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250 dead leaves crackling under his feet, and hopes as dead in his heart. What his hand had found to do he had always done resolutely; when the thing was to take his life he was no less resolute. Cato could not have run himself more calmly through the body than this Frenchman; and those who, on the following morning, found the austere old man leaning against a tree in M. Normand's avenue, surmised him to be asleep from his attitude. On his person was this writing: "Whoever thou art that findest me lying here, respect my remains. They are those of a man who devoted his life to being useful, and who has died as he lived, virtuous and honest. Not fear, but indignation, made me quit my retreat on learning that my wife had been murdered. I did not choose to remain longer in a land polluted with crimes."

There lived yet another man on earth whose fate was indissolubly linked with the departed heroine. Buzot—who, in those terrible months of the Red Terror, had been dragging from hiding-place to hiding-place, in company with Pétion and Barbaroux, often exposed to all the inclemency of winter, or crouched half-starved at the bottom of caverns and old wells—was at this time roaming along stormy coves and cliffs of the Western coast, seeking an uncertain refuge. When at last the news of Madame Roland's execution reached the unfortunate Girondin, his despair bordered on frenzy. It took him days to recover his right senses. After this calamity were probably written those moving lines: "I have done! My heart gives way. Oh, God! what remains still to be suffered? What remains there of myself? Vainly do I seek the objects that made life dear to me. Nothing is left but the void of solitude and despair. I can no longer