ARREST OF MADAME ROLAND.
1793
The Convention, the mob, the Jacobins.--Robespierre, Danton,
Marat.--Aspect of the mob.--The Jacobins' sword of justice.--The
Convention invaded.--Triumph of the mob.--Fraternizing with the
mob.--Paris illuminated.--Arrest of the Girondists.--Suspense of the
Rolands.--Arrest of M. Roland.--Prompt action of Madame Roland.--Madame
Roland in the petitioners' hall.--Uproar in the Assembly.--Madame
Roland's letter.--The messenger--Interview with Vergniaud.--Hope
vanishes.--Escape of M. Roland.--Scene at the Tuileries.--The deputies
embraced by the mob.--Anecdote.--Madame Roland returns home.--A
mother's tears.--Arrest of Madame Roland.--Her composure.--Insults of
the mob.--Conversation with officers.--The Abbayé.--Kindness of the
jailer's wife.--Madame Roland enters her cell.--Her first night
there.--Embarrassment of M. Roland.--His escape from Paris.--The
re-arrest and escape.--Cheerful philosophy of Madame Roland.--The cell
made a study.--Delight of the jailer and his wife.--Prison
regulations.--Coarse fare.--Prison employment.--Madame Roland's serenity
of spirit.--Intellectual pastime.--Visit from commissioners.--Madame
Roland's heroism accounted a crime.
France was now governed by the Convention. The Convention was governed
by the mob of Paris. The Jacobins were the head of this mob. They
roused its rage, and guided its fury, when and where they listed. The
friendship of the mob was secured and retained by ever pandering to
their passions. The Jacobins claimed to be exclusively the friends of
the people, and advocated all those measures which tended to crush the
elevated and flatter the degraded. Robespierre, Danton, Marat, were
now the idols of the populace.
On the morning of the 30th of May, 1793, the streets of Paris were
darkened with a dismal storm of low, scudding clouds, and chilling
winds, and sleet and rain. Pools of water stood in the miry streets,
and every aspect of nature was cheerless and desolate. But there was
another storm raging in those streets, more terrible than any
elemental warfare. In locust legions, the deformed, the haggard, the
brutalized in form, in features, in mind, in heart--demoniac men,
satanic women, boys burly, sensual, blood-thirsty, like imps of
darkness rioted along toward the Convention, an interminable multitude
whom no one could count. Their hideous howlings thrilled upon the ear,
and sent panic to the heart. There was no power to resist them. There
was no protection from their violence. And thousands wished that they
might call up even the most despotic king who ever sat upon the throne
of France, from his grave, to drive back that most terrible of all
earthly despotisms, the despotism of a mob. This was the power with
which the Jacobins backed their arguments. This was the gory blade
which they waved before their adversaries, and called the sword of
justice.
The Assembly consisted of about eight hundred members. There were
twenty-two illustrious men who were considered the leaders of the
Girondist party. The Jacobins had resolved that they should be accused
of treason, arrested, and condemned. The Convention had refused to
submit to the arbitrary and bloody demand. The mob were now assembled
to coerce submission. The melancholy tocsin, and the thunders of the
alarm gun, resounded through the air, as the countless throng came
pouring along like ocean billows, with a resistlessness which no power
could stay. They surrounded the Assembly on every side, forced their
way into the hall, filled every vacant space, clambered upon the
benches, crowded the speaker in his chair, brandished their daggers,
and mingled their oaths and imprecations with the fierce debate. Even
the Jacobins were terrified by the frightful spirits whom they had
evoked. "Down with the Girondists!" "Death to the traitors!" the
assassins shouted. The clamor of the mob silenced the Girondists, and
they hardly made an attempt to speak in their defense. They sat upon
their benches, pale with the emotions which the fearful scenes
excited, yet firm and unwavering. As Couthon, a Jacobin orator, was
uttering deep denunciations, he became breathless with the vehemence
of his passionate speech. He turned to a waiter for a glass of water.
"Take to Couthon a glass of blood," said Vergniaud; "he is thirsting
for it."
