Young, obscure, unknown but a few months before, and now celebrated, popular, and powerful--thrown in the name of a sovereign assembly between the people and the king--he became the protector of those whose enemy he had been.

Royal and suppliant hands met his plebeian touch! He who opposed the popular royalty of talent and eloquence to the royalty of the blood of the Bourbons! He covered with his body the life of those who had been his masters.

His very devotion was a triumph; the object of that devotion was in his queen.

That queen was young, handsome, majestic; but brought to the level of ordinary humanity by her alarm for her husband and his children.

Her tearful eyes besought their safety from Barnave's eyes.