moment sufficed for trial, and
+verdict, and execution. Night came. Brandy and excitement had roused
+the demon in the human heart. Life was a plaything, murder a pastime.
+Torches were lighted, refreshments introduced, songs of mirth and
+joviality rose upon the night air, and still the horrid carnage
+continued unabated. Now and then, from caprice, one was liberated; but
+the innocent and the guilty fell alike. Suspicion was crime. An
+illustrious name was guilt. There was no time for defense. A frown
+from the judge was followed by a blow from the assassin. A similar
+scene was transpiring in all the prisons of Paris. Carts were
+continually arriving to remove the dead bodies, which accumulated much
+faster than they could be borne away. The court-yards became wet and
+slippery with blood. Straw was brought in and strewn thickly over the
+stones, and benches were placed against the walls to accommodate those
+women who wished to gaze upon the butchery. The benches were
+immediately filled with females, exulting in the death of all whom
+they deemed tainted with aristocracy, and rejoicing to see the exalted
+and the refined falling beneath the clubs of the ragged and the
+degraded. The murderers made use of the bodies of the dead for seats,
+upon which they drank their brandy mingled with gunpowder, and smoked
+their pipes. In the nine prisons of Paris these horrors continued
+unabated till they were emptied of their victims. Men most illustrious
+in philanthropy, rank, and virtue, were brained with clubs by
+overgrown boys, who accompanied their blows with fiendish laughter.
+Ladies of the highest accomplishments, of exalted beauty and of
+spotless purity, were hacked in pieces by the lowest wretches who had
+crawled from the dens of pollution, and their dismembered limbs were
+borne on the points of pikes in derision through the streets of the
+metropolis. 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 sickening
+scenes, for the soul turns from them weary of life; and yet thus far
+we must go, for it is important that all eyes should read this
+dreadful yet instructive lesson--that all may _know_ that there is no
+despotism so dreadful as the despotism of anarchy--that there are no
+laws more to be abhorred than the absence of all law.
+
+In the prison of the Bicetre there were three thousand five hundred
+captives. The ruffians forced the gates, drove in the dungeon doors
+with cannon, and for five days and five nights continued the
+slaughter. The phrensy of the intoxicated mob increased each day, and
+hordes came pouring out from all the foul dens of pollution greedy for
+carnage. The fevered thirst for blood was inextinguishable. No tongue
+can now tell the number of the victims. The mangled bodies were
+hurried to the catacombs, and thrown into an indiscriminate heap of
+corruption. By many it is estimated that more than ten thousand fell
+during these massacres. The tidings of these outrages spread through
+all the provinces of France, and stimulated to similar atrocities the
+mob in every city. At Orleans the houses of merchants were sacked, the
+merchants and others of wealth or high standing massacred, while some
+who had offered resistance were burned at slow fires.
+
+In one town, in the vicinity of the Prussian army, some Loyalist
+gentlemen, sanguine in view of the success of their friends, got up an
+entertainment in honor of their victories. At this entertainment their
+daughters danced. The young ladies were all arrested, fourteen in
+number, and taken in a cart to the guillotine. These young and
+beautiful girls, all between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, and
+from the most refined and opulent families, were beheaded. The group
+of 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 that
+there must have been some supernatural power of support to have
+sustained children under so awful an ordeal. There were no faintings,
+no loud lamentations, no shrieks of despair. With the serenity of
+martyrs they met their fate, each one emulous of showing to her
+companions how much like a heroine she could die.
+
+These scenes were enacted at the instigation of the Jacobins. Danton
+and Marat urged on these merciless measures of lawless violence. "We
+must," said they, "strike _terror_ into the hearts of our foes. It is
+our only safety." They sent agents into the most degraded quarters of
+the city to rouse and direct the mob. They voted abundant supplies to
+the wretched assassins who had broken into the prisons, and involved
+youth and age, and innocence and guilt, in indiscriminate carnage. The
+murderers, reeking in intoxication and besmeared with blood, came in
+crowds to the door of the municipality to claim their reward. "Do you
+think," said a brawny, gigantic wretch, with tucked-up sleeves, in the
+garb of a butcher, and with his whole person bespattered with blood
+and brains, "do you think that I have earned but twenty-four francs
+to-day? I have killed forty aristocrats with my own hands!" The money
+was soon exhausted, and still the crowd of assassins thronged the
+committee. Indignant that their claims were not instantly discharged,
+they presented their bloody weapons at the throats of their
+instigators, and threatened them with immediate death if the money
+were not furnished. Thus urged, the committee succeeded in paying one
+half the sum, and gave bonds for the rest.
+
+M. Roland was almost frantic in view of these horrors, which he had no
+power to quell. The mob, headed by the Jacobins, had now the complete
+ascendency, and he was minister but in name. He urged upon the
+Assembly the adoption of immediate and energetic measures to arrest
+these execrable deeds of lawless violence. Many of the Girondists in
+the Assembly gave vehement but unavailing utterance to their
+execration of the massacres. Others were intimidated by the weapon
+which the Jacobins were now so effectually wielding; for they knew
+that it might not be very difficult so to direct the fury of the mob
+as to turn those sharp blades, now dripping with blood, from the
+prisons into the hall of Assembly, and upon the throats of all
+obnoxious to Jacobin power. The Girondists trembled in view of their
+danger. They had aided in opening the sluice-ways of a torrent which
+was now sweeping every thing before it. Madame Roland distinctly saw
+and deeply felt the peril to which she and her friends were exposed.
+She knew, and they all knew, that defeat was death. The great struggle
+now in the Assembly was for the popular voice. The Girondists hoped,
+though almost in despair, that it was not yet too late to show the
+people the horrors of anarchy, and to rally around themselves the
+multitude to sustain a well-established and law-revering republic. The
+Jacobins determined to send their opponents to the scaffold, and by
+the aid of the terrors of the mob, now enlisted on their side,
+resistlessly to carry all their measures. A hint from the Jacobin
+leaders surrounded the Assembly with the hideous howlings of a haggard
+concourse of beings just as merciless and demoniac as lost spirits.
+They exhibited these allies to the Girondists as a bull-dog shows his
+teeth.
+
+In speeches, and placards, and proclamations they declared the
+Girondists to be, in heart, the enemies of the Republic. They accused
+them of hating the Revolution in consequence of its necessary
+severity, and of plotting in secret for the restoration of the king.
+With great adroitness, they introduced measures which the Girondists
+must either support, and thus aid the Jacobins, or oppose, and
+increase the suspicion of the populace, and rouse their rage against
+them. The allied army, with seven thousand French emigrants and over a
+hundred thousand highly-disciplined troops, under the most able and
+experienced generals, was slowly but surely advancing toward Paris, to
+release the king, replace him on the throne, and avenge the insults to
+royalty. The booming of their artillery was heard reverberating among
+the hills of France, ever drawing nearer and nearer to the insurgent
+metropolis, and sending consternation into all hearts. Under these
+circumstances, the Jacobins, having massacred those deemed the friends
+of the aristocrats, now gathered their strength to sweep before them
+all their adversaries. They passed a decree ordering every man in
+Paris, capable of bearing arms, to shoulder his musket and march to
+the frontiers to meet the invaders. If money was wanted, it was only
+necessary 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 Madame
+Roland and her friends. They no longer appeared in the little library
+where the Girondist leaders so often met, but, placing themselves at
+the head of the unorganized and tumultuous party now so rapidly
+gaining the ascendency, they were swept before it as the crest is
+borne by the billow. Madame Roland urged most strenuously upon her
+friends that those persons in the Assembly, the leaders of the Jacobin
+party, who had instigated the massacres in the prisons, should be
+accused, and brought to trial and punishment. It required peculiar
+boldness, at that hour, to accuse Robespierre and Danton of crime.
+Though thousands in France were horror-stricken at these outrages, the
+mob, who now ruled Paris, would rally instantaneously at the sound of
+the tocsin for the protection of their idols.
+
+Madame Roland was one evening urging Vergniaud to take that heroic and
+desperate stand. "The only hope for France," said she "is in the
+sacredness of law. This atrocious carnage causes thousands of bosoms
+to thrill with horror, and all the wise and the good in France and in
+the world will rise to sustain those who expose their own hearts as a
+barrier to arrest such enormities."
+
+"Of what avail," was the reply, in tones of sadness, "can such
+exertions be? The assassins are supported by all the power of the
+street. Such a conflict must necessarily terminate in a street fight.
+The cannon are with our foes. The most prominent of the friends of
+order are massacred. Terror will restrain the rest. We shall only
+provoke our own destruction."
+
+"Of what use is life," rejoins the intrepid woman, "if we must live in
+this 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 with
+heroism."
+
+Though despairing of success, and apprehensive that their own doom was
+already sealed, M. Roland and Vergniaud, roused to action by this
+ruling spirit, the next day made their appearance in the Assembly with
+the heroic resolve to throw themselves before the torrent now rushing
+so wildly. They stood there, however, but the representatives of
+Madame Roland, inspired by her energies, and giving utterance to those
+eloquent sentiments which had burst from her lips.
+
+The Assembly listened in silence as M. Roland, in an energetic
+discourse, proclaimed the true principles of law and order, and called
+upon the Assembly to defend its own dignity against popular violence,
+and to raise an armed force consecrated to the security of liberty and
+justice. 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, "to
+rise up here against assassins, but it is time to erect scaffolds for
+those who provoke assassination." The strife continued for two or
+three days, with that intense excitement which a conflict for life or
+death must necessarily engender. The question between the Girondist
+and the Jacobin was, "Who shall lie down on the guillotine?" For some
+time the issue of the struggle was uncertain. The Jacobins summoned
+their allies, the mob. They surrounded the doors and the windows of
+the Assembly, and with their howlings sustained their friends. "I have
+just passed through the crowd," said a member, "and have witnessed its
+excitement. If the act of accusation is carried, many a head will lie
+low before another morning dawns." The Girondists found themselves, at
+the close of the struggle, defeated, yet not so decidedly but that
+they still clung to hope.
+
+M. Roland, who had not yet entirely lost, with the people, that
+popularity which swept him, on so triumphant a billow, again into the
+office of Minister of the Interior, now, conscious of his utter
+impotency, presented to the Assembly his resignation of power which
+was merely nominal. Great efforts had for some time been made, by his
+adversaries, to turn the tide of popular hatred against him, and
+especially against his wife, whom Danton and Robespierre recognized
+and proclaimed as the animating and inspiring soul of the Girondist
+party.
+
+The friends of Roland urged, with high encomiums upon his character,
+that he should be invited to retain his post. The sentiment of the
+Assembly was wavering in his favor. Danton, excessively annoyed, arose
+and said, with a sneer, "I oppose the invitation. Nobody appreciates
+M. Roland more justly than myself. But if you give him this
+invitation, you must give his wife one also. Every one knows that M.
+Roland is not alone in his department. As for myself, in my department
+I am alone. I have no wife to help me."
+
+These indecorous and malicious allusions were received with shouts of
+derisive laughter from the Jacobin benches. The majority, however,
+frowned upon Danton with deep reproaches for such an attack upon a
+lady. One of the Girondists immediately ascended the tribune. "What
+signifies it to the country," said he, "whether Roland possesses an
+intelligent wife, who inspires him with her additional energy, or
+whether he acts from his own resolution alone?" The defense was
+received with much applause.
+
+The next day, Roland, as Minister of the Interior, presented a letter
+to 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 dignified
+defiance. "The Convention is wise," said this letter, "in not giving a
+solemn invitation to a man to remain in the ministry. It would attach
+too great importance to a name. But the _deliberation_ honors me, and
+clearly pronounces the desire of the Convention. That wish satisfies
+me. It opens to me the career. I espouse it with courage. I remain in
+the ministry. I remain because there are perils to face. I am not
+blind to them, but I brave them fearlessly. The salvation of my
+country is the object in view. To that I devote myself, even to death.
+I am accused of wanting courage. Is no courage requisite in these
+times in denouncing the protectors of assassins?"
+
+Thus Madame Roland, sheltered in the seclusion of her library, met, in
+spirit, 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 most
+skillful parries and retaliatory blows. The one party looked to her
+almost with adoration; the other, with implacable hate. Never before,
+probably, in the history of the world, has a woman occupied such a
+position, and never by a woman will such a position be occupied again.
+Danton began to recoil from the gulf opening before him, and wished to
+return to alliance with the Girondists. He expressed the most profound
+admiration for the talents, energy, and sagacity of Madame Roland. "We
+must act together," said he, "or the wave of the Revolution will
+overwhelm us all. United, we can stem it. Disunited, it will overpower
+us." Again he appeared in the library of Madame Roland, in a last
+interview with the Girondists. He desired a coalition. They could not
+agree. Danton insisted that they must overlook the massacres, and give
+at least an implied assent to their necessity. "We will agree to all,"
+said the Girondists, "except impunity to murderers and their
+accomplices." The conference was broken up. Danton, irritated,
+withdrew, and placed himself by the side of Robespierre. Again the
+Jacobins and the Girondists prepared for the renewal of their
+struggle. It was not a struggle for power merely, but for life. The
+Girondists, knowing that the fury of the Revolution would soon sweep
+over every thing, unless they could bring back the people to a sense
+of justice--would punish with the scaffold those who had incited the
+massacre of thousands of uncondemned citizens. The Jacobins would rid
+themselves of their adversaries by overwhelming them in the same
+carnage to which they had consigned the Loyalists. Madame Roland might
+have fled from these perils, and have retired with her husband to
+regions of tranquillity and of safety but she urged M. Roland to
+remain at his post and resolved to remain herself and meet her
+destiny, whatever it might be. Never did a mortal face danger, with a
+full appreciation of its magnitude, with more stoicism than was
+exhibited 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 in
+Paris.--Suspicions against the Girondists.--Baseness of the
+Jacobins.--Peril of the Girondists.--Anxious deliberations.--Vile
+intrigue of the Jacobins.--Madame Roland accused.--Madame Roland
+before the Assembly.--Her dignified demeanor.--Madame Roland's defense
+of herself.--She is acquitted by acclamation.--Madame Roland's
+triumph.--Chagrin of her enemies.--Festival of the Girondists.--Toast
+of Vergniaud.--Classical allusion.--Clamors for the king's death.--The
+king brought before the Convention.--Dismal day.--Menaces of the
+mob.--Danton, Marat, and Robespierre.--Trial of the king.--Proposition
+of Robespierre.--Vote of Vergniaud.--Vote of the Girondists.--Indignation
+at the king's death.--The Revolutionary Tribunal.--Unlimited powers of
+the Revolutionary Tribunal.--Atrocious cruelties.--Embarrassments of
+M. Roland.--He sends in his resignation.--Attempts to assassinate the
+Rolands.--Entreaties of friends.--Firmness of Madame Roland.--Roland's
+influence in the departments.--Plots against the Girondists.--Meetings
+at Madame Roland's.--Insurrections in favor of the monarchy.--Jacobin
+insurrection.--Portentous mutterings.--Precautions of the
+Girondists.--Intrepidity of Vergniaud.--Power of prayer.--"Horrible
+hope."--The power of the Girondists gone.
