Part 6 (2/2)
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 a.s.sa.s.sins 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, unenc.u.mbered 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 a.s.sa.s.sinated, 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 a.s.sembly, 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 a.s.sa.s.sinate 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 ill.u.s.trious 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. a.s.sembling the mult.i.tudinous 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 a.s.sembly 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 mult.i.tudes. 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 a.s.sembled 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 s.h.i.+nes 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 pet.i.tioners' hall.--Uproar in the a.s.sembly.--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.--Embarra.s.sment 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.--Coa.r.s.e 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 friends.h.i.+p of the mob was secured and retained by ever pandering to their pa.s.sions. 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 mult.i.tude 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 a.s.sembly consisted of about eight hundred members. There were twenty-two ill.u.s.trious 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 b.l.o.o.d.y demand. The mob were now a.s.sembled 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 a.s.sembly on every side, forced their way into the hall, filled every vacant s.p.a.ce, 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 a.s.sa.s.sins 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 pa.s.sionate speech. He turned to a waiter for a gla.s.s of water.
”Take to Couthon a gla.s.s 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 a.s.sa.s.sins. 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 mult.i.tude. Who would have the temerity, in such an hour, to oppose the affectionate demonstration? The degraded a.s.sembly 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 pa.s.sed; 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 princ.i.p.al 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 pa.s.sing in the a.s.sembly, 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 partic.i.p.ate 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 a.s.sociates. 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 a.s.sembly 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 pa.s.sages, 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.”
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