Abandoned and despised by all, the beautiful amazon became a raving lunatic. Years crept on. The Directory superseded the Convention, the Consulate the Directory, the Empire the Consulate, and the Restoration the Empire, and still, in a cold grated cell of the Bicêtre, in Paris, a gibbering, white-haired, wrinkled hag crawled on all fours to and from the bars of the window, whence she shrieked forth warlike orations to phantom meetings of Republicans; again and again calling for the blood of Suleau, the Royalist author. From the day of her fall till her death in 1817, she refused to wear clothes. Her only covering was her long white hair.
Rose Lacombe terminated her career more happily than her sister-in-arms. True, she also had her downfall, but it did not terminate so horribly. She fell violently in love with a young nobleman who was imprisoned in one of the dungeons of the Republic. With her usual wild impetuosity she tried to save him; but so far from rescuing him, she very nearly shared his fate. From this day Rose Lacombe's power was gone. Her voice was no longer listened to as it had once been. Jacobins and Cordeliers no longer strove to gain her support. Taking a more sensible view of the matter than one would expect, she retired from public life, and became a small shopkeeper. In this capacity she ended her days, selling petty articles over a counter all day long. The date of her death is unknown.
The citizens of Lyons, unlike those of Paris, were devoted to the Royal cause. At last the Convention resolved to tolerate this no longer; and General Kellermann was despatched against the city in August, 1793. The people made a gallant defence; never did the female sex show greater bravery. The city fell on Oct. 8th; and, furious at having been resisted, Collot d'Herbois, Couthon, and the other emissaries of the Convention tried to stamp out the very existence of Lyons. Wholesale massacres were perpetrated daily; and the friends of liberty were if possible more enraged against those brave women, who so nobly aided in the defence, than they were against the male leaders. One of the most intrepid female soldiers, named Madame Cochet, when she was on her way to the guillotine, addressed her countrymen from the tumbril, and upbraided them with their cruelty, and their cowardice in tamely submitting to the Terrorists. The crowd at first followed in silence; at last a cry of "Mercy," was heard: but the falling of the National Razor cut short the appeal.
Another heroine of Lyons was Marie Adrian, a young girl of seventeen, whose features bore a strange resemblance to Charlotte Corday. She fought desperately by the side of her brother and her lover in one of the batteries. After the city had fallen she was made prisoner.
"What is your name?" demanded the judges, struck by her youth and beauty.
"Marie," she replied. "The name of the mother of that God for whom I am about to die."
"Your age?"
"Seventeen. The age of Charlotte Corday."
"How could you combat against your country?"