It was on the second day of September that the riot began. Revolted by the barbarity of the slaughter, stung by the insult offered them in a raid on their hôtel, half-conscious, too, that they must do something or their power would slip from them, they determined on the 3d, that Roland should protest to the Assembly against the massacre. But to protest was to put himself in antagonism with the Commune, with Robespierre, Marat, Danton. It was to make himself forever a suspect, to take his life in his hand. But that was immaterial to Roland and to his wife. To die was part of the Gironde programme, and they were all of them serenely indifferent to death if they could only serve the public by dying. Roland wrote a letter to the Assembly, which is an admirable specimen of the way in which he applied theories to situations which needed arms and soldiers—a letter of platitude and generalities. He called attention to the danger of disorganization becoming a habit; explained where power legally belonged, and what the duties of the people were in circumstances like those they then faced. As for the massacre, he said: “Yesterday was a day over whose events it is perhaps necessary to draw a veil. I know that the people, terrible in vengeance, showed a kind of justice. They do not seize as victims all who fall in their way. They take those whom they believe to have been too long spared by the law, and whom they are persuaded in the peril of the moment should be sacrificed without delay. But I know that it is easy for agitators and traitors to abuse this effervescence, and that it must be stopped. I know that we owe to all France the declaration that the executive power was unable to foresee and prevent these excesses. I know that it is the duty of the authorities to put a stop to them or to consider themselves crushed. I know, further, that this declaration exposes me to the rage of certain agitators. Very well, let them take my life. I desire to save it only to use it for liberty, for equality.” These were bold words considering the situation. They were an open defiance to the Mountain. They showed that the Minister of the Interior, hitherto the enemy of the party of Order, had put himself at the head of that party; that he had suddenly determined that he was going to snuff out the candle he had gone to so much pains to light. He did not consider it a serious task. It was only a question of appealing to the people. “The docile people at the voice of their legislators will soon feel that they must honor their own work and obey their representatives.” The next day, September 4th, Roland wrote to the commander general of the National Guard, Santerre, to employ all the forces that the law gave him to prevent that either persons or property be violated. He sent him a copy of the law and declared that he threw the responsibility of all future disorder on Santerre. It was fully two days after this however, before the massacre was stopped.