Page:Heroines of freethought (IA cu31924031228699).pdf/46

38 certain, her fate was, she employed much of her time in writing her memoirs, every page of which had to be concealed and carried to a place of safety by those friends who gained admittance to her prison. She wrote at first historic memoirs of all the principal actors in the Revolution; but the friend to whose care the manuscript had been confided, fearing its discovery, felt obliged to destroy it.

Toward the close of her imprisonment a form of trial and conviction was gone through with, but she knew well that she was pre-sentenced to the guillotine, and so built no false hopes on that trial. Once she thought of writing to Robespierre, who owed to her a debt of gratitude for having been the means of saving his life in 1791 while Roland was in power; but on consideration she tore the letter she had written to him into pieces, disdaining even in this her great need to ask her life from him. Once, too, she entertained the thought of suicide, rather than endure a public execu-