Hon. Thomas E. Watson: "Among the brave who would not bend to the storm
was Thomas Paine. Man enough to defy kings and priests, he was man
enough, likewise, to defy a howling mob."
E. Belford Bax: "Paine, up to the last, manfully voted in the sense in
which he had always spoken, for the life of the king at the imminent
risk of his own."
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."