move their hearts, to save at this, the eleventh hour, those most dear to her.
Vergniaud hurried out at last, but gave her little hope of admittance; even should she obtain a hearing, he told her, no hope was to be placed in the Convention. "Ah!" she exclaimed, "it could do what it pleased, for the majority of Paris only aspire to know how to act!" Warned of the peril she was running herself, she scouted danger, saying that, even if powerless to save Roland, she might at least tell those within some home-truths not useless to the Republic . . . and by her courage set others an example. . . . Vergniaud assured her that a motion of six articles was going to be discussed; that petitioners, deputed by the sections, were waiting at the bar—an age for her to wait! Well, she would go home, see what was happening there, and return immediately, if he would inform their friends of it. . . . Most of them were absent, Vergniaud informed her, for, though brave enough, they were wanting in assiduity. "Too true, unfortunately," she admitted, and left him, to fly to Louvet's house, leave a note for him, and then take a hackney coach home. In her fevered impatience the horses seemed to crawl, impeded, as they were, by detachments of National Guards; so she jumped out again to make her way home on foot.
Roland had already left his house when she reached it. The bearers of the warrant, unable to obtain a hearing at the Council, had left him in peace for that night. His wife, seeing him safely hidden at a friend's house, after informing him of her plans, proceeded once more to the Convention. She found it silent and deserted; the armed force had disappeared, two cannon and a few men being all that remained of it.
