Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 04.djvu/228

 a harmony and prosody that made her language like music, of which the ear could never have enough. Her conversation was serious, not cold; coming from the mouth of a beautiful woman, it was frank and courageous as that of a great man.' 'And yet her maid said: "Before you, she collects her strength; but in her own room, she will sit three hours sometimes leaning on the window, and weeping. She has been in Prison, liberated once, but recaptured the same hour, ever since the first of June: in agitation and uncertainty; which has gradually settled down into the last stern certainty, that of death. In the Abbaye Prison, she occupied Charlotte Corday's apartment. Here in the Conciergerie, she speaks with Riouffe, with Ex-Minister Clavière; calls the beheaded Twenty-two 'Nos amis, our Friends,'—whom we are soon to follow. During these five months, those Memoirs of hers were written, which all the world still reads.

But now, on the 8th of November, 'clad in white,' says Riouffe, 'with her long black hair hanging down to her girdle,' she is gone to the Judgment-bar. She returned with a quick step; lifted her finger, to signify to us that she was doomed: her eyes seemed to have been wet. Fouquier-Tinville's questions had been 'brutal'; offended female honour flung them back on him, with scorn, not without tears. And now, short preparation soon done, she too shall go her last road. There went with her a certain Lamarche, 'Director of Assignat-printing'; whose dejection she endeavoured to cheer. Arrived at the foot of the scaffold, she asked for pen and paper, 'to write the strange thoughts that were rising in her': a remarkable request; which was refused. Looking at the Statue of Liberty which stands there, she says bitterly: 'O Liberty, what things are done in thy name!' For Lamarche's sake, she will die first; show him how easy it is to die: 'Contrary to the order,' said Samson.—'Pshaw, you cannot refuse the last request of a Lady'; and Samson yielded.