Page:Heroines of freethought (IA cu31924031228699).pdf/48

40 dark eyes of hers, full of expression and sweetness, She spoke to me often at the grate, with the freedom and courage of a great man. Such republican language in the mouth of a beautiful French woman preparing for the scaffold was a miracle of the Revolution for which we were not prepared. We listened to her in admiration and astonishment.”

Her brave soul having proved itself equal to every other emergency was now to prove itself equal to the last great emergency— Death! She rose up equal to the level of that occasion, and in the language of Robert Browning seemed to say:

"I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore And bade me creep past. No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers, The heroes of old! Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad, life’s arrears Of pain, darkness, and cold.”

The 8th of November, 1793, was the day set apart for her martyrdom. She was calm, radiant, pitying, to the last. The car of