+
+
+The Jacobins now resolved to bring the king to trial. By placards
+posted in the streets, by inflammatory speeches in the Convention, in
+public gatherings, and in the clubs, by false assertions and slanders
+of every conceivable nature, they had roused the ignorant populace to
+the full conviction that the king was the author of every calamity now
+impending. The storm of the Revolution had swept desolation through
+all the walks of peaceful industry. Starvation, gaunt and terrible,
+began to stare the population of Paris directly in the face. The
+infuriated mob hung the bakers upon the lamp-posts before their own
+doors for refusing to supply them with bread. The peasant dared not
+carry provisions into the city, for he was sure of being robbed by the
+sovereign people, who had attained the freedom of committing all
+crimes with impunity. The multitude fully believed that there was a
+conspiracy formed by the king in his prison, and by the friends of
+royalty, to starve the people into subjection. Portentous murmurs were
+now also borne on every breeze, uttered by a thousand unseen voices,
+that the Girondists were accomplices in this conspiracy; that they
+hated the Revolution; that they wished to save the life of the king;
+that they would welcome the army of invasion, as affording them an
+opportunity to reinstate Louis upon the throne. The Jacobins, it was
+declared, were the only true friends of the people. The Girondists
+were accused of being in league with the aristocrats. These suspicions
+rose and floated over Paris like the mist of the ocean. They were
+every where encountered, and yet presented no resistance to be
+assailed. They were intimated in the Jacobin journals; they were
+suggested, with daily increasing distinctness, at the _tribune_. And
+in those multitudinous gatherings, where Marat stood in filth and rags
+to harangue the miserable, and the vicious, and the starving, they
+were proclaimed loudly, and with execrations. The Jacobins rejoiced
+that they had now, by the force of circumstances, crowded their
+adversaries into a position from which they could not easily extricate
+themselves. Should the Girondists vote for the death of the king, they
+would thus support the Jacobins in those sanguinary measures, so
+popular with the mob, which had now become the right arm of Jacobin
+power. The glory would also all redound to the Jacobins, for it would
+not be difficult to convince the multitude that the Girondists merely
+submitted to a measure which they were unable to resist. Should the
+Girondists, on the other hand, true to their instinctive abhorrence of
+these deeds of blood, dare to vote against the death of the king, they
+would be ruined irretrievably. They would then stand unmasked before
+the people as traitors to the Republic and the friends of royalty.
+Like noxious beasts, they would be hunted through the streets and
+massacred at their own firesides. The Girondists perceived distinctly
+the vortex of destruction toward which they were so rapidly circling.
+Many and anxious were their deliberations, night after night, in the
+library of Madame Roland. In the midst of the fearful peril, it was
+not easy to decide what either duty or apparent policy required.
+
+The Jacobins now made a direct and infamous attempt to turn the rage
+of the populace against Madame Roland. Achille Viard, one of those
+unprincipled adventurers with which the stormy times had filled the
+metropolis, was employed, as a spy, to feign attachment to the
+Girondist party, and to seek the acquaintance, and insinuate himself
+into the confidence of Madame Roland. By perversions and exaggerations
+of her language, he was to fabricate an accusation against her which
+would bring her head to the scaffold. Madame Roland instantly
+penetrated his character, and he was repulsed from her presence by the
+most contemptuous neglect. He, however, appeared before the Assembly
+as her accuser, and charged her with carrying on a secret
+correspondence with persons of influence at home and abroad, to
+protect the king. She was summoned to present herself before the
+Convention, to confront her accuser, and defend herself from the
+scaffold. Her gentle yet imperial spirit was undaunted by the
+magnitude of the peril. Her name had often been mentioned in the
+Assembly as the inspiring genius of the most influential and eloquent
+party which had risen up amid the storms of the Revolution. Her
+talents, her accomplishments, her fascinating conversational
+eloquence, had spread her renown widely through Europe. A large number
+of the most illustrious men in that legislative hall, both ardent
+young men and those venerable with age, regarded her with the most
+profound admiration--almost with religious homage. Others, conscious
+of her power, and often foiled by her sagacity, hated her with
+implacable hatred, and determined, either by the ax of the guillotine
+or by the poniard of the assassin, to remove her from their way.
+
+The aspect of a young and beautiful woman, combining in her person and
+mind all the attractions of nature and genius, with her cheek glowing
+with heroic resolution, and her demeanor exhibiting the most perfect
+feminine loveliness and modesty, entering this vast assembly of
+irritated men to speak in defense of her life, at once hushed the
+clamor of hoarse voices, and subdued the rage of angry disputants.
+Silence the most respectful instantly filled the hall. Every eye was
+fixed upon her. The hearts of her friends throbbed with sympathy and
+with love. Her enemies were more than half disarmed, and wished that
+they, 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 her
+interrogator, in those clear and liquid tones which left their
+vibration 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 an
+honorable 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, and
+dismissed him with the contempt he deserved."
+
+The calm dignity of her replies, the ingenuous frankness of her
+manners, 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 firmness
+which no terrors could daunt, she entered upon her defense. It was the
+first time that a female voice had been heard in the midst of the
+clamor of these enraged combatants. The Assembly, unused to such a
+scene, were fascinated by her attractive eloquence. Viard, convicted
+of meanness, and treachery, and falsehood, dared not open his lips.
+Madame Roland was acquitted by acclamation. Upon the spot the
+president proposed that the marked respect of the Convention be
+conferred upon Madame Roland. With enthusiasm the resolution was
+carried. As she retired from the hall, her bosom glowing with the
+excitement of the perfect triumph she had won, her ear was greeted
+with the enthusiastic applause of the whole assembly. The eyes of all
+France had been attracted to her as she thus defended herself and her
+friends, and confounded her enemies. Marat gnashed his teeth with
+rage. Danton was gloomy and silent. Robespierre, vanquished by charms
+which had so often before enthralled him, expressed his contempt for
+the conspiracy, and, for the last time, smiled upon his early friend,
+whom he soon, with the most stoical indifference, dragged to the
+scaffold.
+
+The evening after the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment
+of the Republic, when there was still some faint hope that there might
+yet be found intelligence and virtue in the people to sustain the
+Constitution, the Girondists met at Madame Roland's, and celebrated,
+with trembling exultation, the birth of popular liberty. The
+Constitution of the United States was the _beau ideal_ of the
+Girondists, and, vainly dreaming that the institutions which
+Washington and his compatriots had established in Christian America
+were now firmly planted in infidel France, they endeavored to cast the
+veil of oblivion over the past, and to spread over the future the
+illusions of hope. The men here assembled were the most illustrious of
+the nation. Noble sentiments passed from mind to mind. Madame Roland,
+pale with emotion, conscious of the perils which were so portentously
+rising around them, shone with a preternatural brilliance in the
+solemn rejoicing of that evening. The aged Roland gazed with tears of
+fond affection and of gratified pride upon his lovely wife, as if in
+spirit asking her if all the loftiest aspirations of their souls were
+not now answered. The victorious Republicans hardly knew whether to
+sing triumphant songs or funeral dirges. Vergniaud, the renowned
+orator of the party, was prominent above them all. With a pale cheek,
+and a serene and pensive smile, he sat in silence, his mind evidently
+wandering among the rising apparitions of the future. At the close of
+the supper he filled his glass, and rising, proposed to drink to the
+eternity of the Republic. Madame Roland, whose mind was ever filled
+with classic recollections, scattered from a bouquet which she held in
+her hand, some rose leaves on the wine in his glass. Vergniaud drank
+the wine, and then said, in a low voice, "We should quaff cypress
+leaves, not rose leaves, in our wine to-night. In drinking to a
+republic, stained, at its birth, with the blood of massacre, who knows
+but that we drink to our own death. But no matter. Were this wine my
+own 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 in
+reference to the state of the Republic, which views were to be
+presented the next day to the Convention.
+
+The royal family were still in the dungeons of the Temple, lingering
+through the dreary hours of the most desolate imprisonment. Phrensied
+mobs, rioting through the streets of Paris, and overawing all law,
+demanded, with loudest execrations, the death of the king. A man
+having ventured to say that he thought that the Republic might be
+established without shedding the blood of Louis, was immediately
+stabbed to the heart, and his mutilated remains were dragged through
+the streets of Paris in fiendish revelry. A poor vendor of pamphlets
+and newspapers, coming out of a reading-room, was accused of selling
+books favorable to royalty. The suspicion was crime, and he fell,
+pierced by thirty daggers. Such warnings as these were significant and
+impressive, and few dared utter a word in favor of the king.
+
+It was the month of January, 1793, when the imprisoned monarch was
+brought into the hall of the Convention for his trial. It was a gloomy
+day for France, and all external nature seemed shrouded in darkness
+and sorrow. Clouds of mist were sweeping through the chill air, and a
+few feeble lamps glimmered along the narrow avenues and gloomy
+passages, which were darkened by the approach of a winter's night.
+Armed soldiers surrounded the building. Heavy pieces of artillery
+faced every approach. Cannoneers, with lighted matches, stood at their
+side, ready to scatter a storm of grape-shot upon every foe. A mob of
+countless thousands were surging to and fro through all the
+neighboring streets. The deep, dull murmurings of the multitude
+swelled in unison with the sighings of the storm rising upon the
+somber night. It was with no little difficulty that the deputies could
+force their way through the ocean of human beings surrounding the
+Assembly. The coarse garb, the angry features, the harsh voices, the
+fierce and significant gestures, proclaimed too clearly that the mob
+had determined to have the life of the king, and that, unless the
+deputies should vote his death, both king and deputies should perish
+together. As each deputy threaded his way through the thronging
+masses, he heard, in threatening tones, muttered into his ear deep and
+emphatic, "_His death or thine!_"
+
+Persons who were familiar with the faces of all the members were
+stationed at particular points, and called out aloud to the multitude
+the names of the deputies as they elbowed their way through the
+surging multitudes. At the names of Danton, Marat, Robespierre, the
+ranks opened to make way for these idols of the populace, and shouts
+of the most enthusiastic greeting fell upon their ears. When the names
+of Vergniaud, Brissot, and others of the leading Girondists were
+mentioned, clinched fists, brandished daggers, and angry menaces
+declared that those who refused to obey the wishes of the people
+should encounter dire revenge. The very sentinels placed to guard the
+deputies encouraged the mob to insult and violence. The lobbies were
+filled with the most sanguinary ruffians of Paris. The interior of the
+hall was dimly lighted. A chandelier, suspended from the center of
+the ceiling, illuminated certain portions of the room, while the more
+distant parts remained in deep obscurity. That all might act under the
+full sense of their responsibility to the mob, Robespierre had
+proposed and carried the vote that the silent form of ballot should be
+rejected, and that each deputy, in his turn, should ascend the
+tribune, and, with a distinct voice, announce his sentence. For some
+time after the voting commenced it was quite uncertain how the
+decision would turn. In the alternate record of the vote, _death_ and
+_exile_ appeared to be equally balanced. All now depended upon the
+course which the Girondists should pursue. If they should vote for
+death, the doom of the king was sealed. Vergniaud was the first of
+that party to be called to record his sentence. It was well known that
+he looked with repugnance and horror upon the sanguinary scenes with
+which the Revolution had been deformed, and that he had often avowed
+his sympathy for the hard fate of a prince whose greatest crime was
+weakness. His vote would unquestionably be the index of that of the
+whole party, and thus the life or death of the king appeared to be
+suspended from his lips. It was known that the very evening before,
+while supping with a lady who expressed much commiseration for the
+captives in the Temple, he had declared that he would save the life of
+the king. The courage of Vergniaud was above suspicion, and his
+integrity above reproach. Difficult as it was to judge impartially,
+with the cannon and the pikes of the mob leveled at his breast, it was
+not doubted that he would vote conscientiously.
+
+As the name of Vergniaud was called, all conversation instantly
+ceased. Perfect silence pervaded the hall, and every eye was riveted
+upon him. Slowly he ascended the steps of the tribune. His brow was
+calm, but his mouth closely compressed, as if to sustain some firm
+resolve. He paused for a moment, and the Assembly was breathless with
+suspense. He contracted his eyebrows, as if again reflecting upon his
+decision, and then, in a low, solemn, firm voice, uttered the word
+"_Death_."
+
+The most profound silence reigned for a moment, and then again the low
+murmur of suppressed conversation filled the hall. Vergniaud descended
+from the tribune and disappeared in the crowd. All hope for the king
+was now gone. The rest of the Girondists also voted for death, and
+Louis was condemned to the scaffold.
+
+This united vote upon the death of the king for a short time mingled
+together again the Girondists and the Jacobins. But the dominant
+party, elated by the victory which they had gained over their
+adversaries, were encouraged to fresh extortions. Perils increased.
+Europe was rising in arms against the blood-stained Republic. The
+execution of the king aroused emotions of unconquerable detestation in
+the bosoms of thousands who had previously looked upon the Revolution
+with favor. Those who had any opulence to forfeit, or any position in
+society to maintain, were ready to welcome as deliverers the allied
+army of invasion. It was then, to meet this emergency, that that
+terrible Revolutionary Tribunal was organized, which raised the ax of
+the guillotine as the one all-potent instrument of government, and
+which shed such oceans of innocent blood. "Two hundred and sixty
+thousand heads," said Marat, "must fall before France will be safe
+from internal foes." Danton, Marat, and Robespierre were now in the
+ascendency, riding with resistless power upon the billows of mob
+violence. Whenever they wished to carry any measure, they sent forth
+their agents to the dens and lurking-places of degradation and crime,
+and surrounded and filled the hall of the Assembly with blood-thirsty
+assassins. "Those who call themselves _respectable_," said Marat,
+"wish to give laws to those whom they call the _rabble_. We will teach
+them that the time is come in which the _rabble_ is to reign."
+
+This Revolutionary Tribunal, consisting of five judges, a jury, and a
+public accuser, all appointed by the Convention, was proposed and
+decreed on the same evening. It possessed unlimited powers to
+confiscate property and take life. The Girondists dared not vote
+against this tribunal. The public voice would pronounce them the worst
+of traitors. France was now a charnel-house. Blood flowed in streams
+which were never dry. Innocence had no protection. Virtue was
+suspicion, suspicion a crime, the guillotine the penalty, and the
+confiscated estate the bribe to accusation. Thus there was erected, in
+the name of liberty and popular rights, over the ruins of the French
+monarchy, a system of despotism the most atrocious and merciless under
+which humanity has ever groaned.
+
+Again and again had the Jacobins called the mob into the Assembly, and
+compelled the members to vote with the poniards of assassins at their
+breasts. Madame Roland now despaired of liberty. Calumny, instead of
+gratitude, was unsparingly heaped upon herself and her husband. This
+requital, so unexpected, was more dreadful to her than the scaffold.
+All the promised fruits of the Revolution had disappeared, and
+desolation and crime alone were realized. The Girondists still met in
+Madame Roland's library to deliberate concerning measures for averting
+the impending ruin. All was unavailing.
