Part 10 (1/2)
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 pa.s.sions 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 fort.i.tude 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 pa.s.sed in studying his glowing descriptions of heroic character and deeds.
Heroism became her religion; magnanimity and fort.i.tude 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. Antic.i.p.ating 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 n.o.ble nature, generous and strong, animated to benevolence by native generosity, and nerved to resignation by fatalism. The consciousness of spiritual elevation const.i.tuted her only religion and her only solace. The antic.i.p.ation 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 cl.u.s.ters 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 fort.i.tude, 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 compa.s.sion, 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 s.h.i.+vered 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 ma.s.sive stone steps into this sepulchral abode, and, pa.s.sing 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 ma.s.sive 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 mult.i.tude 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sage 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 Const.i.tution. 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 p.r.o.nounced one of the most eloquent and touching monuments of the Revolution. It so beautifully ill.u.s.trates 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 friends.h.i.+ps. 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 a.s.sist 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 partic.i.p.ate 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 inst.i.tutions, while force suffices to oppress them by terror, or to annihilate them by death. I have often heard them a.s.sert that abundance, as well as happiness, can only proceed from an equitable, protecting, and beneficent government.