"I shall not regret that," quickly said the Queen.
"You are wrong, madam, for they are your friends——"
She smiled bitterly.
"Your last friends, perhaps. Cherish them, and use what power they have: their popularity will fly, like mine."
"This amounts to your leading me to the brink of the crater and making me measure the depth without telling me I may avoid the eruption."
"Oh, that you had not been stopped on the road to Montmedy!" sighed Barnave after being mute for a spell.
"Here we have M. Barnave approving of the flight to Varennes!"
"I do not approve of it: but the present state is its natural consequence, and so I deplore its not having succeeded—not as the member of the House, but as Barnave your humble servant, ready to give his life, which is all he possesses."
"Thank you," replied the Queen: "your tone proves you are the man to hold to your word, but I hope no such sacrifice will be required of you."
"So much the worse for me, for if I must fall, I would wish it were in a death-struggle. The end will overtake me in my retreat. Your friends are sure to be hunted out; I will be taken, imprisoned and condemned: yet perhaps my obscure death will be unheard of by you. But should the news reach you, I shall have been so little a support to you that you will have forgotten the few hours of my use."