+
+The most distressing embarrassments now surrounded M. Roland. He could
+not abandon power without abandoning himself and his supporters in the
+Assembly to the guillotine; and while continuing in power, he was
+compelled to witness deeds of atrocity from which not only his soul
+revolted, but to which it was necessary for him apparently to give his
+sanction. His cheek grew pale and wan with care. He could neither eat
+nor sleep. The Republic had proved an utter failure, and France was
+but a tempest-tossed ocean of anarchy.
+
+Thus situated, M. Roland, with the most melancholy forebodings, sent
+in his final resignation. He retired to humble lodgings in one of the
+obscure streets of Paris. Here, anxiously watching the progress of
+events, he began to make preparations to leave the mob-enthralled
+metropolis, and seek a retreat, in the calm seclusion of La Platiere,
+from these storms which no human power could allay. Still, the
+influence of Roland and his wife was feared by those who were
+directing the terrible enginery of lawless violence. It was well known
+by them both that assassins had been employed to silence them with the
+poniard. Madame Roland seemed, however, perfectly insensible to
+personal fear. She thought only of her husband and her child.
+Desperate men were seen lurking about the house, and their friends
+urged them to remove as speedily as possible from the perils by which
+they were surrounded. Neither the sacredness of law nor the weapons of
+their friends could longer afford them any protection. The danger
+became so imminent that the friends of Madame Roland brought her the
+dress of a peasant girl, and entreated her to put it on, as a
+disguise, and escape by night, that her husband might follow after
+her, unencumbered by his family; but she proudly repelled that which
+she deemed a cowardly artifice. She threw the dress aside, exclaiming,
+"I am ashamed to resort to any such expedient. I will neither disguise
+myself, nor make any attempt at secret escape. My enemies may find me
+always 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 was
+burdened with such atrocities, that she placed loaded pistols under
+her pillow, to defend herself from those outrages, worse than death,
+of which the Revolution afforded so many examples. While the influence
+of the Girondists was entirely overborne by the clamors of the mob in
+Paris, in the more virtuous rural districts, far removed from the
+corruption of the capital, their influence was on the increase. The
+name of M. Roland, uttered with execrations in the metropolis by the
+vagabonds swarming from all parts of Europe, was spoken in tones of
+veneration in the departments, where husbandmen tilled the soil, and
+loved the reign of law and peace. Hence the Jacobins had serious cause
+to fear a reaction, and determined to silence their voices by the
+slide of the guillotine. The most desperate measures were now adopted
+for the destruction of the Girondists. One conspiracy was formed to
+collect the mob, ever ready to obey a signal from Marat, around the
+Assembly, to incite them to burst in at the doors and the windows, and
+fill the hall with confusion, while picked men were to poniard the
+Girondists in their seats. The conspiracy was detected and exposed but
+a 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 to
+surround the dwelling of each Girondist, and assassinate these foes of
+Jacobin domination in their beds. This plot also was revealed to the
+Girondists but a few hours before its destined catastrophe, and it was
+with the utmost difficulty that the doomed victims obtained
+extrication from the toils which had been wound around them.
+Disastrous news was now daily arriving from the frontiers. The most
+alarming tidings came of insurrections in La Vendee, and other
+important portions of France, in favor of the restoration of the
+monarchy. These gathering perils threw terror into the hearts of the
+Jacobins, and roused them to deeds of desperation. Though Madame
+Roland was now in comparative obscurity, night after night the most
+illustrious men of France, battling for liberty and for life in the
+Convention, ascended the dark staircase to her secluded room, hidden
+in the depth of a court of the Rue de la Harpe, and there talked over
+the scenes of the day, and deliberated respecting the morrow.
+
+The Jacobins now planned one of those horrible insurrections which
+sent a thrill of terror into every bosom in Paris. Assembling the
+multitudinous throng of demoniac men and women which the troubled
+times had collected from every portion of Christendom, they gathered
+them around the hall of the Assembly to enforce their demands. It was
+three o'clock in the morning of the 31st of May, 1793, when the dismal
+sounds of the alarm bells, spreading from belfry to belfry, and the
+deep booming of the insurrection gun, reverberating through the
+streets, aroused the citizens from their slumbers, producing universal
+excitement and consternation. A cold and freezing wind swept clouds of
+mist through the gloomy air, and the moaning storm seemed the
+appropriate requiem of a sorrow-stricken world. The Hotel de Ville was
+the appointed place of rendezvous for the swarming multitudes. The
+affrighted citizens, knowing but too well to what scenes of violence
+and blood these demonstrations were the precursors, threw up their
+windows, and looked out with fainting hearts upon the dusky forms
+crowding by like apparitions of darkness. The rumbling of the wheels
+of heavy artillery, the flash of powder, with the frequent report of
+firearms, and the uproar and the clamor of countless voices, were
+fearful omens of a day to dawn in blacker darkness than the night. The
+Girondists had recently been called in the journals and inflammatory
+speeches of their adversaries the Rolandists. The name was given them
+in recognition of the prominent position of Madame Roland in the
+party, and with the endeavor to cast reproach upon her and her
+husband. Through all the portentous mutterings of this rising storm
+could be heard deep and significant execrations and menaces, coupled
+with the names of leading members of the Girondist party. "Down with
+the aristocrats, the traitors, the Rolandists!" shouted incessantly
+hoarse voices and shrill voices, of drunken men, of reckless boys, of
+fiendish women.
+
+The Girondists, apprehensive of some movement of this kind, had
+generally taken the precaution not to sleep that night in their own
+dwellings. The intrepid Vergniaud alone refused to adopt any measure
+of safety. "What signifies life to me now?" said he; "my blood may be
+more eloquent than my words in awakening and saving my country. I am
+ready for the sacrifice." One of the Girondists, M. Rabout, a man of
+deep, reflective piety, hearing these noises, rose from his bed,
+listened a moment at his window to the tumult swelling up from every
+street of the vast metropolis, and calmly exclaiming, "Illa suprema
+dies," _it is our last day_, prostrated himself at the foot of his
+bed, and invoked aloud the Divine protection upon his companions, his
+country, and himself. Many of his friends were with him, friends who
+knew not the power of prayer. But there are hours in which every soul
+instinctively craves the mercy of its Creator. They all bowed
+reverently, and were profoundly affected by the supplications of their
+Christian friend. Fortified and tranquilized by the potency of prayer,
+and determining to die, if die they must, at the post of duty, at six
+o'clock they descended into the street, with pistols and daggers
+concealed beneath their clothes. They succeeded, unrecognized, in
+reaching the Convention in safety.
+
+One or two of the Jacobin party were assembled there at that early
+hour, and Danton, pale with the excitement of a sleepless night,
+walking to and fro in nervous agitation, greeted his old friends with
+a wan and melancholy smile. "Do you see," said Louvet to Gaudet, "what
+horrible hope shines upon that hideous face?" The members rapidly
+collected. 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 with
+an 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.--The
+Convention invaded.--Triumph of the mob.--Fraternizing with the
+mob.--Paris illuminated.--Arrest of the Girondists.--Suspense of the
+Rolands.--Arrest of M. Roland.--Prompt action of Madame Roland.--Madame
+Roland in the petitioners' hall.--Uproar in the Assembly.--Madame
+Roland's letter.--The messenger--Interview with Vergniaud.--Hope
+vanishes.--Escape of M. Roland.--Scene at the Tuileries.--The deputies
+embraced by the mob.--Anecdote.--Madame Roland returns home.--A
+mother's tears.--Arrest of Madame Roland.--Her composure.--Insults of
+the mob.--Conversation with officers.--The Abbaye.--Kindness of the
+jailer's wife.--Madame Roland enters her cell.--Her first night
+there.--Embarrassment of M. Roland.--His escape from Paris.--The
+re-arrest and escape.--Cheerful philosophy of Madame Roland.--The cell
+made a study.--Delight of the jailer and his wife.--Prison
+regulations.--Coarse fare.--Prison employment.--Madame Roland's serenity
+of spirit.--Intellectual pastime.--Visit from commissioners.--Madame
+Roland's heroism accounted a crime.
+
+
+France was now governed by the Convention. The Convention was governed
+by the mob of Paris. The Jacobins were the head of this mob. They
+roused its rage, and guided its fury, when and where they listed. The
+friendship of the mob was secured and retained by ever pandering to
+their passions. The Jacobins claimed to be exclusively the friends of
+the people, and advocated all those measures which tended to crush the
+elevated and flatter the degraded. Robespierre, Danton, Marat, were
+now the idols of the populace.
+
+On the morning of the 30th of May, 1793, the streets of Paris were
+darkened with a dismal storm of low, scudding clouds, and chilling
+winds, and sleet and rain. Pools of water stood in the miry streets,
+and every aspect of nature was cheerless and desolate. But there was
+another storm raging in those streets, more terrible than any
+elemental warfare. In locust legions, the deformed, the haggard, the
+brutalized in form, in features, in mind, in heart--demoniac men,
+satanic women, boys burly, sensual, blood-thirsty, like imps of
+darkness rioted along toward the Convention, an interminable multitude
+whom no one could count. Their hideous howlings thrilled upon the ear,
+and sent panic to the heart. There was no power to resist them. There
+was no protection from their violence. And thousands wished that they
+might call up even the most despotic king who ever sat upon the throne
+of France, from his grave, to drive back that most terrible of all
+earthly despotisms, the despotism of a mob. This was the power with
+which the Jacobins backed their arguments. This was the gory blade
+which they waved before their adversaries, and called the sword of
+justice.
+
+The Assembly consisted of about eight hundred members. There were
+twenty-two illustrious men who were considered the leaders of the
+Girondist party. The Jacobins had resolved that they should be accused
+of treason, arrested, and condemned. The Convention had refused to
+submit to the arbitrary and bloody demand. The mob were now assembled
+to coerce submission. The melancholy tocsin, and the thunders of the
+alarm gun, resounded through the air, as the countless throng came
+pouring along like ocean billows, with a resistlessness which no power
+could stay. They surrounded the Assembly on every side, forced their
+way into the hall, filled every vacant space, clambered upon the
+benches, crowded the speaker in his chair, brandished their daggers,
+and mingled their oaths and imprecations with the fierce debate. Even
+the Jacobins were terrified by the frightful spirits whom they had
+evoked. "Down with the Girondists!" "Death to the traitors!" the
+assassins shouted. The clamor of the mob silenced the Girondists, and
+they hardly made an attempt to speak in their defense. They sat upon
+their benches, pale with the emotions which the fearful scenes
+excited, yet firm and unwavering. As Couthon, a Jacobin orator, was
+uttering deep denunciations, he became breathless with the vehemence
+of his passionate speech. He turned to a waiter for a glass of water.
+"Take to Couthon a glass of blood," said Vergniaud; "he is thirsting
+for it."
+
+The decree of accusation was proposed, and carried, without debate,
+beneath the poniards of uncounted thousands of assassins. The mob was
+triumphant. By acclamation it was then voted that all Paris should be
+joyfully illuminated, in celebration of the triumph of the people over
+those who would arrest the onward career of the Revolution; and every
+citizen of Paris well knew the doom which awaited him if brilliant
+lights were not burning at his windows. It was then voted, and with
+enthusiasm, that the Convention should go out and fraternize with the
+multitude. Who would have the temerity, in such an hour, to oppose the
+affectionate demonstration? The degraded Assembly obeyed the mandate
+of the mob, and marched into the streets, where they were hugged in
+the unclean arms and pressed to the foul bosoms of beggary, and
+infamy, and pollution. Louis was avenged. The hours of the day had now
+passed; night had come; but it was noonday light in the
+brilliantly-illuminated streets of the metropolis. The Convention,
+surrounded by torch-bearers, and an innumerable concourse of drunken
+men and women, rioting in hideous orgies, traversed, in compulsory
+procession, the principal streets of the city. The Girondists were led
+as captives to grace the triumph. "Which do you prefer," said a
+Jacobin to Vergniaud, "this ovation or the scaffold?" "It is all the
+same to me," replied Vergniaud, with stoical indifference. "There is
+no 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 the
+Assembly, Madame Roland and her husband were in their solitary room,
+oppressed with the most painful suspense. The cry and the uproar of
+the insurgent city, the tolling of bells and thundering of cannon,
+were borne upon the wailings of the gloomy storm, and sent
+consternation even to the stoutest hearts. There was now no room for
+escape, for the barriers were closed and carefully watched. Madame
+Roland knew perfectly well that if her friends fell she must fall with
+them. She had shared their principles; she had guided their measures,
+and she wished to participate in their doom. It was this honorable
+feeling which led her to refuse to provide for her own safety, and
+which induced her to abide, in the midst of ever increasing danger,
+with her associates. No person obnoxious to suspicion could enter the
+street without fearful peril, though, through the lingering hours of
+the 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 the
+stairs and burst into Roland's apartment. The philosopher looked
+calmly upon them as, in the name of the Convention, they informed him
+of his arrest. "I do not recognize the authority of your warrant,"
+said M. Roland, "and shall not voluntarily follow you. I can only
+oppose the resistance of my gray hairs, but I will protest against it
+with my last breath."
+
+The leader of the party replied, "I have no orders to use violence. I
+will go and report your answer to the council, leaving, in the mean
+time, a guard to secure your person."
+
+This was an hour to rouse all the energy and heroic resolution of
+Madame Roland. She immediately sat down, and, with that rapidity of
+action which her highly-disciplined mind had attained, wrote, in a few
+moments, a letter to the Convention. Leaving a friend who was in the
+house with her husband, she ordered a hackney coach, and drove as fast
+as possible to the Tuileries, where the Assembly was in session. The
+garden of the Tuileries was filled with the tumultuary concourse. She
+forced her way through the crowd till she arrived at the doors of the
+outer halls. Sentinels were stationed at all the passages, who would
+not allow her to enter.
+
+"Citizens," said she, at last adroitly adopting the vernacular of the
+Jacobins, "in this day of salvation for our country, in the midst of
+those traitors who threaten us, you know not the importance of some
+notes which I have to transmit to the president."
+
+These words were a talisman. The doors were thrown open, and she
+entered the petitioners' hall. "I wish to see one of the messengers of
+the 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 was
+almost stunned with the deafening clamor of debate, of applause, of
+execrations, which now in dying murmurs, and again in thundering
+reverberations, awakening responsive echoes along the thronged
+streets, swelled upon the night air. Of all human sounds, the uproar
+of a countless multitude of maddened human voices is the most awful.
+
+At last she caught a glimpse of the messenger who had summoned her to
+appear before the bar of the Assembly in reply to the accusations of
+Viard, informed him of their peril, and implored him to hand her
+letter to the president. The messenger, M. Roze, took the paper, and,
+elbowing his way through the throng, disappeared. An hour elapsed,
+which seemed an age. The tumult within continued unabated. At length
+M. Roze reappeared.
+
+"Well!" said Madame Roland, eagerly, "what has been done with my
+letter?"
