from entering, although those within were suffered to leave unmolested: fearless on her own account, although full of apprehension for her friends, Madame Roland was one of the last to make her way out.
The arrest of the chiefs of the party being expected from moment to moment, she and her husband went out late on that evening—when all peaceable citizens were only too thankful to be safe within doors—with the intention of offering Robespierre a refuge in their own house. The way to the distant Marais was long and dark, the day had been crammed full of horror and danger, yet this noble woman's chief preoccupation was to place Robespierre in security. Arrived in the desolate quarter, they found that Robespierre had not returned to his lodging—nor did he ever return to it. After leaving the Club, as he was walking down the noisy Rue St. Honoré, with groups of people hissing, others applauding, someone suddenly seized him by the hand, pulled him into a house, and shut the door after him. This was Duplay, a thriving cabinet-maker, faithfullest of Robespierre's partisans; nor would the notable Madame Duplay, having once secured such a rare guest, suffer him to depart again. In the meantime, Madame Roland, more anxious than ever concerning the fate of her mysteriously vanished friend, proceeded towards midnight to Buzot's residence, with the intention of persuading him to join the Club of Feuillans, so as to be able to warn and assist his friends in case of persecution. The Feuillans, who had seceded from the Jacobins, now formed the nucleus of the Moderate Royalist Party, of which the Lameths, Duport and Barnave, "subjugated by the smile of a captive queen," were the latest representatives. Madame Roland, tremulous
