round them, shone with a preternatural brilliance in the
solemn rejoicing of that evening. The aged Roland gazed with tears of
fond affection and of gratified pride upon his lovely wife, as if in
spirit asking her if all the loftiest aspirations of their souls were
not now answered. The victorious Republicans hardly knew whether to
sing triumphant songs or funeral dirges. Vergniaud, the renowned
orator of the party, was prominent above them all. With a pale cheek,
and a serene and pensive smile, he sat in silence, his mind evidently
wandering among the rising apparitions of the future. At the close of
the supper he filled his glass, and rising, proposed to drink to the
eternity of the Republic. Madame Roland, whose mind was ever filled
with classic recollections, scattered from a bouquet which she held in
her hand, some rose leaves on the wine in his glass. Vergniaud drank
the wine, and then said, in a low voice, "We should quaff cypress
leaves, not rose leaves, in our wine to-night. In drinking to a
republic, stained, at its birth, with the blood of massacre, who knows
but that we drink to our own death. But no matter. Were this wine my
own blood, I would drain it to liberty and equality." All the guests,
with enthusiasm, responded, "_Vive la Republique!_" After dinner,
Roland read to the company a paper drawn up by himself and wife in
reference to the state of the Republic, which views were to be
presented the next day to the Convention.

The royal family were still in the dungeons of the Temple, lingering
through the dreary hours of the most desolate imprisonment. Phrensied
mobs, rioting through the streets of Paris, and overawing all law,
demanded, with loudest execrations, the death of the king. A man
having ventured to say that he thought that the Republic might be
established without shedding the blood of Louis, was immediately
stabbed to the heart, and his mutilated remains were dragged through
the streets of Paris in fiendish revelry. A poor vendor of pamphlets
and newspapers, coming out of a reading-room, was accused of selling
books favorable to royalty. The suspicion was crime, and he fell,
pierced by thirty daggers. Such warnings as these were significant and
impressive, and few dared utter a word in favor of the king.

It was the month of January, 1793, when the imprisoned monarch was
brought into the hall of the Convention for his trial. It was a gloomy
day for France, and all external nature seemed shro