+
+"I have given it to the president," was the reply, "but nothing has
+been done with it as yet. Indescribable confusion prevails. The mob
+demand the accusation of the Girondists. I have just assisted one to
+escape by a private way. Others are endeavoring, concealed by the
+tumult, to effect their escape. There is no knowing what is to
+happen."
+
+"Alas!" Madame Roland replied, "my letter will not be read. Do send
+some 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 esteem
+for any, except those who are proscribed. Tell Vergniaud that I am
+inquiring for him."
+
+Vergniaud, notwithstanding the terrific agitations of the hour,
+immediately attended the summons of Madame Roland. She implored him to
+try to get her admission to the bar, that she might speak in defense
+of her husband and her friends.
+
+"In the present state of the Assembly," said Vergniaud, "it would be
+impossible, and if possible, of no avail. The Convention has lost all
+power. It has become but the weapon of the rabble. Your words can do
+no good."
+
+"They may do much good," replied Madame Roland. "I can venture to say
+that which you could not say without exposing yourself to accusation.
+I fear nothing. If I can not save Roland, I will utter with energy
+truths which may be useful to the Republic. An example of courage may
+shame the nation."
+
+"Think how unavailing the attempt," replied Vergniaud. "Your letter
+can not possibly be read for two or three hours. A crowd of
+petitioners throng the bar. Noise, and confusion, and violence fill
+the House."
+
+Madame Roland paused for a moment, and replied, "I must then hasten
+home, and ascertain what has become of my husband. I will immediately
+return. Tell our friends so."
+
+Vergniaud sadly pressed her hand, as if for a last farewell, and
+returned, invigorated by her courage, to encounter the storm which was
+hailed upon him in the Assembly. She hastened to her dwelling, and
+found that her husband had succeeded in eluding the surveillance of
+his guards, and, escaping by a back passage, had taken refuge in the
+house of a friend. After a short search she found him in his asylum,
+and, too deeply moved to weep, threw herself into his arms, informed
+him of what she had done, rejoiced at his safety, and heroically
+returned to the Convention, resolved, if possible, to obtain admission
+there. It was now near midnight. The streets were brilliant with
+illuminations; but Madame Roland knew not of which party these
+illuminations celebrated the triumph.
+
+On her arrival at the court of the Tuileries, which had so recently
+been thronged by a mob of forty thousand men, she found it silent and
+deserted. The sitting was ended. The members, accompanied by the
+populace with whom they had fraternized, were traversing the streets.
+A few sentinels stood shivering in the cold and drizzling rain around
+the doors of the national palace. A group of rough-looking men were
+gathered 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 people
+embraced, and sung the Marseilles Hymn, there, under the tree of
+liberty."
+
+"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 the
+court, she arrived at her hackney-coach. A very pretty dog, which had
+lost its master, followed her. "Is the poor little creature yours?"
+inquired the coachman. The tones of kindness with which he spoke
+called up the first tears which had moistened the eyes of Madame
+Roland 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, a
+father and a man of feeling, said, "Put him into the coach, and I will
+take care of him for you. Drive immediately to the galleries of the
+Louvre." Madame Roland caressed the affectionate animal, and, weary
+of the passions of man, longed for retirement from the world, and to
+seclude herself with those animals who would repay kindness with
+gratitude. She sank back in her seat, exclaiming, "O that we could
+escape from France, and find a home in the law-governed republic of
+America."
+
+Alighting at the Louvre, she called upon a friend, with whom she
+wished to consult upon the means of effecting M. Roland's escape from
+the city. He had just gone to bed, but arose, conversed about various
+plans, and made an appointment to meet her at seven o'clock the next
+morning. Entirely unmindful of herself, she thought only of the rescue
+of her friends. Exhausted with excitement and toil, she returned to
+her desolated home, bent over the sleeping form of her child, and gave
+vent to a mother's gushing love in a flood of tears. Recovering her
+fortitude, she sat down and wrote to M. Roland a minute account of all
+her proceedings. It would have periled his safety had she attempted to
+share his asylum. The gray of a dull and somber morning was just
+beginning to appear as Madame Roland threw herself upon a bed for a
+few moments of repose. Overwhelmed by sorrow and fatigue, she had just
+fallen asleep, when a band of armed men rudely broke into her house,
+and demanded to be conducted to her apartment. She knew too well the
+object of the summons. The order for her arrest was presented her. She
+calmly read it, and requested permission to write to a friend. The
+request was granted. When the note was finished, the officer informed
+her that it would be necessary for him to be made acquainted with its
+contents. She quietly tore it into fragments, and cast it into the
+fire. Then, imprinting her last kiss upon the cheek of her unconscious
+child, with the composure which such a catastrophe would naturally
+produce in so heroic a mind, she left her home for the prison. Blood
+had been flowing too freely in Paris, the guillotine had been too
+active in its operations, for Madame Roland to entertain any doubts
+whither the path she now trod was tending.
+
+It was early in the morning of a bleak and dismal day as Madame Roland
+accompanied the officers through the hall of her dwelling, where she
+had been the object of such enthusiastic admiration and affection. The
+servants gathered around her, and filled the house with their
+lamentations. Even the hardened soldiers were moved by the scene, and
+one 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 a
+traitor to her country, and in league with their enemies, shouted, "_A
+la guillotine!_" Unmoved by their cries, she looked calmly and
+compassionately upon the populace, without gesture or reply. One of
+the officers, to relieve her from the insults to which she was
+exposed, asked her if she wished to have the windows of the carriage
+closed.
+
+"No!" she replied; "oppressed innocence should not assume the attitude
+of crime and shame. I do not fear the looks of honest men, and I brave
+those of my enemies."
+
+"You have very great resolution," was the reply, "thus calmly to await
+justice."
+
+"Justice!" she exclaimed; "were justice done I should not be here. But
+I shall go to the scaffold as fearlessly as I now proceed to the
+prison."
+
+"Roland's flight," said one of the officers, brutally, "is a proof of
+his guilt."
+
+She indignantly replied, "It is so atrocious to persecute a man who
+has rendered such services to the cause of liberty. His conduct has
+been so open and his accounts so clear, that he is perfectly
+justifiable in avoiding the last outrages of envy and malice. Just as
+Aristides and inflexible as Cato, he is indebted to his virtues for
+his 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 of
+his country, to which he may yet do good."
+
+When they arrived at the prison of the Abbaye, Madame Roland was first
+conducted into a large, dark, gloomy room, which was occupied by a
+number of men, who, in attitudes of the deepest melancholy, were
+either pacing the floor or reclining upon some miserable pallets. From
+this room she ascended a narrow and dirty staircase to the jailer's
+apartment. The jailer's wife was a kind woman, and immediately felt
+the power of the attractions of her fascinating prisoner. As no cell
+was yet provided for her, she permitted her to remain in her room for
+the rest of the day. The commissioners who had brought her to the
+prison gave orders that she should receive no indulgence, but be
+treated with the utmost rigor. The instructions, however, being merely
+verbal, were but little regarded. She was furnished with comfortable
+refreshment instead of the repulsive prison fare, and, after
+breakfast, was permitted to write a letter to the National Assembly
+upon her illegal arrest. Thus passed the day.
+
+At ten o'clock in the evening, her cell being prepared, she entered it
+for the first time. It was a cold, bare room, with walls blackened by
+the 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 a
+dim twilight even at noon day. In one corner there was a pallet of
+straw. The chill night air crept in at the unglazed window, and the
+dismal tolling of the tocsin proclaimed that the metropolis was still
+the scene of tumult and of violence. Madame Roland threw herself upon
+her humble bed, and was so overpowered by fatigue and exhaustion that
+she woke not from her dreamless slumber until twelve o'clock of the
+next day.
+
+Eudora, who had been left by her mother in the care of weeping
+domestics, was taken by a friend, and watched over and protected with
+maternal care. Though Madame Roland never saw her idolized child
+again, her heart was comforted in the prison by the assurance that she
+had found a home with those who, for her mother's sake, would love
+and cherish her.
+
+The tidings of the arrest and imprisonment of Madame Roland soon
+reached the ears of her unfortunate husband in his retreat. His
+embarrassment was most agonizing. To remain and participate in her
+doom, whatever that doom might be, would only diminish her chances of
+escape and magnify her peril; and yet it seemed not magnanimous to
+abandon his noble wife to encounter her merciless foes alone. The
+triumphant Jacobins were now, with the eagerness of blood-hounds,
+searching every nook and corner in Paris, to drag the fallen minister
+from his concealment. It soon became evident that no dark hiding-place
+in the metropolis could long conceal him from the vigilant search
+which was commenced, and that he must seek safety in precipitate
+flight. His friends obtained for him the tattered garb of a peasant.
+In a dark night, alone and trembling, he stole from his retreat, and
+commenced a journey on foot, by a circuitous and unfrequented route,
+to gain the frontiers of Switzerland. He hoped to find a temporary
+refuge by burying himself among the lonely passes of the Alps. A man
+can _face_ his foes with a spirit undaunted and unyielding, but he
+can not _fly from them_ without trembling as he looks behind. For two
+or three days, with blistered feet, and a heart agitated even beyond
+all his powers of stoical endurance, he toiled painfully along his
+dreary journey. As he was entering Moulines, his marked features were
+recognized. He was arrested, taken back to Paris, and cast into
+prison, where he languished for some time. He subsequently again made
+his escape, and was concealed by some friends in the vicinity of
+Rouen, where he remained in a state of indescribable suspense and
+anguish until the death of his wife.
+
+When Madame Roland awoke from her long sleep, instead of yielding to
+despair and surrendering herself to useless repinings, she immediately
+began to arrange her cell as comfortably as possible, and to look
+around for such sources of comfort and enjoyment as might yet be
+obtained. The course she pursued most beautifully illustrates the
+power of a contented and cheerful spirit not only to alleviate the
+pangs of severest affliction, but to gild with comfort even the
+darkest of earthly sorrows. With those smiles of unaffected affability
+which 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 the
+window to serve for her writing-desk. To keep this table, which she
+prized so highly, unsoiled, she smilingly told her keeper that she
+should make a dining-table of her stove. A rusty dining-table indeed
+it was. Two hair-pins, which she drew from her own clustering
+ringlets, she drove into a shelf for pegs to hang her clothes upon.
+These arrangements she made as cheerfully as when superintending the
+disposition of the gorgeous furniture in the palace over which she had
+presided with so much elegance and grace. Having thus provided her
+study, her next care was to obtain a few books. She happened to have
+Thomson's Seasons, a favorite volume of hers, in her pocket. Through
+the jailer's wife she succeeded in obtaining Plutarch's Lives and
+Sheridan's Dictionary.
+
+The jailer and his wife were both charmed with their prisoner, and
+invited her to dine with them that day. In the solitude of her cell
+she could distinctly hear the rolling of drums, the tolling of bells,
+and all those sounds of tumult which announced that the storm of
+popular insurrection was still sweeping through the streets. One of
+her faithful servants called to see her, and, on beholding her
+mistress in such a situation, the poor girl burst into tears. Madame
+Roland was, for a moment, overcome by this sensibility; she, however,
+soon again regained her self-command. She endeavored to banish from
+her mind all painful thoughts of her husband and her child, and to
+accommodate herself as heroically as possible to her situation. The
+prison regulations were very severe. The government allowed twenty
+pence per day for the support of each prisoner. Ten pence was to be
+paid to the jailer for the furniture he put into the cell; ten pence
+only remained for food. The prisoners were, however, allowed to
+purchase such food as they pleased from their own purse. Madame
+Roland, with that stoicism which enabled her to triumph over all
+ordinary ills, resolved to conform to the prison allowance. She took
+bread and water alone for breakfast. The dinner was coarse meat and
+vegetables. The money she saved by this great frugality she
+distributed among the poorer prisoners. The only indulgence she
+allowed herself was in the purchase of books and flowers. In reading
+and with her pen she beguiled the weary days of her imprisonment. And
+though at times her spirit was overwhelmed with anguish in view of her
+desolate home and blighted hopes, she still found great solace in the
+warm affections which sprang up around her, even in the uncongenial
+atmosphere of a prison.
+
+Though she had been compelled to abandon all the enthusiastic dreams
+of her youth, she still retained confidence in her faith that these
+dark storms would ere long disappear from the political horizon, and
+that a brighter day would soon dawn upon the nations. No misfortunes
+could disturb the serenity of her soul, and no accumulating perils
+could daunt her courage. She immediately made a methodical arrangement
+of her time, so as to appropriate stated employment to every hour. She
+cheered herself with the reflection that her husband was safe in his
+retreat, with kind friends ready to minister to all his wants. She
+felt assured that her daughter was received with maternal love by one
+who would ever watch over her with the tenderest care. The agitation
+of the terrible conflict was over. She submitted with calmness and
+quietude to her lot. After having been so long tossed by storms, she
+seemed to find a peaceful harbor in her prison cell, and her spirit
+wandered back to those days, so serene and happy, which she spent with
+her books in the little chamber beneath her father's roof. She
+however, made every effort in her power to regain her freedom. She
+wrote to the Assembly, protesting against her illegal arrest. She
+found all these efforts unavailing. Still, she gave way to no
+despondency, and uttered no murmurs. Most of her time she employed in
+writing historic notices of the scenes through which she had passed.
+These papers she intrusted, for preservation, to a friend, who
+occasionally gained access to her. These articles, written with great
+eloquence and feeling, were subsequently published with her memoirs.
+Having such resources in her own highly-cultivated mind, even the
+hours of imprisonment glided rapidly and happily along. Time had no
+tardy flight, and there probably might have been found many a lady in
+Europe lolling in a sumptuous carriage, or reclining upon a silken
+couch, who had far fewer hours of enjoyment.
+
+One day some commissioners called at her cell, hoping to extort from
+her the secret of her husband's retreat. She looked them calmly in the
+face, 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 assure
+you that there is no earthly power which can induce me to betray him."
+The commissioners withdrew, admiring her heroism, and convinced that
+she was still able to wield an influence which might yet bring the
+guillotine upon their own necks. Her doom was sealed. Her heroism was
+her crime. She was too illustrious to live.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+FATE OF THE GIRONDISTS.
+
+1793
+
+Fate of the Girondists.--Their heroic courage.--The Girondists in
+the Conciergerie.--Their miserable condition.--Youthful hopes cut
+short.--State of Paris.--Books and friends.--Anecdote of
+Vergniaud.--Sentiments of the Girondists inscribed on the prison
+walls.--La Source and Sillery.--Their evening dirge.--The day
+of trial.--The misnamed Halls of Justice.--Precautions of
+the Jacobins.--Demeanor of the prisoners.--The trial and
+condemnation.--Death of Valaze.--Various emotions.--Return to the
+Conciergerie.--The Girondists exultingly sing the Marseillaise
+Hymn.--The Girondists prepare for the last scene.--Brutal
+decree.--Last feast of the Girondists.--Strange scene.--The
+Abbe Lambert.--His memoranda.--Vergniaud presides at the
+feast.--Unnatural gayety.--Last thoughts.--Religion, philosophy, and
+infidelity.--Eloquence of Vergniaud.--Argument for immortality.--Last
+preparations.--Arrival of the executioners.--Souvenirs to friends.--The
+carts of the condemned.--Enthusiasm of the Girondists.--The last
+embrace.--The execution.--Fortitude of Vergniaud.--Burial of the
+bodies.--Errors of the Girondists.--Escape of Gaudet and others.--The
+Jacobins clamor for more blood.--More Girondists executed.--Fate of
+Petion and Buzot.--Mystery attending the death of Petion and Buzot.
