Grandpré did his best to have her letter read at the Convention, but in the turmoil of the early days of June there was nothing to be obtained from this body save through fear or force. Madame Roland, hearing that the section in which she lived had taken her and Roland under its care, wrote to thank them, and to suggest that they try to secure a reading of the letter. But she took care that they should feel that she was no tearful suppliant: “I submit this question to your _judgment_; I add no _prayer_; truth has only one language; it is to expose _facts_; citizens who desire _justice_ do not care that _supplications_ should be addressed to them, and _innocence_ does not know how to make them.” The letter was read at the section and debated, but the Terrorists from other quarters filled the hall, and by their menaces prevented any effectual interference by those disposed in Madame Roland’s favor. Grandpré insisted that she should write to the ministers of justice and of the interior. She despised the weakness and mediocrity of both, and declared she would write nothing unless she could “give them severe lessons.” Grandpré found the letters she prepared humiliating, and persuaded her to change them. Even after the changes they were intensely hostile and contemptuous, anything but politic. The “lessons” she gave in her letters she never failed to put into any conversation she had with public officials. One of these conversations she relates. It was with a committee of five or six persons who had come to look after the condition of the prisoners. “Good-day, Citoyenne.” “Good-day, sir.” “Are you satisfied with your quarters? Have you any complaints to make of your treatment. Do you want anything?” “I complain because I am here and I ask to be released.” “Isn’t your health good? Are you a little dull?” “I am well and I am never dull. _L’ennui_ is a disease of an empty soul and a mind without resources, but I have a lively sense of injustice. I complain because I have been arrested without reason, and am detained without being examined.” “Ah, in a time of revolution there is so much to do that one cannot accomplish everything.” “A woman to whom King Philip made about the same answer told him, ‘If you have not the time to do justice you have not time to be king.’ Take care that you do not force oppressed citizens to say the same thing to the people, or rather to the arbitrary authorities who are misleading them.” “Adieu, Citoyenne.” “Adieu.” She had soon a more serious task than administering gratuitous rebukes and repeating high-sounding maxims. It was in defending herself against calumnies and accusations. She did it with spirit and clear-headedness, as was to be expected, and frequently in a tone of contemptuous asperity and superiority that could not fail to be exasperating.