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200 at half-past five by a loud knocking, and the entrance of armed men, sent by the Revolutionary Committee to arrest Roland. On his declaration that only violence should force him thence, seeing he did not recognise the legality of their orders, the spokesman went back to the Council-General of the Commune.

No sooner had the men gone than Madame Roland formed a daring plan. She would go herself, expose the iniquity of this proceeding, and rouse the Convention to a sense of its duty. So she left her husband in the society of a friend, and, closely veiled, with a black shawl thrown over her morning gown, she hurriedly stepped into a hackney coach and drove full speed to the Place du Carousel. The courtyard of the Tuileries was filled with National Guards; the doors were closed and guarded by sentinels. With the greatest difficulty she obtained entrance to the petitioners' hall, and there paced up and down for over an hour, listening with a beating heart to the dreadful sounds of tumult which from time to time reached her from the Assembly. The final struggle was raging there. All day long deputations had been pouring in, demanding—nay, commanding—the arrest of the Girondin chiefs. Robespierre, denouncing them for the thousandth time, urged on their destruction; Chabot could exult at having "put the rope round their neck."

Whenever the door opened, the heroine of the Gironde, while impatiently awaiting Vergniaud, caught a confused vision of the wild scene within. She burned to be admitted to the bar of the Convention. Strung to the highest pitch of exaltation, she felt a force within herself to sway this turbulent Assembly, to