age was
constantly audible to her ears, this refined and elegant woman was
forced to occupy. She suffered acutely from this proximity to
depravity and vulgarity at first; but ere long she transformed the
vicinity in which her cell was situated "from an inferno to an oasis
of peace." When she walked in the corridor, where at first she was
pointed at, abused and reviled, she was now surrounded by wretched
beings who clung to her skirts and regarded her as a divinity. Her
sweet voice soothed brawls, her words of courage inspired the most
hopeless. Everybody loved her, everybody desired her acquittal.

Meantime she was writing her famous "Memoirs," and the touching
letters to her husband, her child, and to Buzot. After an
imprisonment of more than six months, she was finally called before
the judge and the prosecution, and accused of being the wife of
Roland, the conspirator, the friend of his accomplices. Twenty-one
Girondists had already been executed, and she could not hope to
escape. She was condemned to death as guilty of traitorous relations
with conspirators. She heard the sentence proudly, and replied, "You
consider me worthy to share the fate of the great men whom you have
assassinated. I shall try to carry to the scaffold the courage they
have shown."

Robespierre signed her death-warrant. He had been her friend, guest,
and correspondent. She had helped him when he was unknown, defended
him when he was in need of a defender. But he sent her to the
scaffold; and on November 9, 1793, the tumbril came to convey her to
the guillotine. It had taken many others on that same day; and now
her only companion on that fatal ride was a trembling old man named
La Marche. He wept bitterly, but Madame Roland cheered him with
words of courage and strength.

When they arrived at the Place de la Concorde, she begged the
executioner to permit the "etiquette of the scaffold" to be waived,
and to allow La Marche to die first, that the sight of her death
might not accentuate his fear and misery. So to the last moment of
her life she was true to her religion of thoughtfulness for others.

Beautiful, self-possessed, and calm, she stood upon the scaffold in
the pride of her womanhood, and spoke those last immortal words as
she lifted her eyes to the statue of Liberty, "O Liberty, how many
crimes are committed in thy name."

Then the axe fell, and the assassins of the Revolution had added
another victim to their list. Seven days aft