+
+
+As the fate of the Girondist party, of which Madame Roland was the
+soul, is so intimately connected with her history, we must leave her
+in the prison, while we turn aside to contemplate the doom of her
+companions. The portentous thunders of the approaching storm had given
+such warning to the Girondists, that many had effected their escape
+from 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 no
+criminations of conscience, except for sacrificing too much in love
+for their country, they resolved to remain firm at their post, and to
+face their foes. Calmly and sternly they awaited the onset. This
+heroic courage did but arouse and invigorate their foes. Mercy had
+long since died in France.
+
+Immediately after the tumult of that dreadful night in which the
+Convention was inundated with assassins clamoring for blood,
+twenty-one of the Girondists were arrested and thrown into the
+dungeons of the Conciergerie. Imprisoned together, and fully conscious
+that their trial would be but a mockery, and that their doom was
+already sealed, they fortified one another with all the consolations
+which philosophy and the pride of magnanimity could administer. In
+those gloomy cells, beneath the level of the street, into whose deep
+and grated windows the rays of the noonday sun could but feebly
+penetrate, their faces soon grew wan, and wasted, and haggard, from
+confinement, the foul prison air, and woe.
+
+There is no sight more deplorable than that of an accomplished man of
+intellectual tastes, accustomed to all the refinements of polished
+life, plunged into those depths of misery from which the decencies
+even of our social being are excluded. These illustrious statesmen and
+eloquent orators, whose words had vibrated upon the ear of Europe,
+were transformed into the most revolting aspect of beggared and
+haggard misery. Their clothes, ruined by the humid filth of their
+dungeons, moldered to decay. Unwashed, unshorn, in the loss almost of
+the aspect of humanity, they became repulsive to each other.
+Unsupported by any of those consolations which religion affords, many
+hours of the blackest gloom must have enveloped them.
+
+Not a few of the deputies were young men, in the morning of their
+energetic being, their bosoms glowing with all the passions of this
+tumultuous world, buoyant with hope, stimulated by love, invigorated
+by perfect health. And they found themselves thus suddenly plunged
+from the heights of honor and power to the dismal darkness of the
+dungeon, 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 midnight
+darkness. Several months lingered slowly away while these men were
+awaiting their trial. Day after day they heard the tolling of the
+tocsin, the reverberations of the alarm gun, and the beating of the
+insurrection drum, as the demon of lawless violence rioted through the
+streets of the blood-stained metropolis. The execrations of the mob,
+loud and fiend-like, accompanied the cart of the condemned, as it
+rumbled upon the pavements above their heads, bearing the victims of
+popular fury to the guillotine; and still, most stoically, they
+struggled to nerve their souls with fortitude to meet their fate.
+
+From these massive stone walls, guarded by triple doors of iron and
+watched by numerous sentinels, answerable for the safe custody of
+their prisoners with their lives, there was no possibility of escape.
+The rigor of their imprisonment was, consequently, somewhat softened
+as weeks passed on, and they were occasionally permitted to see their
+friends through the iron wicket. Books, also, aided to relieve the
+tedium of confinement. The brother-in-law of Vergniaud came to visit
+him, and brought with him his son, a child ten years of age. The
+features of the fair boy reminded Vergniaud of his beloved sister, and
+awoke mournfully in his heart the remembrance of departed joys. When
+the child saw his uncle imprisoned like a malefactor, his cheeks
+haggard and sunken, his matted hair straggling over his forehead, his
+long beard disfiguring his face, and his clothes hanging in tatters,
+he clung to his father, affrighted by the sad sight, and burst into
+tears.
+
+"My child," said Vergniaud, kindly, taking him in his arms, "look well
+at me. When you are a man, you can say that you saw Vergniaud, the
+founder of the Republic, at the most glorious period, and in the most
+splendid costume he ever wore--that in which he suffered unmerited
+persecution, and in which he prepared to die for liberty." These words
+produced a deep impression upon the mind of the child. He remembered
+them to repeat them after the lapse of half a century.
+
+The cells in which they were imprisoned still remain as they were left
+on the morning in which these illustrious men were led to their
+execution. On the dingy walls of stone are still recorded those
+sentiments which they had inscribed there, and which indicate the
+nature of those emotions which animated and sustained them. These
+proverbial maxims and heroic expressions, gleaned from French
+tragedies or the classic page, were written with the blood which they
+had drawn from their own veins. In one place is carefully written,
+
+     "Quand il n'a pu sauver la liberte 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 liberte est celle de l'ame."
+
+     _"True liberty is that of the soul."_
+
+On a beam was written,
+
+"Dignum certe Deo spectaculum fortem virum cum calamitate
+colluctantem."
+
+_"Even God may look with pleasure upon a brave man struggling against
+adversity."_
+
+Again,
+
+     "Quels solides appui dans le malheur supreme!
+     J'ai pour moi ma vertu, l'equite, Dieu meme."
+
+     _"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 of
+Vergniaud,
+
+     "Potius mori quam foedari."
+
+     _"Death is preferable to dishonor."_
+
+But one sentence is recorded there which could be considered strictly
+of a religious character. It was taken from the "Imitation of Christ."
+
+"Remember that you are not called to a life of indulgence and
+pleasure, but to toil and to suffer."
+
+La Source and Sillery, two very devoted friends, occupied a cell
+together. La Source was a devoted Christian, and found, in the
+consolations of piety, an unfailing support. Sillery possessed a
+feeling heart, and was soothed and comforted by the devotion of his
+friend. La Source composed a beautiful hymn, adapted to a sweet and
+solemn air, which they called their evening service. Night after night
+this mournful dirge was heard gently issuing from the darkness of
+their cell, in tones so melodious and plaintive that they never died
+away from the memory of those who heard them. It is difficult to
+conceive of any thing more affecting than this knell, so softly
+uttered 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 were
+awaiting their doom. World-weary and sick at heart, they still
+struggled to sustain each other, and to meet their dreadful fate with
+heroic constancy. The day for their trial at length arrived. It was
+the 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 the
+guillotine. They were led from the dungeons of the Conciergerie to the
+misnamed Halls of Justice. A vast concourse of angry men surrounded
+the tribunal, and filled the air with execrations. Paris that day
+presented the aspect of a camp. The Jacobins, conscious that there
+were still thousands of the most influential of the citizens who
+regarded the Girondists with veneration as incorruptible patriots,
+determined to prevent the possibility of a rescue. They had some cause
+to apprehend a counter revolution. They therefore gathered around the
+scene of trial all that imposing military array which they had at
+their disposal. Cavalry, with plumes, and helmets, and naked sabers,
+were sweeping the streets, that no accumulations of the multitude
+might gather force. The pavements trembled beneath the rumbling wheels
+of heavy artillery, ready to belch forth their storm of grape-shot
+upon any opposing foe. Long lines of infantry, with loaded muskets and
+glittering bayonets, guarded all the avenues to the tribunal, where
+rancorous passion sat enthroned in mockery upon the seat of justice.
+
+The prisoners had nerved themselves sternly to meet this crisis of
+their doom. Two by two, in solemn procession, they marched to the bar
+of judgment, and took their seat upon benches surrounded by gens
+d'armes and a frowning populace, and arraigned before judges already
+determined upon their doom. The eyes of the world were, however, upon
+them. 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 the
+accused still clung to the hope of life. They vainly dreamed it
+possible that, by silence, and the abandonment of themselves to the
+resistless power by which they were crushed, some mercy might be
+elicited. It was a weakness unworthy of these great men. But there are
+few minds which can remain firm while immured for months in the
+wasting misery of a dungeon. In those glooms the sinews of mental
+energy wither with dying hope. The trial continued for a week. On the
+30th of October, at eleven o'clock at night, the verdict was brought
+in. They were all declared guilty of having conspired against the
+Republic, and were condemned to death. With the light of the next
+morning's sun they were to be led to the guillotine.
+
+As the sentence was pronounced, one of the accused, M. Valaze, made a
+motion with his hand, as if to tear his garment, and fell from his
+seat upon the floor. "What, Valaze," said Brissot, striving to support
+him, "are you losing your courage?" "No," replied Valaze, faintly, "I
+am dying;" and he expired, with his hand still grasping the hilt of
+the dagger with which he had pierced his heart. For a moment it was a
+scene of unutterable horror. The condemned gathered sadly around the
+remains of their lifeless companion. Some, who had confidently
+expected acquittal, overcome by the near approach of death, yielded to
+momentary weakness, and gave utterance to reproaches and lamentations.
+Others, pale and stupefied, gazed around in moody silence. One, in the
+delirium of enthusiasm, throwing his arms above his head, shouted,
+"This is the most glorious day of my life!" Vergniaud, seated upon the
+highest bench, with the composure of philosophy and piety combined,
+looked upon the scene, exulting in the victory his own spirit had
+achieved over peril and death.
+
+The weakness which a few displayed was but momentary. They rallied
+their energies boldly to meet their inevitable doom. They gathered for
+a moment around the corpse of their lifeless companion, and were then
+formed in procession, to march back to their cells. It was midnight as
+the condemned Girondists were led from the bar of the Palace of
+Justice back to the dungeons of the Conciergerie, there to wait till
+the swift-winged hours should bring the dawn which was to guide their
+steps to the guillotine. Their presence of mind had now returned, and
+their bosoms glowed with the loftiest enthusiasm. In fulfillment of a
+promise they had made their fellow-prisoners, to inform them of their
+fate by the echoes of their voices, they burst into the Marseillaise
+Hymn. The vaults of the Conciergerie rang with the song as they
+shouted, in tones of exultant energy,
+
+     "Allons, enfans de la patrie,
+       Le jour de glorie est arrive,
+     Contre nous de la tyrannie
+       L'etendard sanglant est leve.
+
+     "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 the
+gloomy corridors of their prison to the cells, these dirge-like
+wailings of a triumphant song penetrated the remotest dungeons of that
+dismal abode, and roused every wretched head from its pallet. The arms
+of the guard clattered along the stone floor of the subterranean
+caverns, and the unhappy victims of the Revolution, roused from the
+temporary oblivion of sleep, or from dreams of the homes of refinement
+and luxury from which they had been torn, glared through the iron
+gratings upon the melancholy procession, and uttered last words of
+adieu to those whose fate they almost envied. The acquittal of the
+Girondists would have given them some little hope that they also might
+find mercy. Now they sunk back upon their pillows in despair, and
+lamentations and wailings filled the prison.
+
+The condemned, now that their fate was sealed, had laid aside all
+weakness, and, mutually encouraging one another, prepared as martyrs
+to encounter the last stern trial. They were all placed in one large
+room opening into several cells, and the lifeless body of their
+companion was deposited in one of the corners. By a decree of the
+tribunal, the still warm and bleeding remains of Valaze were to be
+carried back to the cell, and to be conveyed the next morning, in the
+same cart with the prisoners, to the guillotine. The ax was to sever
+the head from the lifeless body, and all the headless trunks were to
+be interred together.
+
+A wealthy friend, who had escaped proscription, and was concealed in
+Paris, had agreed to send them a sumptuous banquet the night after
+their trial, which banquet was to prove to them a funeral repast or a
+triumphant feast, according to the verdict of acquittal or
+condemnation. Their friend kept his word. Soon after the prisoners
+were remanded to their cell, a table was spread, and preparations were
+made for their last supper. There was a large oaken table in the
+prison, where those awaiting their trial, and those awaiting their
+execution, met for their coarse prison fare. A rich cloth was spread
+upon that table. Servants entered, bearing brilliant lamps, which
+illuminated the dismal vault with an unnatural luster, and spread the
+glare of noonday light upon the miserable pallets of straw, the rusty
+iron 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 a
+strange scene, that brilliant festival, in the midst of the glooms of
+the most dismal dungeon, with one dead body lying upon the floor, and
+those for whom the feast was prepared waiting only for the early dawn
+to light them to their death and burial. The richest viands of meats
+and wines were brought in and placed before the condemned. Vases of
+flowers diffused their fragrance and expanded their beauty where
+flowers were never seen to bloom before. Wan and haggard faces,
+unwashed and unshorn, gazed upon the unwonted spectacle, as dazzling
+flambeaux, and rich table furniture, and bouquets, and costly dishes
+appeared, one after another, until the board was covered with luxury
+and splendor.
+
+In silence the condemned took their places at the table. They were men
+of brilliant intellects, of enthusiastic eloquence, thrown suddenly
+from the heights of power to the foot of the scaffold. A priest, the
+Abbe Lambert, the intimate personal friend of several of the most
+eminent of the Girondists, had obtained admittance into the prison to
+accompany his friends to the guillotine, and to administer to them the
+last consolations of religion. He stood in the corridor, looking
+through the open door upon those assembled around the table, and, with
+his pencil in his hand, noted down their words, their gestures, their
+sighs--their weakness and their strength. It is to him that we are
+indebted for all knowledge of the sublime scenes enacted at the last
+supper of the Girondists. The repast was prolonged until the dawn of
+morning began to steal faintly in at the grated windows of the prison
+and the gathering tumult without announced the preparations to conduct
+them 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 bind
+him to life, for he had neither father nor mother, wife nor child; and
+he doubted not that posterity would do him justice, and that his death
+would be the most glorious act of his life. No one could imagine, from
+the calm and subdued conversation, and the quiet appetite with which
+these distinguished men partook of the entertainment, that this was
+their last repast, and but the prelude to a violent death. But when
+the cloth was removed, and the fruits, the wines, and the flowers
+alone remained, the conversation became animated, gay, and at times
+rose to hilarity. Several of the youngest men of the party, in sallies
+of wit and outbursts of laughter, endeavored to repel the gloom which
+darkened their spirits in view of death on the morrow. It was
+unnatural 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 truly
+noble can encounter this king of terrors with fortitude, but never
+with levity. Still, now and then, shouts of laughter and songs of
+merriment burst from the lips of these young men, as they endeavored,
+with a kind of hysterical energy, to nerve themselves to show to their
+enemies their contempt of life and of death. Others were more
+thoughtful, 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, infidelity
+its dreary blank. Each answered according to his faith. "We shall
+sleep after the fatigues of the day," said some, "to wake no more."
+Atheism had darkened their minds. "Death is an eternal sleep," had
+become their gloomy creed. They looked forward to the slide of the
+guillotine as ending all thought, and consigning them back to that
+non-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, these
+boundless aspirations, can never die. To-morrow, far away in other
+worlds, we shall think, and feel, and act and solve the problems of
+the immaterial destiny of the human mind." Immortality was the theme.
+The song was hushed upon these dying lips. The forced laughter fainted
+away. Standing upon the brink of that dread abyss from whence no one
+has returned with tidings, every soul felt a longing for immortality.
