Her imprisonment made her a prominent actor, too, in the tragedy. Hitherto she had been behind the scenes, an influence recognized, to be sure, by all parties, but acting through others. A woman’s place was not in public, she believed, and she conformed carefully to her idea. But in serious natures, feeling deeply their individual responsibility, there is a demand for action. So long as Roland was minister she had ample chance to satisfy her patriotic longings for helping. But after his retirement and since the Gironde had been so demoralized that Buzot could do little or nothing, she had felt bitterly her impotence. Now all was changed; she was in the fight, not as the amanuensis of her husband, the inspirer of her friend, but as an independent actor. She must show an example of how a patriot should endure and die, and she must strike a blow for truth whenever she had a chance. What she did and said would not only have its influence to-day, it would be quoted in the future. This conviction of her obligation to help the cause and make herself a figure in history, exalted her mind. She took a dramatic pose, and she kept it to the end. If there was a shade of the theatrical in it,—and there is almost always such a shading in Madame Roland’s loftiest moods and finest acts,—there is so much indifference to self, hatred of despotism, contempt of injustice, courage before pain, that the lack of perfect naturalness is forgotten. From the beginning of her imprisonment she lost no opportunity to give a lesson in civism to those about her. To the guard who brought her to the Abbaye, and who remarked on leaving her that if Roland was not guilty it was strange that he absented himself, she said that Roland was _just_, like Aristides, and severe, like Cato, and that it was his virtues which had made his enemies pursue him. “Let them heap their rage on me. I can brave it and be resigned; he must be saved for his country, for he may yet be able to render great service.” She neglected no opportunity of obtaining her liberty, not so much for the sake of liberty as that it gave her a means of expressing her opinions. By the advice of Grandpré, an inspector of prisons, protected formerly by Roland, and who hurried to her aid the first day of her imprisonment, she wrote to the Convention. In a haughty tone she described her arrest, the fact that no motive for it was given, the indignities and illegalities she had suffered, and demanded justice and protection. So severe was the letter that Grandpré, after consulting Champagneux, brought it back to her to soften a little. After reflection she consented. “If I thought the letter would be read,” she told Grandpré, “I would leave it as it is, even if it resulted in failure. One cannot flatter himself that he will obtain justice of the Assembly. It does not know how to practise to-day the truths addressed to it, but they must be said that the departments may hear.”