The decree of accusation was proposed, and carried, without debate,
beneath the poniards of uncounted thousands of assassins. The mob was
triumphant. By acclamation it was then voted that all Paris should be
joyfully illuminated, in celebration of the triumph of the people over
those who would arrest the onward career of the Revolution; and every
citizen of Paris well knew the doom which awaited him if brilliant
lights were not burning at his windows. It was then voted, and with
enthusiasm, that the Convention should go out and fraternize with the
multitude. Who would have the temerity, in such an hour, to oppose the
affectionate demonstration? The degraded Assembly obeyed the mandate
of the mob, and marched into the streets, where they were hugged in
the unclean arms and pressed to the foul bosoms of beggary, and
infamy, and pollution. Louis was avenged. The hours of the day had now
passed; night had come; but it was noonday light in the
brilliantly-illuminated streets of the metropolis. The Convention,
surrounded by torch-bearers, and an innumerable concourse of drunken
men and women, rioting in hideous orgies, traversed, in compulsory
procession, the principal streets of the city. The Girondists were led
as captives to grace the triumph. "Which do you prefer," said a
Jacobin to Vergniaud, "this ovation or the scaffold?" "It is all the
same to me," replied Vergniaud, with stoical indifference. "There is
no choice between this walk and the guillotine. It conducts us to it."
The twenty-two Girondists were arrested and committed to prison.
During this dreadful day, while these scenes were passing in the
Assembly, Madame Roland and her husband were in their solitary room,
oppressed with the most painful suspense. The cry and the uproar of
the insurgent city, the tolling of bells and thundering of cannon,
were borne upon the wailings of the gloomy storm, and sent
consternation even to the stoutest hearts. There was now no room for
escape, for the barriers were closed and carefully watched. Madame
Roland knew perfectly well that if her friends fell she must fall with
them. She had shared their principles; she had guided their measures,
and she wished to participate in their doom. It was this honorable
feeling which led her to refuse to provide for her own safety, and
which induced her to abide, in the midst of ever increasing danger,
with her associates. No person obnoxious to suspicion could enter the
street without fearful peril, though, through the lingering hours of
the day, friends brought them tidings of the current of events.
Nothing remained to be done but to await, as patiently as possible,
the blow that was inevitably to fall.
The twilight was darkening into night, when six armed men ascended the
stairs and burst into Roland's apartment. The philosopher looked
calmly upon them as, in the name of the Convention, they informed him
of his arrest. "I do not recognize the authority of your warrant,"
said M. Roland, "and shall not voluntarily follow you. I can only
oppose the resistance of my gray hairs, but I will protest against it
with my last breath."
The leader of the party replied, "I have no orders to use violence. I
will go and report your answer to the council, leaving, in the mean
time, a guard to secure your person."
This was an hour to rouse all the energy and heroic resolution of
Madame Roland. She immediately sat down, and, with that rapidity of
action which her highly-disciplined mind had attained, wrote, in a few
moments, a letter to the Convention. Leaving a friend who was in the
house with her husband, she ordered a hackney coach, and drove as fast
as possible to the Tuileries, where the Assembly was in session. The
garden of the Tuileries was filled with the tumultuary concourse. She
forced her way through the crowd till she arrived at the doors of the
outer halls. Sentinels were stationed at all the passages, who would
not allow her to enter.
"Citizens," said she, at last adroitly adopting the vernacular of the
Jacobins, "in this day of salvation for our country, in the midst of
those traitors who threaten us, you know not the importance of some
notes which I have to transmit to the president."
These words were a talisman. The doors were thrown open, and she
entered the petitioners' hall. "I wish to see one of the messengers of
the House," she said to one of the inner sentinels.
"Wait till one comes out," was the gruff reply.
She waited for a quarter of an hour in burning impatience. Her ear was
almost stunned with the deafening clamor of debate, of applause, of
execrations, which now in dying murmurs, and again in thundering
reverberations, awakening responsive echoes along the thronged
streets, swelled upon the night air. Of all human sounds, the uproar
of a countless multitude of maddened human voices is the most awful.
At last she caught a glimpse of the messenger who had summoned her to
appear before the bar of the Assembly in reply to the accusations of
Viard, informed him of their peril, and implored him to hand her
letter to the president. The messenger, M. Rôze, took the paper, and,
elbowing his way through the throng, disappeared. An hour elapsed,
which seemed an age. The tumult within continued unabated. At length
M. Rôze reappeared.
"Well!" said Madame Roland, eagerly, "what has been done with my
letter?"
