Page:Heroines of freethought (IA cu31924031228699).pdf/49

Rh the condemned might have been that of a conquering queen as it moved slowly amid the jeering crowd toward the place of execution, bearing that erect white-robed figure whose tender eyes were bent pityingly on the maddened faces around her, her own bearing a look of high steadfast resolve. Carlyle describes her on her way to execution as, “A noble white vision, with its high queenly face, its soft proud eyes, long black hair flowing down to her girdle, and as brave a heart as ever beat in woman's bosom. Like a white Grecian statue, serenely complete she shines in that black wreck of things. Graceful to the eye, more so to the mind; genuine, the creature. of sincerity and nature in an age of artificiality, pollution, and cant; there, in her still completeness, she, if thou knew it, is the noblest of all French women.”

There was a pause—a stir, at the foot of the guillotine. Would she faint, this brave woman, at the horrors prepared for her—at the headsman's basket and sharp