d
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 t