“Citizen Pethion,” she replied, “you now judge me without knowing me, but a time will come what you shall learn who I am.” With Barbaroux, Charlotte chiefly conversed of the imprisoned Girondists; of Madame Roland and Marat. The name of this man had long haunted her with a mingled feeling of dread and horror. To Marat she ascribed the proscription of the Girondists, the woes of the republic, and on him she resolved to avenge her ill-fated country. Charlotte was not aware that Marat was but the tool of Dunton and Robespierre. “If such actions could be counseled,” afterward said Barbaroux, “it is not Marat whom we would have advised her to strike.” Whilst this deadly thought was daily strengthening itself in Charlotte’s mind, she received several offers of marriage. She declined them, on the plea of wishing to remain free: but strange indeed must have seemed to her, at that moment, those proposals of earthly love. One of those whom her beauty had enamored, M. de Franquelin, a young volunteer in the cause of the Girondists, died of grief on learning her fate. His last request was, that her portrait and a few letters he had formerly received from her, might be buried with him in his grave. For several days after her last interview with Barbaroux, Charlotte brooded silently over her great thought, often meditating on the history of Judith. Her aunt subsequently remembered that, on entering her room one morning, she found an old Bible open on her bed: the verse in which it is recorded that “the Lord had gifted Judith with a special beauty and fairness,” for the deliverance of Israel, was underlined with a pencil. On another occasion Madame de Bretteville found her niece weeping alone; she inquired into the cause of her tears. “They flow,” replied Charlotte, “for the misfortunes of my country.” Heroic and devoted as she was, she then also wept, perchance, over her own youth and beauty, so soon to be sacrificed for ever. No personal considerations altered her resolve; she procured a passport, provided herself with money, and paid a farewell visit to her father, to inform him that, considering the unsettled condition of France, she thought it best to retire to England. He approved of her intention, and bade her adieu. On returning to Caen, Charlotte told the same tale to Madame de Bretteville, left a secret provision for an old nurse, and distributed the little property she possessed amongst her friends. It was on the morning of the 9th of July, 1793, that she left the house of her aunt, without trusting herself with a last farewell. Her most earnest wish was, when her deed should have been accomplished, to perish, wholly unknown, by the hands of an infuriated multitude. The woman who could contemplate such a fate, and calmly devote herself to it, without one selfish thought of future renown, had indeed the heroic soul of a martyr.