At his request Walaeus now offered a morning prayer Barneveld fell on his knees and prayed inwardly without uttering a sound. La Motte asked when he had concluded, "Did my Lord say Amen?"—"Yes, Lamotius," he replied; "Amen."—"Has either of the brethren," he added, "prepared a prayer to be offered outside there?"
La Motte informed him that this duty had been confided to him. Some passages from Isaiah were now read aloud, and soon afterwards Walaeus was sent for to speak with the judges. He came back and said to the prisoner, "Has my Lord any desire to speak with his wife or children, or any of his friends?" It was then six o'clock, and Barneveld replied:
"No, the time is drawing near. It would excite a new emotion." Walaeus went back to the judges with this answer, who thereupon made this official report:
"The husband and father of the petitioners, being asked if he desired that any of the petitioners should come to him, declared that he did not approve of it, saying that it would cause too great an emotion for himself as well as for them. This is to serve as an answer to the petitioners."
Now the Advocate knew nothing of the petition. Up to the last moment his family had been sanguine as to his ultimate acquittal and release. They relied on a promise which they had received or imagined that they had received from the Stadholder that no harm should come to the prisoner in consequence of the arrest made of his person in the Prince's apartments on the 8th of August. They had opened this tragical month of May with flagstaffs and flower garlands, and were making daily preparations to receive back the revered statesman in triumph.
The letter written by him from his "chamber of sorrow," late in the evening of 12th May, had at last dispelled every illusion. It would be idle to attempt to paint the grief and consternation into which the household in the Voorhout was plunged, from the venerable dame at its head, surrounded by her sons and daughters and children's children, down to the humblest servant in their employment. For all revered and loved the austere statesman, but simple and benignant father and master.
No heed had been taken of the three elaborate and argumentative petitions which, prepared by learned counsel in name of the relatives, had been addressed to the judges. They had not been answered because they were difficult to answer, and because it was not intended that the accused should have the benefit of counsel.
An urgent and last appeal was now written late at night, and signed by each member of the family, to his Excellency the Prince and the judge commissioners, to this effect:
"The afflicted wife and children of M. van Barneveld humbly show that having heard the sorrowful tidings of his coming execution, they humbly beg that it may be granted them to see and speak to him for the last time."
The two sons delivered this petition at four o'clock in the morning into the hands of de Voogd, one of the judges. It was duly laid before the commission, but the prisoner was never informed, when declining a last interview with his family, how urgently they had themselves solicited the boon.