them." That was a very
prompt amnesty. Already the assassins are but erring brethren, and the
minister welcomes them to his arms!

The Gironde kept silence, or, if it spoke, it was to attribute, like
Vergniaud, the massacres "to the _emigres_ and the satellites of
Coblentz." Later on, they were horrified by the crimes, but it was
when others were to profit by them. Each taken by himself, the
Girondins did not hesitate to condemn the murders; but taken as a
whole, they considered merely the interests of their party. Were not
three of them still in the Ministerial Council? What had they to
complain of, then? The September massacres are the most striking
expression of what abominations the ambitious may commit or allow to be
committed in order to maintain themselves a few weeks longer in power.

But there is a voice in the depths of conscience {378} which neither
interest nor ambition can succeed in stifling. Madame Roland could not
blind herself. The odious reality appeared to her. At last she saw
the yawning gulf beneath her feet, and she uttered a cry of terror. A
secret voice warned her that her fate would be like that of the
September victims. After the 9th of that fatal month her imagination
was vividly impressed. Bloody phantoms rose before her. She wrote on
that day to Bancal des Issarts: "If you knew the frightful details of
these expeditions.... You know my enthusiasm for the Revolution; well,
I am ashamed of it; it has become hideous. In a week ... how do I know
what may happen? It is degrading to remain in office, and we are not
permitted to leave Paris. We are detained so that we may be destroyed
at the propitious moment."

From that time a rising anger and indignation took possession of the
mind and heart of the Egeria of the Girondins, and constantly increased
until the hour when she ascended the steps of the scaffold. She writes
in her Memoirs, apropos of the September massacres: "All Paris
witnessed these horrible scenes executed by a small number of wretches
(there were but fifteen at the Abbey, at the door of which only two
National Guards were stationed, in spite of the applications made to
the Commune and the commandant). All Paris permitted it to go on. All
Paris was accursed in my eyes, and I no longer hoped that liberty might
be established among cowards, insensible to the worst outrages that
could be perpetrated {379} against nature and humanity, cold spectators
of attempts