hroats swear, drink, and clothe themselves in rags, in order to
fraternize with the populace, Buzot possesses the morality of
Socrates, and maintains the decorum of Scipio. So they pull down his
house, and banish him as they did Aristides. I am astonished that they
have not issued a decree that his name should be forgotten."

These words Madame Roland wrote in her dungeon the night before her
execution. Buzot was then an exile, pursued by unrelenting fury, and
concealed in the caves of St. Emilion. When the tidings reached him of
the death of Madame Roland, he fell to the ground as if struck by
lightning. For many days he was in a state of phrensy, and was never
again restored to cheerfulness.

Danton now appeared in the saloon of Madame Roland, with his gigantic
stature, and shaggy hair, and voice of thunder, and crouched at the
feet of this mistress of hearts, whom his sagacity perceived was soon
again to be the dispenser of power. She comprehended at a glance his
herculean abilities, and the important aid he could render the
Republican cause. She wished to win his co-operation, and at first
tried to conciliate him, "as a woman would pat a lion;" but soon,
convinced of his heartlessness and utter want of principle, she
spurned him with abhorrence. He subsequently endeavored, again and
again, to reinstate himself in her favor, but in vain. Every hour
scenes of new violence were being enacted in Paris and throughout all
France. Roland was the idol of the nation. The famous letter was the
subject of universal admiration. The outcry against his dismission was
falling in thunder tones on the ear of the king. This act had fanned
to increased intensity those flames of revolutionary phrensy which
were now glaring with portentous flashes in every part of France. The
people, intoxicated and maddened by the discovery of their power, were
now arrayed, with irresistible thirstings for destruction and blood,
against the king, the court, and the nobility. The royal family,
imprisoned in the Tuileries, were each day drinking of the cup of
humiliation to its lowest dregs. Austria and Prussia, united with the
emigrants at Coblentz, prepared to march to Paris to reinstate the
king upon his throne. Excitement, consternation, phrensy, pervaded all
hearts. A vast assemblage of countless thousands of women, and boys,
and wan and starving men, gathered in the streets of Paris. Harangues
against the king and the aristocrats rendered them del