"You have people there who love you," said one of the Commissioners.
"I never had any about me who did not," replied Madame Roland, and she followed them down-stairs.
The street was full of people and guarded by armed men. Erect and fearless, the great Citoyenne stepped through the crowd, towards the carriage that was to bear her to prison, as proudly as, three short summers ago, she had walked towards the Altar of the Federation. It was seven in the morning of the 1st of June. Women of the markets, glaring and shaking their fists at her, shouted, "To the guillotine!" Some of the Commissioners obligingly offered to pull down the blinds.
"No, gentlemen," she replied; "innocence, however oppressed, should not assume the attitude of guilt. I fear the eyes of no one, and do not even wish to escape from those of my enemies."
"You have much more character than many men," they said. "You can calmly await justice."
"Justice!" cried she. "If it existed I should not now be in your power. I would go to the scaffold as calmly if sent there by iniquitous men. I only fear guilt, and despise injustice and death."
They reached the prison. The heavy gates of the Abbaye closed on her. She crossed that courtyard, those corridors still reeking with bloodshed and haunted by the spectres of September. Over that door might have been inscribed
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Madame Roland was invulnerable to the shafts of misfortune. Locked into her room, she sat down, covered her face with her hands, and saying, "Well, here I am in prison!" fell into a profound reverie.
