hopes, and saved by the future good, Condorcet, the 6th of April, the last line being finished, drew his woollen cap over his brow, and, in his working dress, early in the morning, crossed the sill of good Madame Vernet. She had guessed his project, and watched him; but he escaped by stratagem. In one pocket he had his faithful friend, his liberator; in the other, the Roman poet who wrote funeral hymns to dying liberty.*

All day he wandered in the country. In the evening, he entered the beautiful village of Fontenay-aux-Roses, inhabited by a number of literary men, a beautiful place, where, when secretary of the Academy of Sciences, he had shared, if we may say so, in the royalty of Voltaire, surrounded by so many friends, almost courtiers, all of whom had fled, or been scattered. The house of the Petit Ménage, for thus M. and Madame Suard were named, still remained. Truly diminutive, both in mind and body, Suard, a

pretty little man, and Madame, lively and graceful, were both literary, not writing books, but short articles; some things for the ministers, and some sentimental novels (Madame especially excelled in these last). Never were there persons who enjoyed life better. Both were influential, beloved, and respected to the last. Suard died a royal censor.

They quietly remained there until the storm should pass over; in the meanwhile, they employed their time composing trifles. When this fainting exile, with a ghastly countenance, untrimmed beard, and in sad disguise, suddenly appeared to them, the pretty little household was much discomposed. What had happened to him? They were entirely ignorant. One thing certain is, that Condorcet immediately went out by the garden-gate. He might return, they said; the door might be open; he will find it shut. The well-known selfishness of the Suards does not appear to me sufficient to authorize this story. They declare, and I believe them, that Condorcet, who had left Paris in order not to compromise any person, would not compromise them; he might have asked, and received, food; that is all.

He passed that night and the following day in the woods; but the constant walking fatigued him. A man chained to one spot for almost a year, and all at once commencing a violent exercise, would soon die of fatigue. Hunger forced him to enter, with his long beard and wild eyes, a tavern in Clamart. He ate voraciously, and at the same time, in order to sustain his courage, opened the Roman poet. His appearance, book, and white hands, all denounced him. The peasants who were drinking (it was the revolutionary club of Clamart), soon discovered that he was an enemy to the republic, and instantly dragged him before the authorities. There was one difficulty; he could not walk a step, his feet being so lacerated; and they were obliged to place him on the miserable horse of a vine-dresser who was passing. By these means, this illustrious representative of the eighteenth century was solemnly conducted to the prison of the Bourg-la-Reine. He saved the republic the crime of parricide, the shame of striking the last of the philosophers, without whom she would never have existed.

11*

CHAPTER XII.

SOCIETY OF WOMEN-OLYMPE DE GOUGES, ROSE LACOMBE.

THE Jacobins called themselves Friends of the Constitution; the society which was formed underneath their hall was entitled: Brotherly Society of the Patriots of both Sexes, Defenders of the Constitution; it was firmly established the 31st May. On one occasion, when it protested against the decrees of the Constitutional Assembly, the appeal was signed by three thousand. About this time, it received an illustrious member in Madame Roland, then on a journey to Paris.

Unfortunately, we know but little of the associations of women. It is through accidental mentions by journals and biographies that slight traces of them may be found. Several of these societies were founded in 1790 and '91 by the brilliant improvisatrice of the South, Olympe de Gouges,

who, like Lopez de Vega, dictated a tragedy in a day. She was very illiterate; it is even said she did not know how to read and write. She was

مجمد

born at Montauban, in 1755. Her mother sold trinkets from house to house; her father was, according to some, a merchant, and, according to others, a literary man. Some believe her to have been a bastard of Louis XV. This unfortunate woman, full of generous ideas, was the martyr, the puppet of her easily worked upon sensibility. She established the right of women by one just and sublime saying: "They have as good a right to mount the tribune as they have of ascending the scaffold."

Revolutionary in July, '89, she was a royalist the 6th October, when she saw the unhappy king at Paris. Republican in June, '91, under the influence of the flight and treason of Louis XVI., she turned to him with renewed vigor when he was tried. Jests were made on her inconsistency, and, with her southern vehemence, she proposed duels, with pistols, with the jesters.

The Lafayette party especially contributed to lead her astray, by placing her at the head of a contra-revolutionary fete. They caused her to