Part 7 (2/2)
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 compa.s.sionately 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 a.s.sume the att.i.tude 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 att.i.tudes 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 a.s.sembly upon her illegal arrest. Thus pa.s.sed 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 a.s.surance 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 embarra.s.sment was most agonizing. To remain and partic.i.p.ate 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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.ses 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 ill.u.s.trates 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 cl.u.s.tering 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 coa.r.s.e 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 acc.u.mulating 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 a.s.sured 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 a.s.sembly, 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 pa.s.sed.
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 a.s.sure 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 Ma.r.s.eillaise 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.--Fort.i.tude 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.
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