Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 6.djvu/58

 240 WORKMEN AND HEROES S Under the same roof were murderers and women of the town ; and in the morning, when the cell-doors were opened, the scum of the earth, as one author- ity tells us, collected in the corridor. On each side of this corridor (the only- place where the prisoners could take exercise) were small cells, and one of these, separated only by thin walls from the most depraved beings, whose vile language 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 con- spirators. 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." Robespierrre 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 Novem- ber 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 after this event, M. Roland committed suicide by stabbing himself through the heart.