"I have given it to the president," was the reply, "but nothing has
been done with it as yet. Indescribable confusion prevails. The mob
demand the accusation of the Girondists. I have just assisted one to
escape by a private way. Others are endeavoring, concealed by the
tumult, to effect their escape. There is no knowing what is to
happen."
"Alas!" Madame Roland replied, "my letter will not be read. Do send
some deputy to me, with whom I can speak a few words."
"Whom shall I send?"
"Indeed I have but little acquaintance with any, and but little esteem
for any, except those who are proscribed. Tell Vergniaud that I am
inquiring for him."
Vergniaud, notwithstanding the terrific agitations of the hour,
immediately attended the summons of Madame Roland. She implored him to
try to get her admission to the bar, that she might speak in defense
of her husband and her friends.
"In the present state of the Assembly," said Vergniaud, "it would be
impossible, and if possible, of no avail. The Convention has lost all
power. It has become but the weapon of the rabble. Your words can do
no good."
"They may do much good," replied Madame Roland. "I can venture to say
that which you could not say without exposing yourself to accusation.
I fear nothing. If I can not save Roland, I will utter with energy
truths which may be useful to the Republic. An example of courage may
shame the nation."
"Think how unavailing the attempt," replied Vergniaud. "Your letter
can not possibly be read for two or three hours. A crowd of
petitioners throng the bar. Noise, and confusion, and violence fill
the House."
Madame Roland paused for a moment, and replied, "I must then hasten
home, and ascertain what has become of my husband. I will immediately
return. Tell our friends so."
Vergniaud sadly pressed her hand, as if for a last farewell, and
returned, invigorated by her courage, to encounter the storm which was
hailed upon him in the Assembly. She hastened to her dwelling, and
found that her husband had succeeded in eluding the surveillance of
his guards, and, escaping by a back passage, had taken refuge in the
house of a friend. After a short search she found him in his asylum,
and, too deeply moved to weep, threw herself into his arms, informed
him of what she had done, rejoiced at his safety, and heroically
returned to the Convention, resolved, if possible, to obtain admission
there. It was now near midnight. The streets were brilliant with
illuminations; but Madame Roland knew not of which party these
illuminations celebrated the triumph.
On her arrival at the court of the Tuileries, which had so recently
been thronged by a mob of forty thousand men, she found it silent and
deserted. The sitting was ended. The members, accompanied by the
populace with whom they had fraternized, were traversing the streets.
A few sentinels stood shivering in the cold and drizzling rain around
the doors of the national palace. A group of rough-looking men were
gathered before a cannon. Madame Roland approached them.
"Citizens," inquired she, "has every thing gone well to-night?"
"Oh! wonderfully well," was the reply. "The deputies and the people
embraced, and sung the Marseilles Hymn, there, under the tree of
liberty."
"And what has become of the twenty-two Girondists?"
"They are all to be arrested."
Madame Roland was almost stunned by the blow. Hastily crossing the
court, she arrived at her hackney-coach. A very pretty dog, which had
lost its master, followed her. "Is the poor little creature yours?"
inquired the coachman. The tones of kindness with which he spoke
called up the first tears which had moistened the eyes of Madame
Roland that eventful night.
"I should like him for my little boy," said the coachman.
Madame Roland, gratified to have, at such an hour, for a driver, a
father and a man of feeling, said, "Put him into the coach, and I will
take care of him for you. Drive immediately to the galleries of the
Louvre." Madame Roland caressed the affectionate animal, and, weary
of the passions of man, longed for retirement from the world, and to
seclude herself with those animals who would repay kindness with
gratitude. She sank back in her seat, exclaiming, "O that we could
escape from France, and find a home in the law-governed republic of
America."
