Page:Heroines of freethought (IA cu31924031228699).pdf/47

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
MADAME ROLAND.
39

tion; but feeling that this would be construed into an act of cowardice, she threw the opium procured for that purpose away.

During their imprisonment the prisoners were allowed to see and converse with each other, and she exerted herself at such times to the utmost to cheer and encourage her fellow-prisoners, She showed them a face bright and buoyant with a brave spirit, if not with hope. Young men and old, looking upon that face in its defiance of the power of death, listening to the brave words of that unflinching soul, grew strong to meet the martyrdom they had dared for dear Liberty's sake, and learned to smile gravely even under the grim shadow of the guillotine, feeling that, after all, their lives had not been lived in vain, when they were to give them up in sacrifice to freedom in such glorious companionship.

Riouffe, one of her fellow-prisoners, who subsequently escaped, says of her: “Something more than is usually found in the looks of women painted itself in those large