+They turned to Vergniaud, whose brilliant intellect, whose
+soul-moving eloquence, whose spotless life commanded their reverence,
+and appealed to him for light, and truth, and consolation. His words
+are lost. The effect of his discourse alone is described. "Never,"
+said the abbe "had his look, his gesture, his language, and his voice
+more profoundly affected his hearers." In the conclusion of a
+discourse which is described as one of almost superhuman eloquence,
+during which some were aroused to the most exalted enthusiasm, all
+were deeply moved, and many wept, Vergniaud exclaimed,
+
+"Death is but the greatest act of life, since it gives birth to a
+higher state of existence. Were it not thus there would be something
+greater than God. It would be the just man immolating himself
+uselessly and hopelessly for his country. This supposition is a folly
+of blasphemy, and I repel it with contempt and horror. No! Vergniaud
+is not greater than God, but God is more just than Vergniaud; and He
+will not to-morrow suffer him to ascend a scaffold but to justify and
+avenge him in future ages."
+
+And now the light of day began to stream in at the windows. "Let us go
+to bed," said one, "and sleep until we are called to go forth to our
+last sleep. Life is a thing so trifling that it is not worth the hour
+of sleep we lose in regretting it."
+
+"Let us rather watch," said another, "during the few moments which
+remain to us. Eternity is so certain and so terrible that a thousand
+lives would not suffice to prepare for it."
+
+They rose from the table, and most of them retired to their cells and
+threw themselves upon their beds for a few moments of bodily repose
+and meditation. Thirteen, however, remained in the larger apartment,
+finding a certain kind of support in society. In a low tone of voice
+they conversed with each other. They were worn out with excitement,
+fatigue, and want of sleep. Some wept. Sleep kindly came to some, and
+lulled their spirits into momentary oblivion.
+
+At ten o'clock the iron doors grated on their hinges, and the tramp of
+the gens d'armes, with the clattering of their sabers, was heard
+reverberating through the gloomy corridors and vaults of their
+dungeon, as they came, with the executioners, to lead the condemned to
+the scaffold. Their long hair was cut from their necks, that the ax,
+with unobstructed edge, might do its work. Each one left some simple
+and affecting souvenir to friends. Gensonne picked up a lock of his
+black hair, and gave it to the Abbe Lambert to give to his wife. "Tell
+her," said he, "that it is the only memorial of my love which I can
+transmit 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 sent
+the token to a young lady to whom he was devotedly attached, and to
+whom he was ere long to have been married. Each gave to the abbe some
+legacy of affection to be conveyed to loved ones who were to be left
+behind. Few emotions are stronger in the hour of death than the desire
+to 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, to
+convey them to the scaffold. The countless thousands of Paris were
+swarming around the prison, filling the court, and rolling, like ocean
+tides, into every adjacent avenue. Each cart contained five persons,
+with the exception of the last, into which the dead body of Valaze had
+been cast with four of his living companions.
+
+And now came to the Girondists their hour of triumph. Heroism rose
+exultant over all ills. The brilliant sun and the elastic air of an
+October morning invigorated their bodies, and the scene of sublimity
+through which they were passing stimulated their spirits to the
+highest pitch of enthusiasm. As the carts moved from the court-yard,
+with one simultaneous voice, clear and sonorous, the Girondists burst
+into the Marseillaise Hymn. The crowd gazed in silence as this
+funereal chant, not like the wailings of a dirge, but like the strains
+of an exultant song, swelled and died away upon the air. Here and
+there some friendly voice among the populace ventured to swell the
+volume of sound as the significant words were uttered,
+
+     "Contre nous de la tyrannie
+       L'etendard sanglant est leve."
+
+     "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 at
+the scaffold, they all embraced in one long, last adieu. It was a
+token of their communion in death as in life. They then, in concert,
+loudly and firmly resumed their funereal chant. One ascended the
+scaffold, continuing the song with his companions. He was bound to the
+plank. Still his voice was heard full and strong. The plank slowly
+fell. Still his voice, without a tremor, joined in the triumphant
+chorus. The glittering ax glided like lightning down the groove. His
+head fell into the basket, and one voice was hushed forever. Another
+ascended, and another, and another, each with the song bursting loudly
+from his lips, till death ended the strain. There was no weakness. No
+step trembled, no cheek paled, no voice faltered. But each succeeding
+moment the song grew more faint as head after head fell, and the
+bleeding bodies were piled side by side. At last one voice alone
+continued the song. It was that of Vergniaud, the most illustrious of
+them all. Long confinement had spread deathly pallor over his
+intellectual features, but firm and dauntless, and with a voice of
+surpassing richness, he continued the solo into which the chorus had
+now 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 lifeless
+bodies of his friends, and around upon the overawed multitude gazing
+in silent admiration upon this heroic enthusiasm. As he then
+surrendered himself to the executioner, he commenced anew the strain,
+
+     "Allons! enfans de la patrie,
+       Le jour de glorie est arrive."
+
+     "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 bloody
+mission, and those lips, which had guided the storm of revolution, and
+whose patriotic appeals had thrilled upon the ear of France, were
+silent in death. Thus perished the Girondists, the founders of the
+Republic and its victims. Their votes consigned Louis and Maria to the
+guillotine, and they were the first to follow them. One cart conveyed
+the twenty-one bodies away, and they were thrown into one pit, by the
+side of the grave of Louis XVI.
+
+[Illustration: EXECUTION OF THE GIRONDISTS.]
+
+They committed many errors. Few minds could discern distinctly the
+path of truth and duty through the clouds and vapors of those stormy
+times. But they were most sincerely devoted to the liberties of
+France. They overthrew the monarchy, and established the Republic.
+They died because they refused to open those sluice-ways of blood
+which the people demanded. A few of the Girondists had made their
+escape. Petion, Buzot, Barbaroux, and Gaudet wandered in disguise,
+and hid themselves in the caves of wild and unfrequented mountains. La
+Fayette, who was one of the most noble and illustrious apostles of
+this creed, was saved from the guillotine by weary years of
+imprisonment in the dungeons of Olmutz. Madame Roland lingered in her
+cell, striving to maintain serenity, while her soul was tortured with
+the tidings of carnage and woe which every morning's dawn brought to
+her ears.
+
+The Jacobins were now more and more clamorous for blood. They strove
+to tear La Fayette from his dungeon, that they might triumph in his
+death. They pursued, with implacable vigilance, the Girondists who had
+escaped from their fury. They trained blood-hounds to scent them out
+in their wild retreats, where they were suffering, from cold and
+starvation, all that human nature can possibly endure. For a time,
+five of them lived together in a cavern, thirty feet in depth. This
+cavern had a secret communication with the cellar of a house. Their
+generous hostess, periling her own life for them, daily supplied them
+with food. She could furnish them only with the most scanty fare, lest
+she should be betrayed by the purchase of provisions necessary for so
+many mouths. It was mid-winter. No fire warmed them in their damp and
+gloomy 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 and
+executed. Three toiled along by night, through cold, and snow, and
+rain, the keen wind piercing their tattered garments, till their
+sufferings made them reckless of life. They were arrested, and found,
+in the blade of the guillotine, a refuge from their woes. At last all
+were taken and executed but Petion and Buzot. Their fate is involved
+in mystery. None can tell what their sufferings were during the days
+and the nights of their weary wanderings, when no eye but that of God
+could see them. Some peasants found among the mountains, where they
+had taken refuge, human remains rent in pieces by the wolves. The
+tattered garments were scattered around where the teeth of the
+ferocious animals had left them. They were all that was left of the
+noble Petion and Buzot. But how did they die? Worn out by suffering
+and abandoned to despair, did they fall by their own hands? Did they
+perish from exposure to hunger and exhaustion, and the freezing blasts
+of winter? Or, in their weakness, were they attacked by the famished
+wolves of the mountains? The dying scene of Petion and Buzot is
+involved in impenetrable obscurity. Its tragic accompaniments can only
+be revealed when all mysteries shall be unfolded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+PRISON LIFE.
+
+1793
+
+Liberation of Madame Roland.--She is re-arrested.--Infamous cruelty
+of the Jacobins.--Anguish of Madame Roland.--Madame Roland recovers
+her composure.--Intellectual enjoyments.--More comfortable
+apartments.--Kindness of the jailer's wife.--Madame Roland entreated
+to escape.--Rigorous treatment.--Visit of an English lady.--Kindness
+of the jailers.--Cheerful aspect of Madame Roland's cell.--Henriette
+Cannet.--Vain entreaties.--Robespierre in the zenith of his
+power.--Madame Roland's letter to Robespierre.--Supports of
+philosophy.--Influence of the Roman Catholic religion.--Energy of
+Madame Roland.--She prepares for voluntary death.--Madame Roland's
+prayer.--Notes to her husband and child.--Apostrophe to
+friends.--Farewell to Nature.--Maternal love triumphs.--The struggle
+ended.--Descriptions of Tacitus.--Madame Roland writes her memoirs.--The
+spirit wanders among happier scenes.--Striking contrasts.--Madame Roland
+conveyed to the Conciergerie.--Dismal cell.--Description of the
+Conciergerie.--Narrow courts.--Quadrangular tower.--The daughter of the
+Caesars.--The daughter of the artisan.
+
+
+Madame Roland remained for four months in the Abbaye prison. On the
+24th day of her imprisonment, to her inexpressible astonishment, an
+officer entered her cell, and informed her that she was liberated, as
+no charge could be found against her. Hardly crediting her
+senses--fearing that she should wake up and find her freedom but the
+blissful delirium of a dream--she took a coach and hastened to her own
+door. Her eyes were full of tears of joy, and her heart almost
+bursting with the throbbings of delight, in the anticipation of again
+pressing her idolized child to her bosom. Her hand was upon the door
+latch--she had not yet passed the threshold--when two men, who had
+watched at the door of her dwelling, again seized her in the name of
+the law. In spite of her tears and supplications, they conveyed her to
+the prison of St. Pelagie. This loathsome receptacle of crime was
+filled with the abandoned females who had been swept, in impurity and
+degradation, from the streets of Paris. It was, apparently, a studied
+humiliation, to compel their victim to associate with beings from whom
+her soul shrunk with loathing. She had resigned herself to die, but
+not to the society of infamy and pollution.
+
+The Jacobins, conscious of the illegality of her first arrest, and
+dreading her power, were anxious to secure her upon a more legal
+footing. They adopted, therefore, this measure of liberating her and
+arresting her a second time. Even her firm and resigned spirit was for
+a moment vanquished by this cruel blow. Her blissful dream of
+happiness was so instantaneously converted into the blackness of
+despair, that she buried her face in her hands, and, in the anguish of
+a 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 was
+removed from this degrading companionship to a narrow cell, where she
+could enjoy the luxury of being alone. An humble bed was spread for
+her in one corner, and a small table was placed near the few rays of
+light which stole feebly in through the iron grating of the
+inaccessible window. Summoning all her fortitude to her aid, she
+again resumed her usual occupations, allotting to each hour of the day
+its regular employment. She engaged vigorously in the study of the
+English language, and passed some hours every day in drawing, of which
+accomplishment she was very fond. She had no patterns to copy; but her
+imagination wandered through the green fields and by the murmuring
+brooks of her rural home. Now she roved with free footsteps through
+the vineyards which sprang up beneath her creative pencil. Now she
+floated upon the placid lake, reclining upon the bosom of her husband
+and caressing her child, beneath the tranquil sublimity of the evening
+sky. Again she sat down at the humble fireside of the peasant,
+ministering to the wants of the needy, and receiving the recompense of
+grateful hearts. Thus, on the free wing of imagination, she penetrated
+all scenes of beauty, and spread them out in vivid reality before her
+eye. At times she almost forgot that she was a captive. Well might she
+have 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 occasional
+access to her. During the dark hours of that reign of terror and of
+blood, no crime was more unpardonable than the manifestation of
+sympathy for the accused. These friends, calling as often as prudence
+would allow, brought to her presents of fruit and of flowers. At last
+the jailer's wife, unable to resist the pleadings of her own heart for
+one whom she could not but love and admire, ventured to remove her to
+a more comfortable apartment, where the daylight shone brightly in
+through the iron bars of the window. Here she could see the clouds and
+the birds soaring in the free air. She was even allowed, through her
+friends, to procure a piano-forte, which afforded her many hours of
+recreation. Music, drawing, and flowers were the embellishments of her
+life. Madame Bouchaud, the wife of the jailer, conceived for her
+prisoner the kindest affection, and daily visited her, doing every
+thing in her power to alleviate the bitterness of her imprisonment. At
+last her sympathies were so aroused, that, regardless of all
+prudential considerations, she offered to aid her in making her
+escape. Madame Roland was deeply moved by this proof of devotion, and,
+though she was fully aware that she must soon place her head upon the
+scaffold, she firmly refused all entreaties to escape in any way
+which might endanger her friend. Others united with Madame Bouchaud in
+entreating her to accept of her generous offer. Their efforts were
+entirely unavailing. She preferred to die herself rather than to incur
+the possibility of exposing those who loved her to the guillotine. The
+kindness with which Madame Roland was treated was soon spied out by
+those in power. The jailer was severely reprimanded, and ordered
+immediately to remove the piano-forte from the room, and to confine
+Madame Roland rigorously in her cell. This change did not disturb the
+equanimity of her spirit. She had studied so deeply and admired so
+profoundly all that was noble in the most illustrious characters of
+antiquity, that her mind instinctively assumed the same model. She
+found elevated enjoyment in triumphing over every earthly ill.
+
+An English lady, then residing in France, who had often visited her in
+the days of her power, when her home presented all that earth could
+give of splendor, and when wealth and rank were bowing obsequiously
+around her, thus describes a visit which she paid to her cell in these
+dark days of adversity.
+
+"I visited her in the prison of Sainte Pelagie, where her soul,
+superior to circumstances, retained its accustomed serenity, and she
+conversed with the same animated cheerfulness in her cheerless dudgeon
+as she used to do in the hotel of the minister. She had provided
+herself with a few books, and I found her reading Plutarch. She told
+me that she expected to die, and the look of placid resignation with
+which she said it convinced me that she was prepared to meet death
+with a firmness worthy of her exalted character. When I inquired after
+her daughter, an only child of thirteen years of age, she burst into
+tears; and, at the overwhelming recollection of her husband and child,
+the courage of the victim of liberty was lost in the feelings of the
+wife and the mother."
+
+The merciless commissioners had ordered her to be incarcerated in a
+cell which no beam of light could penetrate. But her compassionate
+keepers ventured to misunderstand the orders, and to place her in a
+room where a few rays of the morning sun could struggle through the
+grated windows, and where the light of day, though seen but dimly,
+might still, in some degree, cheer those eyes so soon to be closed
+forever. The soul, instinctively appreciative of beauty, will under
+the most adverse circumstances, evoke congenial visions. Her friends
+brought her flowers, of which from childhood she had been most
+passionately fond. These cherished plants seemed to comprehend and
+requite unaffected love. At the iron window of her prison they
+appeared to grow with the joy and luxuriance of gratitude. With
+intertwining leaf and blossom, they concealed the rusty bars, till
+they changed the aspect of the grated cell into a garden bower, where
+birds 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 her
+companions, which the lapse of time had not diminished. Through all
+the vicissitudes of their lives they had kept up a constant
+correspondence. This friend, Henriette Cannet, one day obtained access
+to her prison, and, in the exercise of that romantic friendship of
+which this world can present but few parallels, urged Madame Roland to
+exchange garments with her, and thus escape from prison and the
+scaffold. "If you remain," said Henriette, "your death is inevitable.
