d to the bold
philosophers who, before the end of 1791, lamented the fate of a great
nation, compelled to stop half-way in the career of freedom," and, on
page 38--"A minister of justice was needed. The four ministers (Roland,
Servane, etc.) cast their eyes on me... Duranthon was preferred to me.
This was the first mistake of the republican party. It paid dear for it.
That mistake cost my country a good deal of blood and many tears."
Later on, he thinks that he has the qualifications for ambassador to
Constantinople.]

[Footnote 2231: Buzot, "Memoires" (Ed. Dauban), pp.31, 39. "Born with a
proud and independent spirit which never bowed at any one's command, how
could I accept the idea of a man being held sacred? With my heart and
head possessed by the great beings of the ancient republics, who are the
greatest honor to the human species, I practiced their maxims from my
earliest years, and nourished myself on a study of their virtues... The
pretended necessity of a monarchy... could not amalgamate, in my mind,
with the grand and noble conceptions formed by me, of the dignity of
the human species. Hope deceived me, it is true, but my error was too
glorious to allow me to repent of it."--Self-admiration is likewise the
mental substratum of Madame Roland, Roland, Petion, Barbaroux, Louvet,
etc., (see their writings). Mallet du Pan well says: "On reading the
memoirs of Madame Roland, one detects the actress, rehearsing for the
stage. "--Roland is an administrative puppet and would-be orator, whose
wife pulls the strings. There is an odd, dull streak in him, peculiarly
his own. For example, in 1787 (Guillon de Montleon, "Histoire de la
ville de Lyon, pendant la Revolution," 1.58), he proposes to utilize
the dead, by converting them into oil and phosphoric acid. In 1788, he
proposes to the Villefranche Academy to inquire "whether it would not be
to the public advantage to institute tribunals for trying the dead?" in
imitation of the Egyptians. In his report of Jan. 5, 1792, he gives a
plan for establishing public festivals, "in imitation of the Spartans,"
and takes for a motto, Non omnis moriar (Baron de Girardot, "Roland and
Madame Roland". I. 83, 185)]

[Footnote 2232: Political club uniting moderate and constitutional
monarchists. They got their nickname because they held their meetings in
the old convent formerly used by the feullants, a branch of Cistercians
who, led by LaBarriere, broke away in 1577. The Feuillant Club