It was on June 12th that she was questioned. She was asked if she knew anything about the troubles of the Republic during and after Roland’s ministry, or of the plan to make a Federal Republic; who were the persons who came to her salon; if she knew any traitors, or was allied with friends of Dumouriez; what she knew of Roland’s Public Opinion Bureau and his plan for corrupting the provinces; and lastly where was Roland. The committee got very little satisfaction out of their victim. They accused her of sharpness and evasion, and probably the accusation was just. The interview indicated to Madame Roland the complaint of the Commune against her, and showed her more clearly than before that there was no definite reason for her arrest. She was a suspect; that explained all. To vague accusations was added direct calumny. _Père Duchesne_ had not forgotten _la reine Roland_, and one morning she heard cried under her cell window: _Visit of Père Duchesne to the citoyenne Roland in the prison of the Abbaye_. The details of the pretended visit were cried so that she could hear them and at the same time the people collected in the market of Saint Germain, held by the side of the prison, were exhorted to avenge the wrongs Madame Coco had done them. The article was in Hébert’s most offensive and ribald style and told how its author, visiting the prison, was taken by Madame Roland for a brigand from La Vendée; how she rejoiced with him over the losses of the Republic; told him that aid was coming from Coblentz and England, and assured him that the contra-revolution had been brought about through Roland. At first, hot with indignation at these calumnies, she tried to defend herself, but she soon saw that to besiege the Revolutionary authorities any longer was not only useless, but humiliating. It was better suited to her proud courage to ignore them, and she found in her silence and disdain a source of inspiration and strength. While natural courage, long schooling in self-denial, submission to necessity, superiority to material considerations, intense patriotism, a desire to vindicate herself to posterity, explain her remarkable fortitude in her imprisonment, they do not her triumph. The exaltation she found in her prison was that of love, a love which duty had thus far forbidden her even to think of, but which now she felt she dared yield to. Her jailers had become her liberators.