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 t