without her. Truly there seemed no way of disentangling this moral knot, when the Revolution came and cut it in two by throwing Madame Roland into prison.
A sense of unwonted lull came to her behind the iron bars. The reins had been roughly snatched from her hands, and there was nothing for her to do but let the fatality of events carry her whither they would. With her habitual promptitude and love of order, she began arranging her cell, placing a rickety little table near the window ready for writing, and, to avoid disarranging it, having her meals set out on the mantel-piece. These she tried to limit to what was strictly necessary, although she was free to spend what she liked on herself. The allowance of prisoners had been reduced by Roland from 4s. 2d. to 1s. 8d. a day, but the rise in the price of provisions, tripled within a few months, made this sum inadequate, after the deduction of expenses for bed, &c. Retrenching her wants as far as her health permitted, she took bread and water for breakfast, a plain dish of meat and vegetables for dinner, and a few greens for supper; the sum thus economised she spent on the wretches who were lying upon straw, "that while eating her dry bread in the morning she might feel the satisfaction that the poor reprobates would, owing to her, be able to add something to their dinner."
Books and flowers, whose soothing, uncomplaining companionship had been dear to her from childhood, became the solace of her captivity. Thomson's Seasons, a favourite book, had been in her pocket on the night of her imprisonment. She sent for Plutarch, who had made her a republican at eight years of age, and whose Lives might help her to bear with fortitude the reverses
