Writing of the events which preceded and attended the trial and execution of Louis XVI, Prince Talleyrand, a profound admirer of Paine, says: "It was no longer a question that the king should reign, but that he himself, the queen, their children, his sister, should be saved. It might have been done. It was at least a duty to attempt it." It was a duty, however, whose performance carried with it the probable penalty of death. Danton, France's greatest and bravest son, wished to save the life of the king, but dared not to vote in favor of it. "Although I may save his life," he said, "I shall vote for his death. I am quite willing to save his head, but not to lose my own." Even the king's cousin, Philip of Orleans, voted for his kinsman's death. Paine did not shirk his duty. He, too, loved life, but he loved honor more, and so, defying death, voted and pleaded for the life of the fallen monarch. "Ah, that man who stood there alone in that breathless hall with such mighty eloquence warming over his lofty brow! That man was one of that illustrious band who had been made citizens of France--France the redeemed and newborn! Yess with Mackintosh, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson and Washington, he had been elected a citizen of France. With these great men he hailed the French revolution as the dawn of God's millennium. He had hurried to Paris, urged by the same deep love of man that accompanied him in the darkest hours of the American revolution, and there, there pleading for the traitor-king, alone in that breathless hall he stood, the author-hero, Thomas Paine, pleading--even amid that sea of scowling faces--for the life of King Louis."--_George Lippard._ "In that maelstrom of thought, in that pandemonium of words, in that whirlwind of passion, pleading for the life of the king, Thomas Paine, not counting his own life, well knowing the consequences of his act, Thomas Paine stood there and pleaded that the life of the king might be spared."--_Dr. J. E. Roberts._ A. F. Bertrand de Moleville (French Minister of State): "It must be recorded to the eternal shame of this assembly, that Thomas Paine... proved himself the wisest, the most humane, the boldest--in a word, the most innocent among them." Victor Hugo: "Thomas Paine, an American and merciful." "When tidings came of the king's trial and execution, whatever glimpses they [Paine's adherents in England] gained of their outlawed leader showed him steadfast as a star caught in one wave and another of that turbid tide. Many, alas, needed apologies, but Paine required none. That one Englishman, standing on the tribune for justice and humanity, amid three hundred angry Frenchmen in uproar, was as sublime a sight as Europe witnessed in those days."--_Dr. Conway._