Roland, stepping on to a balcony, saw a furious demagogue, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up above the elbow, brandishing a sword, and declaiming against the treachery of the Ministers. After some more parley, the mob retired to the beating of drums, taking one of the valets as a hostage.
Some days afterwards, Madame Roland learned that Danton had gone to Pétion, and in his brusque way cried, "Do you know what they have done now? Made out an order of arrest against Roland!" "Who has?" demanded Pétion. "Oh, that committee of enragés. I have taken the order; here it is. We cannot allow them to act thus! The devil! Against a Member of the Council, too!" Pétion took the order, read it, and, giving it back to him with a smile, said, "Let be; it will produce a good effect." "Produce a good effect!" said Danton, curiously examining the Mayor. "No; I cannot allow it."
Madame Roland very naturally connects the two hundred sans-culottes with the order of arrest, which she considers was only rendered abortive by Roland's absence from home. Subsequent events seem to justify her supposition. But in her antipathy to Danton she suspects him of complicity, whereas his conduct proves, on the contrary, that he would have wished the Girondins for allies, if they would have suffered him to carry on the Revolution after his own method; but this their humanity revolted from.
This order of arrest against Roland; the two emissaries of the Commune nominally appointed to protect Pétion's precious person, but in reality to mount sentinel over him; the powerlessness of the Members of the Assembly, who had no armed force at their beck and call; Madame Roland's remark to Bancal
