ardently do I wish I may be mistaken in so lamentable a prediction; but I
am sure to pay with my head for the interest your misfortunes have raised
in me, and the services I have sought to render you. I request, for my
sole reward, the honour of kissing your hand." The Queen, her eyes
suffused with tears, granted him that favour, and remained impressed with
a favourable idea of his sentiments. Madame Elisabeth participated in
this opinion, and the two Princesses frequently spoke of Barnave. The
Queen also received M. Duport several times, but with less mystery. Her
connection with the constitutional deputies transpired. Alexandre de
Lameth was the only one of the three who survived the vengeance of the
Jacobins.

[Barnave was arrested at Grenoble. He remained in prison in that town
fifteen months, and his friends began to hope that he would be forgotten,
when an order arrived that he should be removed to Paris. At first he was
imprisoned in the Abbaye, but transferred to the Conciergerie, and almost
immediately taken before the revolutionary tribunal. He appeared there
with wonderful firmness, summed up the services he had rendered to the
cause of liberty with his usual eloquence, and made such an impression
upon the numerous auditors that, although accustomed to behold only
conspirators worthy of death in all those who appeared before the
tribunal, they themselves considered his acquittal certain. The decree of
death was read amidst the deepest silence; but Barnave'a firmness was
immovable. When he left the court, he cast upon the judges, the jurors,
and the public looks expressive of contempt and indignation. He was led
to his fate with the respected Duport du Tertre, one of the last ministers
of Louis XVI. when he had ascended the scaffold, Barnave stamped, raised
his eyes to heaven, and said: "This, then, is the reward of all that I
have done for liberty!" He fell on the 29th of October, 1793, in the
thirty-second year of his age; his bust was placed in the Grenoble Museum.