he
couple looking at each other in silence. Madame Roland may remember
that, at the beginning of the Revolution, she herself demanded heads,
especially "two illustrious heads," and hoped "that the National
Assembly would formally try them, or that some generous Decius"[3290]
would devote himself to "striking them down."[3291] Her prayers are
granted. The trial is about to begin in the regular way, and the Decius
she has invoked is everywhere found throughout France.

The south-east corner remains, that Provence, described to him by
Barbaroux as the last retreat of philosophy and freedom. Roland follows
the Rhone down with his finger, and on both banks he finds, as he passes
along, the usual characteristic misdeeds.--On the right bank, in Cantal
and in the Gard, "the defenders of the country" fill their pockets at
the expense of taxpayers designated by themselves;[3292] this forced
subscription is called "a voluntary gift." "Poor laborers at Nismes
were taxed 50 francs, others 200, 300, 900, 1,000, under penalty of
devastation and of bad treatment."--In the country near Tarascon the
volunteers, returning to the old-fashioned ways of bandits, brandish the
saber over the mother's head, threaten to smother the aunt in her bed,
hold the child over a deep well, and thus extort from the farmer or
proprietor even as much as 4,000 or 5,000 francs. Generally the
farmer keeps silent, for, in case of complaint, he is sure to have his
buildings burnt and his olive trees cut down.[3293]--On the left bank,
in the Isere, Lieutenant-colonel Spendeler, seized by the populace
of Tullins, was murdered, and then hung by his feet in a tree on the
roadside;[3294]--in the Drome, the volunteers of Gard forced the
prison at Montelimart and hacked an innocent person to death with a
saber;[3295] in Vaucluse, the pillaging is general and constant. With
all public offices in their hands, and they alone admitted into the
National Guard, the old brigands of Avignon, with the municipality for
their accomplice, sweep the town and raid about the country; in town,
450,000 francs of "voluntary gifts" are handed over to the Glaciere
murderers by the friends and relatives of the dead;--in the country,
ransoms of 1,000 and 10,000 francs are imposed on rich cultivators,
to say nothing of the orgies of conquest and the pleasures of despots,
money forcibly obtained in honor of innumerable liberty trees, banquets
at a cost of five or six hundred francs, paid for