+If I remain in your place, they will not take my life, but, after a
+short imprisonment, I shall be liberated. None fear me, and I am too
+obscure to attract attention in these troubled times. I," she
+continued, "am a widow, and childless. There are no responsibilities
+which claim my time. You have a husband, advanced in years, and a
+lovely little child, both needing your utmost care." Thus she pleaded
+with her to exchange attire, and endeavor to escape. But neither
+prayers 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 thousand
+deaths than reproach myself with thine." Henriette, finding all her
+entreaties in vain, sadly bade her adieu, and was never permitted to
+see her more.
+
+Robespierre was now in the zenith of his power. He was the arbiter of
+life and death. One word from him would restore Madame Roland to
+liberty. But he had steeled his heart against every sentiment of
+humanity, and was not willing to deprive the guillotine of a single
+victim. One day Madame Roland was lying sick in the infirmary of the
+prison. A physician attended her, who styled himself the friend of
+Robespierre. The mention of his name recalled to her remembrance their
+early friendship, and her own exertions to save his life when it was
+in 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 Caesar, 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. But
+her imperial spirit would not stoop to the acceptance of a pardon from
+those who deserved the execrations of mankind; such a pardon she would
+have torn in fragments, and have stepped resolutely upon the
+scaffold.
+
+There is something cold and chilling in the supports which pride and
+philosophy alone can afford under the calamities of life. Madame
+Roland had met with Christianity only as it appeared in the pomp and
+parade of the Catholic Church, and in the openly-dissolute lives of
+its ignorant or voluptuous priesthood. While her poetic temperament
+was moved by the sublime conception of a God ruling over the world of
+matter and the world of mind, revealed religion, as her spirit
+encountered it, consisted only in gorgeous pageants, and ridiculous
+dogmas, and puerile traditions. The spirit of piety and pure devotion
+she could admire. Her natural temperament was serious, reflective, and
+prayerful. Her mind, so far as religion was concerned, was very much
+in the state of that of any intellectual, high-minded, uncorruptible
+Roman, who renounced, without opposing, the idolatry of the benighted
+multitude; who groped painfully for some revelation of God and of
+truth; who at times believed fully in a superintending providence, and
+again had fears whether there were any God or any immortality. In the
+processions, the relics, the grotesque garb, and the spiritual
+terrors wielded by the Roman Catholic priesthood, she could behold but
+barefaced deception. The papal system appeared to her but as a
+colossal monster, oppressing the people with hideous superstition, and
+sustaining, with its superhuman energies, the corruption of the nobles
+and of the throne. In rejecting this system, she had no friend to
+conduct her to the warm, sheltered, and congenial retreats of
+evangelical piety. She was led almost inevitably, by the philosophy of
+the times, to those chilling, barren, storm-swept heights, where the
+soul can find no shelter but in its own indomitable energies of
+endurance. These energies Madame Roland displayed in such a degree as
+to 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 that
+it would be more honorable for her to die by her own hand than to be
+dragged to the guillotine by her foes. She obtained some poison, and
+sat down calmly to write her last thoughts, and her last messages of
+love, before she should plunge into the deep mystery of the unknown.
+There is something exceedingly affecting in the vague and shadowy
+prayer which she offered on this occasion. It betrays a painful
+uncertainty whether there were any superintending Deity to hear her
+cry, and yet it was the soul's instinctive breathing for a support
+higher and holier than could be found within itself.
+
+"Divinity! Supreme Being! Spirit of the Universe! great principle of
+all that I feel great, or good, or immortal within myself--whose
+existence I believe in, because I must have emanated from something
+superior to that by which I am surrounded--I am about to reunite
+myself to thy essence." In her farewell note to her husband, she
+writes, "Forgive me, my esteemed and justly-honored husband, for
+taking upon myself to dispose of a life I had consecrated to you.
+Believe me, I could have loved life and you better for your
+misfortunes, had I been permitted to share them with you. At present,
+by my death, you are only freed from a useless object of unavailing
+anguish."
+
+All the fountains of a mother's love gush forth as she writes to her
+idolized Eudora: "Pardon me, my beloved child, my sweet daughter,
+whose gentle image dwells within my heart, and whose very remembrance
+shakes my sternest resolution. Never would your fond mother have left
+you helpless in the world, could she but have remained to guide and
+guard you."
+
+Then, apostrophizing her friends, she exclaims, "And you, my cherished
+friends, transfer to my motherless child the affection you have ever
+manifested for me. Grieve not at a resolution which ends my many and
+severe trials. You know me too well to believe that weakness or terror
+have instigated the step I am about to take."
+
+She made her will, bequeathing such trifling souvenirs of affection as
+still remained in her possession to her daughter, her friends, and her
+servants. She then reverted to all she had loved and admired of the
+beauties of nature, and which she was now to leave forever.
+"Farewell!" she wrote, "farewell, glorious sun! that never failed to
+gild my windows with thy golden rays, ere thou hiddest thy brightness
+in the heavens. Adieu, ye lonely banks of the Saone, whose wild beauty
+could fill my heart with such deep delight. And you too, poor but
+honest people of Thizy, whose labors I lightened, whose distress I
+relieved, and whose sick beds I tended--farewell! Adieu, oh! peaceful
+chambers of my childhood, where I learned to love virtue and
+truth--where my imagination found in books and study the food to
+delight it, and where I learned in silence to command my passions and
+to despise my vanity. Again farewell, my child! Remember your mother.
+Doubtless your fate will be less severe than hers. Adieu, beloved
+child! whom I nourished at my breast, and earnestly desired to imbue
+with every feeling and opinion I myself entertained."
+
+The cup of poison was in her hand. In her heart there was no
+consciousness that she should violate the command of any higher power
+by drinking it. But love for her child triumphed. The smile of Eudora
+rose before her, and for her sake she clung to life. She threw away
+the poison, resolved never again to think of a voluntary withdrawal
+from the cares and sorrows of her earthly lot, but with unwavering
+fortitude to surrender herself to those influences over which she
+could no longer exert any control. This brief conflict ended, she
+resumed her wonted composure and cheerfulness.
+
+Tacitus was now her favorite author. Hours and days she passed in
+studying his glowing descriptions of heroic character and deeds.
+Heroism became her religion; magnanimity and fortitude the idols of
+her soul. With a glistening eye and a bosom throbbing with lofty
+emotion, she meditated upon his graphic paintings of the martyrdom of
+patriots and philosophers, where the soul, by its inherent energies,
+triumphed over obloquy, and pain, and death. Anticipating that each
+day might conduct her to the scaffold, she led her spirit through all
+the possible particulars of the tragic drama, that she might become
+familiar with terror, and look upon the block and the ax with an
+undaunted eye.
+
+Many hours of every day she beguiled in writing the memoirs of her own
+life. It was an eloquent and a touching narrative, written with the
+expectation that each sentence might be interrupted by the entrance of
+the executioners to conduct her to trial and to the guillotine. In
+this unveiling of the heart to the world, one sees a noble nature,
+generous and strong, animated to benevolence by native generosity, and
+nerved to resignation by fatalism. The consciousness of spiritual
+elevation constituted her only religion and her only solace. The
+anticipation of a lofty reputation after death was her only heaven.
+The Christian must pity while he must admire. No one can read the
+thoughts she penned but with the deepest emotion.
+
+Now her mind wanders to the hours of her precocious and dreamy
+childhood, and lingers in her little chamber, gazing upon the golden
+sunset, and her eye is bathed in tears as she reflects upon her early
+home, desolated by death, and still more desolated by that unhonored
+union which the infidelity of the times tolerated, when one took the
+position of the wife unblessed by the sanction of Heaven. Again her
+spirit wings its flight through the gloomy bars of the prison to the
+beautiful rural home to which her bridal introduced her, where she
+spent her happiest years, and she forgets the iron, and the stone, and
+the dungeon-glooms which surround her, as in imagination she walks
+again among her flowers and through the green fields, and, at the
+vintage, eats the rich, ripe clusters of the grape. Her pleasant
+household cares, her dairy, the domestic fowls recognizing her voice,
+and fed from her own hand; her library and her congenial intellectual
+pursuits rise before her, an entrancing vision, and she mourns, like
+Eve, the loss of Eden. The days of celebrity and of power engross her
+thoughts. Her husband is again minister of the king. The most
+influential statesmen and brilliant orators are gathered around her
+chair. Her mind is guiding the surging billows of the Revolution, and
+influencing the decisions of the proudest thrones of Europe.
+
+The slightest movement dispels the illusion. From dreams she awakes to
+reality. She is a prisoner in a gloomy cell of stone and iron, from
+which there is no possible extrication. A bloody death awaits her. Her
+husband is a fugitive, pursued by human blood-hounds more merciless
+than the brute. Her daughter, the object of her most idolatrous love,
+is left fatherless and motherless in this cold world. The guillotine
+has already consigned many of those whom she loved best to the grave.
+But a few more days of sorrow can dimly struggle through her prison
+windows ere she must be conducted to the scaffold. Woman's nature
+triumphs over philosophic fortitude, and she finds momentary relief in
+a flood of tears.
+
+The Girondists were led from their dungeons in the Conciergerie to
+their execution on the 31st of October, 1793. Upon that very day
+Madame Roland was conveyed from the prison of St. Pelagie to the same
+gloomy cells vacated by the death of her friends. She was cast into a
+bare and miserable dungeon, in that subterranean receptacle of woe,
+where there was not even a bed. Another prisoner, moved with
+compassion, drew his own pallet into her cell, that she might not be
+compelled to throw herself for repose upon the cold, wet stones. The
+chill 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 damp
+subterranean vaults situated beneath the floor of the Palace of
+Justice. Imagination can conceive of nothing more dismal than these
+somber caverns, with long and winding galleries opening into cells as
+dark as the tomb. You descend by a flight of massive stone steps into
+this sepulchral abode, and, passing through double doors, whose iron
+strength time has deformed but not weakened, you enter upon the vast
+labyrinthine prison, where the imagination wanders affrighted through
+intricate mazes of halls, and arches, and vaults, and dungeons,
+rendered only more appalling by the dim light which struggles through
+those grated orifices which pierced the massive walls. The Seine flows
+by upon one side, separated only by the high way of the quays. The bed
+of the Seine is above the floor of the prison. The surrounding earth
+was consequently saturated with water, and the oozing moisture
+diffused over the walls and the floors the humidity of the sepulcher.
+The plash of the river; the rumbling of carts upon the pavements
+overhead; the heavy tramp of countless footfalls, as the multitude
+poured into and out of the halls of justice, mingled with the moaning
+of the prisoners in those solitary cells. There were one or two narrow
+courts scattered in this vast structure, where the prisoners could
+look 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 palace
+from which issued all power and law. Here the French kings reveled in
+voluptuousness, with their prisoners groaning beneath their feet. This
+strong-hold of feudalism had now become the tomb of the monarchy. In
+one of the most loathsome of these cells, Maria Antoinette, the
+daughter of the Caesars, had languished in misery as profound as
+mortals can suffer, till, in the endurance of every conceivable
+insult, she was dragged to the guillotine.
+
+It was into a cell adjoining that which the hapless queen had occupied
+that Madame Roland was cast. Here the proud daughter of the emperors
+of Austria and the humble child of the artisan, each, after a career
+of unexampled vicissitudes, found their paths to meet but a few steps
+from the scaffold. The victim of the monarchy and the victim of the
+Revolution were conducted to the same dungeons and perished on the
+same block. They met as antagonists in the stormy arena of the French
+Revolution. They were nearly of equal age. The one possessed the
+prestige of wealth, and rank, and ancestral power; the other, the
+energy of a vigorous and cultivated mind. Both were endowed with
+unusual attractions of person, spirits invigorated by enthusiasm,
+and the loftiest heroism. From the antagonism of life they met in
+death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF MADAME ROLAND.
+
+1793
+
+Examination of Madame Roland.--Her esteem for the Girondists.--Eloquent
+defence of Madame Roland.--Madame Roland's reasons for not
+escaping.--Madame Roland's opinion of the Girondists.--Madame Roland's
+opinion of the Revolution.--Madame Roland's estimate of her
+husband.--Madame Roland's correspondence with Duperret.--Effects of
+prejudices and violent animosities.--Madame Roland avows her
+opinions.--Madame Roland's apostrophe to Liberty.--Repeated
+examinations.--Madame Roland's self-possession.--Madame Roland's
+enthusiasm.--Her influence upon the prisoners.--Madame Roland's
+addresses to the prisoners.--Effects of her eloquence.--Madame Roland's
+musical voice.--Her friendship for the Girondists.--Charming character
+of Madame Roland.--She is loved and esteemed.--Madame Roland's
+advocate.--Her appearance at the tribunal.--Demand of the
+president.--Madame Roland's refusal.--The sentence.--Madame Roland's
+dignity and calmness.--She returns to her cell.--Madame Roland's
+requiem.--She attires herself for the bridal of death.--The passage to
+the guillotine.--Horrible pastime.--Madame Roland's appearance in the
+cart.--She addresses the mob.--Powerful emotions of Madame Roland.--Work
+of the executioners.--Scene at the scaffold.--Execution of the old
+man.--Situation of the guillotine.--Death of Madame Roland.--Wonderful
+attachment.--Grief of M. Roland.--Death of M. Roland.--Subsequent life
+of Eudora.
+
+
+The day after Madame Roland was placed in the Conciergerie, she was
+visited by one of the notorious officers of the revolutionary party,
+and very closely questioned concerning the friendship she had
+entertained for the Girondists. She frankly avowed the elevated
+affection and esteem with which she cherished their memory, but she
+declared that she and they were the cordial friends of republican
+liberty; that they wished to preserve, not to destroy, the
+Constitution. The examination was vexatious and intolerant in the
+extreme. It lasted for three hours, and consisted in an incessant
+torrent of criminations, to which she was hardly permitted to offer
+one word in reply. This examination taught her the nature of the
+accusations which would be brought against her. She sat down in her
+cell that very night, and, with a rapid pen, sketched that defense
+which has been pronounced one of the most eloquent and touching
+monuments of the Revolution. It so beautifully illustrates the heroism
+of her character, the serenity of her spirit, and the beauty and
+energy of her mental operations, that it will ever be read with the
+liveliest 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 one
+evening with the rapidity which characterized all her mental
+operations, she retired to rest, and slept with the serenity of a
+child. She was called upon several times by committees sent from the
+revolutionary tribunal for examination. They were resolved to take her
+life, but were anxious to do it, if possible, under the forms of law.
