"No, I want to stay with my friend Barnave."
Marie Antoinette submitted with a sweet smile. Barnave let lady Elizabeth pass out with the Princess Royal before he alighted, carrying the boy in his arms.
Lady Tourzel closed the march, eager to snatch the royal child from these plebeian arms but the Queen made her a sign which cooled the ardor of the aristocratic governess. Barnave did not say anything on finding that the Virtuous Petion had taken the best part of the house, as he set down the prince on the second landing.
"Mamma, here is my friend Barnave going away," cried he.
"Very right, too," observed the Queen on seeing the attics reserved for her and her family.
The King was so tired that he wished to lie down, but the bed was so short that he had to get up in a minute and called for a chair. With the cane-bottomed one eking out a wooden one he lengthened the couch.
"Oh, Sire," said Malden, who brought the chair, "can you pass the night thus?"
"Certainly: besides, if what the ministers say be true, many of my subjects would be only too glad to have this loft, these chairs and this pallet."
He laid on this wretched bed, a prelude to his miserable nights in the Temple Prison.
When he came in to supper, he found the table set for six: Petion had added himself to the Royal Family.