rewards. . . . Tell me, do you know a greater gain than that of rising superior to adversity and death, and of finding something in your heart capable of sweetening and embellishing existence to its latest breath? Tell me, did anything ever give you this experience more fully than the knowledge of our mutual attachment, in spite of the contradictions of society and the horrors of oppression? . . . I will not gainsay that I am indebted to it for being pleased with captivity. Proud of persecution at a time when virtue and character are proscribed, I would have borne it with dignity, even apart from you; but you endear it to me. The wicked think to crush me with their chains. Madmen! what care I whether I am here or there? Does not my heart go with me everywhere? and is it not in prison that I am free to follow its dictates? . . . From the moment I am alone my duties are restricted to good wishes for what is just and honest, and even so you still claim the first place. Nay, I know too well what would have been my duty in the natural course of things to complain of the violence which has snatched me from it. If I must die . . . well, I know of life the best it contains, while its continuance would probably only exact fresh sacrifices. . . . The moment in which I gloried most in my existence, when I felt most vividly that exaltation of soul which dares all dangers and rejoices in facing them, was the one on which I entered this Bastile to which the executioners have sent me. . . . It seemed to give me an occasion of serving Roland by the firmness with which I could bear witness; and it seemed sweet to be of some use to him, while, at the same time, my seclusion loft me more entirely yours. I should like to sacrifice my life to him, that I might have the right of giving my last breath to you alone.
It was no fine-sounding phrase, when the wife of Roland said she would sacrifice her life for him! She had effectually done so! And, though several persons were sent at intervals, both by Roland and Buzot, to help her to escape—a not impracticable scheme, especially from the Abbaye—she persistently refused to avail herself of this chance, partly from fear lest the pursuit of her unhappy husband would be carried on with greater zeal when she could no longer act as scapegoat for him, and partly, as we have seen, not to risk the liberty of the good gaoler who should connive at hers; so she remained, making lighter of
