Heroines That Every Child Should Know: Tales for Young People of the World's Heroines of All Ages
History
Heroines That Every Child Should Know: Tales for Young People of the World's Heroines of All Ages
Women heroes
The public accuser has drawn up the present indictment against
Jane Mary Phlippon, the wife of Roland, late Minister of the
Interior, for having wickedly and designedly aided and assisted
in the conspiracy which existed against the unity and
indivisibility of the Republic, against the liberty and safety
of the French people, by assembling, at her house, in secret
council, the principal chiefs of that conspiracy, and by keeping
up a correspondence tending to facilitate their treasonable
designs. The tribunal, having heard the public accuser deliver
his reasons concerning the application of the law, condemns Jane
Mary Phlippon, wife of Roland, to the punishment of death.
She listened calmly to her sentence, and then, rising, bowed with
dignity to her judges and, smiling, said:
"I thank you, gentlemen, for thinking me worthy of sharing the fate of
the great men whom you have assassinated. I shall endeavour to imitate
their firmness on the scaffold."
With the buoyant step of a child, and with a rapidity which almost
betokened joy, she passed beneath the narrow portal, and descended to
her cell, from which she was to be led, with the morning light, to
death. The prisoners had assembled to greet her on her return, and
anxiously gathered round her. She looked upon them with a smile of
perfect tranquillity, and, drawing her hand across her neck, made a
sign expressive of her doom.
The morning of the 8th of November, 1793, dawned gloomily upon Paris.
It was one of the darkest days of that reign of terror which, for so
long a period, enveloped France in its sombre shades. The ponderous
gates of the courtyard of the Conciergerie opened that morning to a
long procession of carts loaded with victims for the guillotine.
Madame Roland had contemplated her fate too long, and had disciplined
her spirit too severely, to fail of fortitude in this last hour of
trial. She came from her cell scrupulously attired. A serene smile was
upon her cheeks, and the glow of joyous animation lighted up her
features as she waved an adieu to the weeping prisoners who gathered
round her. The last cart was assigned to Madame Roland. She entered it
with a step as light and elastic as if it were a carriage for a
morning's drive. By her side stood an infirm old man, M. La Marche. He
was pale and trembling, and his fainting heart, in view of the
approaching terror, almost ceased to beat. She sustained him by her
arm, and addressed to him words of consolation and encouragement, in
cheerful accents and with a benignant smile. She stood firmly in the
cart, looking with a serene eye upon the crowds which lined the
streets, and listening to the clamour which filled the air. A crowd
surrounded the cart shouting:
"To the guillotine! to the guillotine!"
She looked kindly upon them, and bending over the railing of the cart,
said to them in tones as placid as if she were addressing her own
child:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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