.) 'in
those large black eyes of hers, full of expression and sweetness. She
spoke to me often, at the Grate: we were all attentive round her, in
a sort of admiration and astonishment; she expressed herself with a
purity, with a harmony and prosody that made her language like music, of
which the ear could never have enough. Her conversation was serious,
not cold; coming from the mouth of a beautiful woman, it was frank and
courageous as that of a great men.' 'And yet her maid said: "Before you,
she collects her strength; but in her own room, she will sit three hours
sometimes, leaning on the window, and weeping."' She had been in Prison,
liberated once, but recaptured the same hour, ever since the first of
June: in agitation and uncertainty; which has gradually settled down
into the last stern certainty, that of death. In the Abbaye Prison, she
occupied Charlotte Corday's apartment. Here in the Conciergerie, she
speaks with Riouffe, with Ex-Minister Claviere; calls the beheaded
Twenty-two "Nos amis, our Friends,"--whom we are soon to follow. During
these five months, those Memoirs of hers were written, which all the
world still reads.

But now, on the 8th of November, 'clad in white,' says Riouffe, 'with
her long black hair hanging down to her girdle,' she is gone to the
Judgment Bar. She returned with a quick step; lifted her finger, to
signify to us that she was doomed: her eyes seemed to have been wet.
Fouquier-Tinville's questions had been 'brutal;' offended female honour
flung them back on him, with scorn, not without tears. And now, short
preparation soon done, she shall go her last road. There went with her
a certain Lamarche, 'Director of Assignat printing;' whose dejection she
endeavoured to cheer. Arrived at the foot of the scaffold, she asked for
pen and paper, "to write the strange thoughts that were rising in her;"
(Memoires de Madame Roland introd., i. 68.) a remarkable request;
which was refused. Looking at the Statue of Liberty which stands there,
she says bitterly: "O Liberty, what things are done in thy name!" For
Lamarche's sake, she will die first; shew him how easy it is to die:
"Contrary to the order" said Samson.--"Pshaw, you cannot refuse the last
request of a Lady;" and Samson yielded.

Noble white Vision, with its high queenly face, its soft proud eyes,
long black hair flowing down to the girdle; and as brave a heart as ever
beat in woman's bosom! Like a white Grecian Statue, serenely complete