Alighting at the Louvre, she called upon a friend, with whom she
wished to consult upon the means of effecting M. Roland's escape from
the city. He had just gone to bed, but arose, conversed about various
plans, and made an appointment to meet her at seven o'clock the next
morning. Entirely unmindful of herself, she thought only of the rescue
of her friends. Exhausted with excitement and toil, she returned to
her desolated home, bent over the sleeping form of her child, and gave
vent to a mother's gushing love in a flood of tears. Recovering her
fortitude, she sat down and wrote to M. Roland a minute account of all
her proceedings. It would have periled his safety had she attempted to
share his asylum. The gray of a dull and somber morning was just
beginning to appear as Madame Roland threw herself upon a bed for a
few moments of repose. Overwhelmed by sorrow and fatigue, she had just
fallen asleep, when a band of armed men rudely broke into her house,
and demanded to be conducted to her apartment. She knew too well the
object of the summons. The order for her arrest was presented her. She
calmly read it, and requested permission to write to a friend. The
request was granted. When the note was finished, the officer informed
her that it would be necessary for him to be made acquainted with its
contents. She quietly tore it into fragments, and cast it into the
fire. Then, imprinting her last kiss upon the cheek of her unconscious
child, with the composure which such a catastrophe would naturally
produce in so heroic a mind, she left her home for the prison. Blood
had been flowing too freely in Paris, the guillotine had been too
active in its operations, for Madame Roland to entertain any doubts
whither the path she now trod was tending.
It was early in the morning of a bleak and dismal day as Madame Roland
accompanied the officers through the hall of her dwelling, where she
had been the object of such enthusiastic admiration and affection. The
servants gathered around her, and filled the house with their
lamentations. Even the hardened soldiers were moved by the scene, and
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 Abbayé, 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 the repulsive prison fare, and, after
breakfast, was permitted to write a letter to the National Assembly
upon her illegal arrest. Thus passed the day.
At ten o'clock in the evening, her cell being prepared, she entered it
for the first time. It was a cold, bare room, with walls blackened by
the dust and damp of ages. There was a small fire-place in the room,
and a narrow window, with a double iron grating, which admitted but a
dim twilight even at noon day. In one corner there was a pallet of
straw. The chill night air crept in at the unglazed window, and the
dismal tolling of the tocsin proclaimed that the metropolis was still
the scene of tumult and of violence. Madame Roland threw herself upon
her humble bed, and was so overpowered by fatigue and exhaustion that
she woke not from her dreamless slumber until twelve o'clock of the
next day.
Eudora, who had been left by her mother in the care of weeping
domestics, was taken by a friend, and watched over and protected with
maternal care. Though Madame Roland never saw her idolized child
again, her heart was comforted in the prison by the assurance that she
had found a home with those who, for her mother's sake, would love
and cherish her.
The tidings of the arrest and imprisonment of Madame Roland soon
reached the ears of her unfortunate husband in his retreat. His
embarrassment was most agonizing. To remain and participate in her
doom, whatever that doom might be, would only diminish her chances of
escape and magnify her peril; and yet it seemed not magnanimous to
abandon his noble wife to encounter her merciless foes alone. The
triumphant Jacobins were now, with the eagerness of blood-hounds,
searching every nook and corner in Paris, to drag the fallen minister
from his concealment. It soon became evident that no dark hiding-place
in the metropolis could long conceal him from the vigilant search
which was commenced, and that he must seek safety in precipitate
flight. His friends obtained for him the tattered garb of a peasant.
In a dark night, alone and trembling, he stole from his retreat, and
commenced a journey on foot, by a circuitous and unfrequented route,
to gain the frontiers of Switzerland. He hoped to find a temporary
refuge by burying himself among the lonely passes of the Alps. A man
can _face_ his foes with a spirit undaunted and unyielding, but he
can not _fly from them_ without trembling as he looks behind. For two
or three days, with blistered feet, and a heart agitated even beyond
all his powers of stoical endurance, he toiled painfully along his
dreary journey. As he was entering Moulines, his marked features were
recognized. He was arrested, taken back to Paris, and cast into
prison, where he languished for some time. He subsequently again made
his escape, and was concealed by some friends in the vicinity of
Rouen, where he remained in a state of indescribable suspense and
anguish until the death of his wife.
When Madame Roland awoke from her long sleep, instead of yielding to
despair and surrendering herself to useless repinings, she immediately
began to arrange her cell as comfortably as possible, and to look
around for such sources of comfort and enjoyment as might yet be
obtained. The course she pursued most beautifully illustrates the
power of a contented and cheerful spirit not only to alleviate the
pangs of severest affliction, but to gild with comfort even the
darkest of earthly sorrows. With those smiles of unaffected affability
which won to her all hearts, she obtained the favor of a small table,
and then of a neat white spread to cover it. This she placed near the
window to serve for her writing-desk. To keep this table, which she
prized so highly, unsoiled, she smilingly told her keeper that she
should make a dining-table of her stove. A rusty dining-table indeed
it was. Two hair-pins, which she drew from her own clustering
ringlets, she drove into a shelf for pegs to hang her clothes upon.
