Page:Madame Rolland (Blind 1886).djvu/250

240 of the times that the most heterogeneous kind of people were mixed up together in that foulest of prisons. Great nobles were cheek by jowl with felons; great ladies jostled women of the streets; by a freak of fate the Du Barry and Roland's wife slept under the same roof.

Acutely at first did the disciple of Plutarch suffer from this proximity to the reprobates of society. She was sickened in the day by repulsive scenes from whose sight she could not escape; she was awakened at night by the fierce quarrels of these unfortunates. But oh! miracle of human goodness! Ere long that part of the prison where dwelt Madame Roland had become an oasis of peace amidst this Inferno. No sooner did she appear in the courtyard than the wrangling ceased.

Women, lost to shame, felt ashamed before her radiant purity. To the most needy she gave what pecuniary help she could, spoke to all words of advice, hope, or consolation. In walking she was surrounded by those lost ones, who clung to her skirts, and seemed to regard her as a beneficent divinity, while they treated the once all-powerful mistress of Louis XV. as one of themselves. At this page of Madame Roland's history it is difficult to keep back one's tears. Not from pity for her sufferings, but that the magic of goodness touches the deepest springs of emotion.

The record of Madame Roland's last days we owe chiefly to Comte Beugnot, her fellow-prisoner at the Conciergerie. He could not help acknowledging the intrinsic greatness of this woman, against whom he had entertained a strong prejudice as a female politician and republican. Now that he saw her frequently at the grate of the prison, where many of its inmates