"Would you like my place?" demanded the Queen tartly.
"I thank you, madam," rejoined Barnave, stung; "a seat in the front will do for me."
It was made by Lady Elizabeth drawing the Princess Royal to her side while the Queen took the Dauphin on her knee. Barnave was thus placed opposite the Queen.
"All ready," cried Petion, without asking the King, "on you go!"
The vehicle resumed the journey, to cheers for the National Assembly.
It was the people who stepped into the royal carriage with their representatives.
There was silence during which each studied the others except Petion who seemed in his roughness to be indifferent to everything.
Jerome Petion, alias Villeneuve, was about thirty-two; his features were sharply defined; his merit lay in the exaltation, clearness and straightforwardness of his political opinions. Born at Chartres, he was a lawyer when sent to Paris in 1789, as member of the Assembly. He was fated to be Mayor of Paris, enjoy popularity effacing that of Bailly and Lafayette and die on the Bordeaux salt meadow wastes, devoured by wolves. His friends called him the Virtuous Petion. He and Camille Desmoulins were republicans when nobody else in France knew the word.
Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave was born at Grenoble; he was hardly thirty; in the Assembly he had acquired both his reputation and great popularity, by struggling with Mirabeau as the latter waned. All the great orator's enemies were necessarily friends of Barnave and had sustained him. He appeared but five-and-twenty, with bright blue eyes, a largish mouth, turned-up nose and sharp voice. But his form was elegant; a duelist and aggressive, he looked like a young military captain in citizen's dress. He was worth more than he seemed.