These arrangements she made as cheerfully as when superintending the
disposition of the gorgeous furniture in the palace over which she had
presided with so much elegance and grace. Having thus provided her
study, her next care was to obtain a few books. She happened to have
Thomson's Seasons, a favorite volume of hers, in her pocket. Through
the jailer's wife she succeeded in obtaining Plutarch's Lives and
Sheridan's Dictionary.
The jailer and his wife were both charmed with their prisoner, and
invited her to dine with them that day. In the solitude of her cell
she could distinctly hear the rolling of drums, the tolling of bells,
and all those sounds of tumult which announced that the storm of
popular insurrection was still sweeping through the streets. One of
her faithful servants called to see her, and, on beholding her
mistress in such a situation, the poor girl burst into tears. Madame
Roland was, for a moment, overcome by this sensibility; she, however,
soon again regained her self-command. She endeavored to banish from
her mind all painful thoughts of her husband and her child, and to
accommodate herself as heroically as possible to her situation. The
prison regulations were very severe. The government allowed twenty
pence per day for the support of each prisoner. Ten pence was to be
paid to the jailer for the furniture he put into the cell; ten pence
only remained for food. The prisoners were, however, allowed to
purchase such food as they pleased from their own purse. Madame
Roland, with that stoicism which enabled her to triumph over all
ordinary ills, resolved to conform to the prison allowance. She took
bread and water alone for breakfast. The dinner was coarse meat and
vegetables. The money she saved by this great frugality she
distributed among the poorer prisoners. The only indulgence she
allowed herself was in the purchase of books and flowers. In reading
and with her pen she beguiled the weary days of her imprisonment. And
though at times her spirit was overwhelmed with anguish in view of her
desolate home and blighted hopes, she still found great solace in the
warm affections which sprang up around her, even in the uncongenial
atmosphere of a prison.
Though she had been compelled to abandon all the enthusiastic dreams
of her youth, she still retained confidence in her faith that these
dark storms would ere long disappear from the political horizon, and
that a brighter day would soon dawn upon the nations. No misfortunes
could disturb the serenity of her soul, and no accumulating perils
could daunt her courage. She immediately made a methodical arrangement
of her time, so as to appropriate stated employment to every hour. She
cheered herself with the reflection that her husband was safe in his
retreat, with kind friends ready to minister to all his wants. She
felt assured that her daughter was received with maternal love by one
who would ever watch over her with the tenderest care. The agitation
of the terrible conflict was over. She submitted with calmness and
quietude to her lot. After having been so long tossed by storms, she
seemed to find a peaceful harbor in her prison cell, and her spirit
wandered back to those days, so serene and happy, which she spent with
her books in the little chamber beneath her father's roof. She
however, made every effort in her power to regain her freedom. She
wrote to the Assembly, protesting against her illegal arrest. She
found all these efforts unavailing. Still, she gave way to no
despondency, and uttered no murmurs. Most of her time she employed in
writing historic notices of the scenes through which she had passed.
These papers she intrusted, for preservation, to a friend, who
occasionally gained access to her. These articles, written with great
eloquence and feeling, were subsequently published with her memoirs.
Having such resources in her own highly-cultivated mind, even the
hours of imprisonment glided rapidly and happily along. Time had no
tardy flight, and there probably might have been found many a lady in
Europe lolling in a sumptuous carriage, or reclining upon a silken
couch, who had far fewer hours of enjoyment.
One day some commissioners called at her cell, hoping to extort from
her the secret of her husband's retreat. She looked them calmly in the
face, and said, "Gentlemen, I know perfectly well where my husband is.
I scorn to tell you a lie. I know also my own strength. And I assure
you that there is no earthly power which can induce me to betray him."
The commissioners withdrew, admiring her heroism, and convinced that
she was still able to wield an influence which might yet bring the
guillotine upon their own necks. Her doom was sealed. Her heroism was
her crime. She was too illustrious to live.