to the clerk, she cried, "Take up your pen and write." Then she continued: "A person accused is answerable for his own actions but not for those of others. If, during more than four months, Roland had not solicited in vain the passing of his accounts, he would not now be obliged to absent himself, nor should I, supposing me to be acquainted with it, be obliged to make a secret of his place of residence. I know of no law which requires me to betray the dearest sentiments of nature."
Here Fouquier Tinville exclaimed, in a rage, that there was no end to her loquacity, and the examination was closed.
Among the witnesses called, the one whose testimony told most strongly against the accused was that identical Mademoiselle Mignot, Eudora's governess, whose old age Madame Roland had wished to provide for, and to whom she was wont to give a thousand livres a month to expend with Eudora on charity. The cowardly old creature, to ensure against becoming suspected herself, made a few vague statements to the effect that the Rolands had shown much tranquillity at the approach of a civil war, and that Madame Roland, on being informed by Brissot of the capture of Lille, had replied, "I know the good news," The two other witnesses were Lecoq, the man-servant, and Fleury, the cook. They were both so deeply attached to their mistress that their one wish was to share her fate, Lecoq succeeded, but the good Fleury was so distracted by grief that she was dismissed from the interrogatory as not in her right senses.
Chauveau-Lagarde was ambitious of the honour of pleading the cause of the great citoyenne. He went several times to see her, and on the 8th of November
