They wheeled in front of this the massive council-table, in order to interpose a barrier between the weapons of the malcontents and the lives of the royal family.

Some national guards were around the table on each side, and rather in advance of it.

The queen, standing up, held by the hand her daughter, then fourteen years of age.
A child of noble beauty and precocious maturity, the anxieties of the family in the midst of whom she had grown up had already reflected their weight and sorrow in her features.

Her blue eyes, her lofty brow, aquiline nose, light brown hair, floating in long waves down her shoulders, recalled at the decline of the monarchy those young girls of the Gauls who graced the throne of the earlier races.

The young daughter pressed closely against her mother's bosom, as though to shield her with her innocence.