who persecuted and decimated his friends; Grangeneuve, Louvet, who beneath levity of manners and gaiety of mind veiled undaunted courage; Chamfort, the intimate of the great, a vivid intellect, heart full of venom, discouraged by the people before he had served it; Carra, the popular journalist, enthusiastic for a republic, mad with desire for liberty; Chenier[22], the poet of the revolution, destined to survive it, and preserving his worship of it until death, even under the tyranny of the empire; Dusaulx, who had beneath his gray hairs the enthusiasm of youth for philosophy—­the Nestor of all the young men, whom he moderated by his sage exhortations; Mercier, who took all as a jest, even in the dungeon and death.

IX.

But of the men whom enthusiasm for the Revolution brought around her, he whom Madame Roland preferred to all was Buzot.  More attached to this young female than to his party, Buzot was to her a friend, whilst the others were but tools or accomplices.  She had quickly passed her judgment on Barbaroux, and this judgment, impressed with a certain bitterness, was like a repentance for the secret impression which the favourable exterior of this young man had at first inspired.  She accuses herself with finding him so handsome, and seems to fortify her heart against the fascination of his looks.  “Barbaroux is volatile,” she said; “the adoration he receives from worthless women destroys the seriousness of his feelings.  When I see such fine young men too conceited at the impression they make, like Barbaroux and Herault de Sechelles, I cannot help thinking that they adore themselves too much to have a great deal of adoration left for their country.”

If we may lift the veil from the heart of this virtuous woman, who does not raise it herself for fear of developing a sentiment contrary to her duties, we must be convinced that her instinctive inclination had been one moment for Barbaroux, but her reflecting tenderness was for Buzot.  It is neither given to duty nor liberty to fill completely the soul of a woman as lovely and impassioned as she:  duty chills, politics deceive, virtue retains, love fills the heart.  Madame Roland loved Buzot.  He adored in her his inspiration and his idol.  Perchance they never disclosed to each other in words a sentiment which would have been the less sacred to them from the hour in which it had become guilty.  But what they concealed from one another they have involuntarily revealed at their death.  There are in the last days and last hours of this man and this woman, sighs, gestures, and words, which allow the secret preserved during life to escape in the presence of death; but the secret thus disclosed keeps its mystery.  Posterity may have the right to detect, but none to accuse, this sentiment.