The Section, treating with the Convention as power with power, then sent its president, at the head of six members, to notify it of what it termed a Measure of Protection; namely, of a decree issued by the Section declaring that, before the will of the assembled people, the powers of all the constituent bodies should cease. The president was a young man of twenty-four or five, and although he was dressed quietly, a supreme elegance, due more to his bearing than to his garments, was manifest in his whole person. He was attired fashionably, without exaggeration, in a frock-coat of dark red velvet with jet buttons, and buttonholes worked in black silk. A cravat of white foulard with floating ends swathed his neck; a waistcoat of white piqué with bright blue flowers, trousers of pearl-gray tricot, white silk stockings, pumps, and a low, broad-brimmed hat with a pointed crown, completed his attire. He had the clear, fair complexion of a man of the North or East, eyes both piercing and earnest, and fine white teeth, with full red lips. A tri-color sash, folded in such a way that very little of it was visible save the white, girdled his waist, which was admirably shaped; a sword hung from this sash, and he carried two pistols stuck in it. He advanced alone to the bar of the Convention, and in that tone of lofty insolence which had not yet descended to the bourgeoisie, or to which that class had not attained, he said in a loud voice, addressing the president, Boissy d'Anglas: "Citizen-Representative, in the name of the Mother Section, of which I have the honor to be president, and in the name of the forty-seven other Sections--the Section of the Quinze-Vingts alone excepted--I come to announce to you that you are deprived of your powers and that your reign is over. We approve of the Constitution, but we reject the decrees; you have no right to nominate yourselves. It is for you to deserve our choice, and not to command it." "The Convention recognizes no power, either that of the Mother Section or of any other," said Boissy d'Anglas; "and it will treat as rebels all who refuse to obey its decrees." "And we," said the young man, "will treat as oppressor any power which shall try to impose an illegal act upon us." "Take care, citizen," said Boissy d'Anglas, in his calm voice, which carried hidden menace in it. "No one has a right to raise his voice above that of the president of this assembly." "Except me," said the young man--"except me, for I am above him." "And who are you?" "I am the sovereign people." "And who then are we whom the people have elected?"