+She passed through all their examinations with the most perfect
+composure and the most dignified self-possession. Her enemies could
+not withhold their expressions of admiration as they saw her in her
+sepulchral cell of stone and of iron, cheerful, fascinating, and
+perfectly at ease. She knew that she was to be led from that cell to a
+violent death, and yet no faltering of soul could be detected. Her
+spirit had apparently achieved a perfect victory over all earthly
+ills.
+
+The upper part of the door of her cell was an iron grating. The
+surrounding cells were filled with the most illustrious ladies and
+gentlemen of France. As the hour of death drew near, her courage and
+animation seemed to increase. Her features glowed with enthusiasm; her
+thoughts and expressions were refulgent with sublimity, and her whole
+aspect assumed the impress of one appointed to fill some great and
+lofty destiny. She remained but a few days in the Conciergerie before
+she was led to the scaffold. During those few days, by her example and
+her encouraging words, she spread among the numerous prisoners there
+an enthusiasm and a spirit of heroism which elevated, above the fear
+of the scaffold, even the most timid and depressed. This glow of
+feeling and exhilaration gave a new impress of sweetness and
+fascination to her beauty. The length of her captivity, the calmness
+with which she contemplated the certain approach of death, gave to her
+voice that depth of tone and slight tremulousness of utterance which
+sent her eloquent words home with thrilling power to every heart.
+Those who were walking in the corridor, or who were the occupants of
+adjoining cells, often called for her to speak to them words of
+encouragement and consolation.
+
+Standing upon a stool at the door of her own cell, she grasped with
+her hands the iron grating which separated her from her audience. This
+was her tribune. The melodious accents of her voice floated along the
+labyrinthine avenues of those dismal dungeons, penetrating cell after
+cell, and arousing energy in hearts which had been abandoned to
+despair. It was, indeed, a strange scene which was thus witnessed in
+these sepulchral caverns. The silence, as of the grave, reigned there,
+while the clear and musical tones of Madame Roland, as of an angel of
+consolation, vibrated through the rusty bars, and along the dark, damp
+cloisters. One who was at that time an inmate of the prison, and
+survived those dreadful scenes, has described, in glowing terms, the
+almost miraculous effects of her soul-moving eloquence. She was
+already past the prime of life, but she was still fascinating.
+Combined with the most wonderful power of expression, she possessed a
+voice so exquisitely musical, that, long after her lips were silenced
+in death, its tones vibrated in lingering strains in the souls of
+those by whom they had ever been heard. The prisoners listened with
+the most profound attention to her glowing words, and regarded her
+almost as a celestial spirit, who had come to animate them to heroic
+deeds. She often spoke of the Girondists who had already perished upon
+the guillotine. With perfect fearlessness she avowed her friendship
+for them, and ever spoke of them as _our friends_. She, however, was
+careful never to utter a word which would bring tears into the eye.
+She wished to avoid herself all the weakness of tender emotions, and
+to lure the thoughts of her companions away from every contemplation
+which could enervate their energies.
+
+Occasionally, in the solitude of her cell, as the image of her husband
+and of her child rose before her, and her imagination dwelt upon her
+desolated home and her blighted hopes--her husband denounced and
+pursued by lawless violence, and her child soon to be an
+orphan--woman's tenderness would triumph over the heroine's stoicism.
+Burying, for a moment, her face in her hands, she would burst into a
+flood of tears. Immediately struggling to regain composure, she would
+brush her tears away, and dress her countenance in its accustomed
+smiles. She remained in the Conciergerie but one week, and during that
+time so endeared herself to all as to become the prominent object of
+attention and love. Her case is one of the most extraordinary the
+history of the world has presented, in which the very highest degree
+of heroism is combined with the most resistless charms of feminine
+loveliness. An unfeminine woman can never be _loved_ by men. She may
+be respected for her talents, she may be honored for her philanthropy,
+but she can not win the warmer emotions of the heart. But Madame
+Roland, with an energy of will, an infallibility of purpose, a
+firmness of stoical endurance which no mortal man has ever exceeded,
+combined that gentleness, and tenderness, and affection--that
+instinctive sense of the proprieties of her sex--which gathered around
+her a love as pure and as enthusiastic as woman ever excited. And
+while her friends, many of whom were the most illustrious men in
+France, had enthroned her as an idol in their hearts, the breath of
+slander never ventured to intimate that she was guilty even of an
+impropriety.
+
+The day before her trial, her advocate, Chauveau de la Garde, visited
+her to consult respecting her defense. She, well aware that no one
+could speak a word in her favor but at the peril of his own life, and
+also fully conscious that her doom was already sealed, drew a ring
+from her finger, and said to him,
+
+"To-morrow I shall be no more. I know the fate which awaits me. Your
+kind assistance can not avail aught for me, and would but endanger
+you. I pray you, therefore, not to come to the tribunal, but to accept
+of this last testimony of my regard."
+
+The next day she was led to her trial. She attired herself in a white
+robe, as a symbol of her innocence, and her long dark hair fell in
+thick curls on her neck and shoulders. She emerged from her dungeon a
+vision of unusual loveliness. The prisoners who were walking in the
+corridors gathered around her, and with smiles and words of
+encouragement she infused energy into their hearts. Calm and
+invincible she met her judges. She was accused of the crimes of being
+the wife of M. Roland and the friend of his friends. Proudly she
+acknowledged herself guilty of both those charges. Whenever she
+attempted to utter a word in her defense, she was brow-beaten by the
+judges, and silenced by the clamors of the mob which filled the
+tribunal. The mob now ruled with undisputed sway in both legislative
+and executive halls. The serenity of her eye was untroubled, and the
+composure of her disciplined spirit unmoved, save by the exaltation of
+enthusiasm, as she noted the progress of the trial, which was bearing
+her rapidly and resistlessly to the scaffold. It was, however,
+difficult to bring any accusation against her by which, under the form
+of law, she could be condemned. France, even in its darkest hour, was
+rather ashamed to behead a woman, upon whom the eyes of all Europe
+were fixed, simply for being the _wife of her husband and the friend
+of his friends_. At last the president demanded of her that she should
+reveal her husband's asylum. She proudly replied,
+
+"I do not know of any law by which I can be obliged to violate the
+strongest feelings of nature." This was sufficient, and she was
+immediately 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 with
+dignity to her judges, and, smiling, said,
+
+"I thank you, gentlemen, for thinking me worthy of sharing the fate of
+the great men whom you have assassinated. I shall endeavor to imitate
+their firmness on the scaffold."
+
+With the buoyant step of a child, and with a rapidity which almost
+betokened joy, she passed beneath the narrow portal, and descended to
+her cell, from which she was to be led, with the morning light, to a
+bloody death. The prisoners had assembled to greet her on her return,
+and anxiously gathered around her. She looked upon them with a smile
+of perfect tranquillity, and, drawing her hand across her neck, made
+a sign expressive of her doom. But a few hours elapsed between her
+sentence and her execution. She retired to her cell, wrote a few words
+of parting to her friends, played, upon a harp which had found its way
+into the prison, her requiem, in tones so wild and mournful, that,
+floating, in the dark hours of the night, through those sepulchral
+caverns, they fell like unearthly music upon the despairing souls
+there 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 so
+long a period, enveloped France in its somber shades. The ponderous
+gates of the court-yard of the Conciergerie opened that morning to a
+long procession of carts loaded with victims for the guillotine.
+Madame Roland had contemplated her fate too long, and had disciplined
+her spirit too severely, to fail of fortitude in this last hour of
+trial. She came from her cell scrupulously attired for the bridal of
+death. A serene smile was upon her cheek, and the glow of joyous
+animation lighted up her features as she waved an adieu to the weeping
+prisoners who gathered around her. The last cart was assigned to
+Madame Roland. She entered it with a step as light and elastic as if
+it were a carriage for a pleasant morning's drive. By her side stood
+an infirm old man, M. La Marche. He was pale and trembling, and his
+fainting heart, in view of the approaching terror, almost ceased to
+beat. She sustained him by her arm, and addressed to him words of
+consolation and encouragement, in cheerful accents and with a
+benignant smile. The poor old man felt that God had sent an angel to
+strengthen him in the dark hour of death. As the cart heavily rumbled
+along the pavement, drawing nearer and nearer to the guillotine, two
+or three times, by her cheerful words, she even caused a smile faintly
+to play upon his pallid lips.
+
+The guillotine was now the principal instrument of amusement for the
+populace of Paris. It was so elevated that all could have a good view
+of the spectacle it presented. To witness the conduct of nobles and of
+ladies, of boys and of girls, while passing through the horrors of a
+sanguinary death, was far more exciting than the unreal and bombastic
+tragedies of the theater, or the conflicts of the cock-pit and the
+bear garden. A countless throng flooded the streets, men, women, and
+children, shouting, laughing, execrating. The celebrity of Madame
+Roland, her extraordinary grace and beauty, and her aspect, not only
+of heroic fearlessness, but of joyous exhilaration, made her the
+prominent object of the public gaze. A white robe gracefully enveloped
+her perfect form, and her black and glossy hair, which for some reason
+the executioners had neglected to cut, fell in rich profusion to her
+waist. A keen November blast swept the streets, under the influence of
+which, and the excitement of the scene, her animated countenance
+glowed with all the ruddy bloom of youth. She stood firmly in the
+cart, looking with a serene eye upon the crowds which lined the
+streets, and listening with unruffled serenity to the clamor which
+filled the air. A large crowd surrounded the cart in which Madame
+Roland stood, shouting, "To the guillotine! to the guillotine!" She
+looked kindly upon them, and, bending over the railing of the cart,
+said to them, in tones as placid as if she were addressing her own
+child, "My friends, I _am_ going to the guillotine. In a few moments I
+shall be there. They who send me thither will ere long follow me. I go
+innocent. They will come stained with blood. You who now applaud our
+execution will then applaud theirs with equal zeal."
+
+Madame Roland had continued writing her memoirs until the hour in
+which she left her cell for the scaffold. When the cart had almost
+arrived at the foot of the guillotine, her spirit was so deeply moved
+by the tragic scene--such emotions came rushing in upon her soul from
+departing time and opening eternity, that she could not repress the
+desire to pen down her glowing thoughts. She entreated an officer to
+furnish 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 unwritten
+chapter of her life. It can not be doubted that the words she would
+then have written would have long vibrated upon the ear of a listening
+world. Soul-utterances will force their way over mountains, and
+valleys, and oceans. Despotism can not arrest them. Time can not
+enfeeble them.
+
+The long procession arrived at the guillotine, and the bloody work
+commenced. The victims were dragged from the carts, and the ax rose
+and fell with unceasing rapidity. Head after head fell into the
+basket, and the pile of bleeding trunks rapidly increased in size. The
+executioners approached the cart where Madame Roland stood by the side
+of her fainting companion. With an animated countenance and a
+cheerful smile, she was all engrossed in endeavoring to infuse
+fortitude into his soul. The executioner grasped her by the arm.
+"Stay," said she, slightly resisting his grasp; "I have one favor to
+ask, and that is not for myself. I beseech you grant it me." Then
+turning 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 death
+twice over. I must spare you the pain of witnessing my execution." The
+stern officer gave a surly refusal, replying, "My orders are to take
+you first." With that winning smile and that fascinating grace which
+were almost resistless, she rejoined, "You can not, surely, refuse a
+woman her last request." The hard-hearted executor of the law was
+brought within the influence of her enchantment. He paused, looked at
+her for a moment in slight bewilderment, and yielded. The poor old
+man, more dead than alive, was conducted upon the scaffold and placed
+beneath the fatal ax. Madame Roland, without the slightest change of
+color, or the apparent tremor of a nerve, saw the ponderous
+instrument, with its glittering edge, glide upon its deadly mission,
+and the decapitated trunk of her friend was thrown aside to give
+place for her. With a placid countenance and a buoyant step, she
+ascended the platform. The guillotine was erected upon the vacant spot
+between the gardens of the Tuileries and the Elysian Fields, then
+known as the Place de la Revolution. This spot is now called the Place
+de la Concorde. It is unsurpassed by any other place in Europe. Two
+marble fountains now embellish the spot. The blood-stained guillotine,
+from which crimson rivulets were ever flowing, then occupied the space
+upon which one of these fountains has been erected; and a clay statue
+to Liberty reared its hypocritical front where the Egyptian obelisk
+now rises. Madame Roland stood for a moment upon the elevated
+platform, looked calmly around upon the vast concourse, and then
+bowing before the colossal statue, exclaimed, "O Liberty! Liberty! how
+many crimes are committed in thy name." She surrendered herself to the
+executioner, and was bound to the plank. The plank fell to its
+horizontal position, bringing her head under the fatal ax. The
+glittering steel glided through the groove, and the head of Madame
+Roland was severed from her body.
+
+[Illustration: EXECUTION OF MADAME ROLAND.]
+
+Thus died Madame Roland, in the thirty-ninth year of her age. Her
+death oppressed all who had known her with the deepest grief. Her
+intimate friend Buzot, who was then a fugitive, on hearing the
+tidings, was thrown into a state of perfect delirium, from which he
+did not recover for many days. Her faithful female servant was so
+overwhelmed with grief, that she presented herself before the
+tribunal, and implored them to let her die upon the same scaffold
+where her beloved mistress had perished. The tribunal, amazed at such
+transports of attachment, declared that she was mad, and ordered her
+to be removed from their presence. A man-servant made the same
+application, and was sent to the guillotine.
+
+The grief of M. Roland, when apprised of the event, was unbounded. For
+a time he entirely lost his senses. Life to him was no longer
+endurable. He knew not of any consolations of religion. Philosophy
+could only nerve him to stoicism. Privately he left, by night, the
+kind friends who had hospitably concealed him for six months, and
+wandered to such a distance from his asylum as to secure his
+protectors from any danger on his account. Through the long hours of
+the winter's night he continued his dreary walk, till the first gray
+of the morning appeared in the east. Drawing a long stiletto from the
+inside of his walking-stick, he placed the head of it against the
+trunk of a tree, and threw himself upon the sharp weapon. The point
+pierced his heart, and he fell lifeless upon the frozen ground. Some
+peasants passing by discovered his body. A piece of paper was pinned
+to the breast of his coat, upon which there were written these words:
+"Whoever thou art that findest these remains, respect them as those of
+a virtuous man. After hearing of my wife's death, I would not stay
+another day in a world so stained with crime."
+
+The daughter of Madame Roland succeeded in escaping the fury of the
+tyrants of the Revolution. She lived surrounded by kind protectors,
+and in subsequent years was married to M. Champeneaux, the son of one
+of her mother's intimate friends.
+
+Such was the wonderful career of Madame Roland. It is a history full
+of instruction, and ever reminds us that truth is stranger than
+fiction.
+
+                         THE END.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
+
+1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors, and to
+ensure 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 as
+banners in the page headers, and have been collected at the beginning
+of each chapter for the reader's convenience.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Madame Roland, Makers of History, by
+John S. C. Abbott
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