those who had escaped to the provinces, among whom were Barbaroux, Louvet, Pétion, and Buzot. None of the most prominent Girondins had been to the Convention on the 2nd of June: they had, therefore, been able to take flight. But it was only by force that his friends had prevented the determined Buzot from rushing to the tribune, where he would have wished to make his protest and die. He now proceeded to Caen, which became the centre of Girondin agitation.
While Madame Roland, behind her bolts and bars, was striving after an inward calm impervious to calamity, she was rudely disturbed in her meditations by loud cries persistently repeated under her windows. They were those of the newsmonger proclaiming to the people "La grande colère, the great rage of the Père Duchesne against that woman Roland imprisoned at the Abbaye, and the discovery of the great conspiracy of the Rolandists, Buzotins, Pétionists, Girondins, in league with the rebels of the Vendée and the agents of England." Obscene language, conveying the foulest abuse, was persistently shouted in the hearing of the captive. Hébert, the vulture of journalism, marked the destined victim, hovering round her in ever-narrowing circles, ready to strike his talons into her heart. These persistent asseverations of the presence of Roland's wife at the Abbaye seemed calculated to incite the mob to a repetition of their September exploits; but the reprobation with which the Girondins had not ceased to brand them had had its effect. They themselves were destined to benefit by that impulse of humanity. Stung to the quick by the infamy of Hébert's calumnies, Madame Roland wrote to Garat, the Minister of the Interior, with a pen that knew how to stab.
