uld not look
at him, but she told him a story she had invented, and gave him the
names of Girondist refugees at Caen; to which he replied as he wrote
them down, that "they should have the guillotine before they were a
week older."

At these words, as though they had steeled her arm, she drew the
knife from her bosom, and with superhuman power, plunged it to the
hilt and to the heart of Marat. He called for help and then expired.
Assistance came, and the house was thronged with National Guards and
policemen. They were necessary to save the murderess from the fury
of those who forced their way into the house. She was arrested, and
conveyed in the same carriage in which she had come to the
Conciergerie. All Paris groaned and howled.

She had the form of a trial, and the guillotine quickly followed it.
Her fortitude did not forsake her at any time, and she died as
firmly as any martyr ever went to the stake. Her beauty and her
heroism excited the sympathy of the crowd, but they could not save
her. She was a mistaken heroine, but her courage and fortitude were
sublime.

[Signature: William S. Adams.]

MADAME ROLAND[7]

[Footnote 7: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

(1754-1793)

[Illustration: Madame Roland.]

France has produced many remarkable women; perhaps no other country
can boast such an array of illustrious names; they shine from the
pages of French history like fixed stars from the firmament. Among
them, down the long vista of a hundred years, brilliant and
beautiful, shines the name of Madame Roland, the spirit of the great
French Revolution personified.

Striking beauty, great genius, and wonderful courage in the hour of
martyrdom, rendered this woman an unusual character in an unusual
epoch. Surrounded by deceit, she was honest and fearless. In the
midst of immorality and license, she was pure, and brave enough to
resist temptation which came from without and from within, and she
went to the scaffold with an untarnished name and soul.

Manon Philipon, as Madame Roland was known in her childhood, was
born in Paris in the year 1754. Her father was a worker in enamel,
who thrived well enough in his art when he was content to toil at
it, but a restless spirit of speculation led him into ventures which
brought him neither profit nor renown.

Manon's beauty was a direct inheritance from both father and mother.
Gratien Philipon was a handsome man, and vain and f