VII.

1792.

near where the Rue de Castiglione now leads into the Place CHAP. Vendôme; it communicated with the palace by a long court or avenue, which entered the part of the gardens of the Tuileries next the palace, called the terrace of the Feuillants, by a large doorway. On the other side of the palace, where the vast Place of the Carrousel now stands, the difference in former times was still more striking. That space was then nearly filled with a great variety of narrow streets and courts, such as always grow up, if permitted, in the vicinity of a palace. The open part of the Place itself was of comparatively small extent, and was situated in that portion of the space within the quadrangle which was next to the palace. The buildings next it formed several courts, appropriated chiefly for lodgings to the different guards of the palace; one, which was the largest, and situated in the middle, was called the Royal Court; another, nearer the river, the Court of Princes, in which the royal stables were placed; a third, on the northern side of the Rue St Honoré, was called the Court of the Swiss, from its containing the barracks of the Swiss guards; and it had two entrances—one into the Place of the Carrousel, and one into the Rue de l'Echelle, which leads to the Rue St Honoré. Thus, upon the whole, the open space of the Carrousel was not a fourth part of what it now is; and it was incomparably less capable of defence, from the number of entrances which led into it, and the variety of courts and lanes, under shelter of the buildings of which the columns of attack might be formed.1

Hist. Parl.

xv. 145; xvi.

451, 452.

93.

tion of the

At length, at midnight on the 9th August, a cannon was fired, the tocsin sounded, and the générale beat in Insurrecevery quarter of Paris. The insurgents immediately began 10th Aug. to assemble in great strength at their different rallyingpoints. The survivors of the bloody catastrophe which was about to commence have portrayed in the strongest colours the horrors of that dreadful night, when the oldest monarchy in Europe fell. The incessant clang of the tocsin, the rolling of the drums, the rattling of artillery

VII.

CHAP. and ammunition-waggons along the streets, the cries of the insurgents, the march of columns, rang in their ears for 1792. long after, and haunted their minds even in moments of festivity and rejoicing. The club of the Jacobins, that of the Cordeliers, and the section of Quinze-Vingts, in the Faubourg St Antoine, were the three centres of the insurrection. The most formidable forces were assembled at the club of the Cordeliers; the Marseillais troops were there, and the vigour of Danton gave energy to all their proceedings. "It is no longer time," said he, " to appeal to the laws and legislators: the laws have made no provision for such offences, the legislators are the accomplices of the criminals. Already they have acquitted Lafayette; to absolve that traitor is to deliver us to him, to the enemies of France, to the sanguinary vengeance of the allied kings. 1 Hist. Parl. This very night the perfidious Louis has chosen to deliver 415. De to carnage and conflagration the capital which he is preStaël, Rev. pared to quit in the moment of its ruin. To arms! to 61. Bert. arms! no other chance of escape is left to us." The 81, 84. Lac. insurgents, and especially the Marseillais, impatiently ii. 214, 216. called for the signal to march; and the cannon of all the sections began to roll towards the centre of the city.1

xvi. 400,

Franc. ii.

de Moll. ix.

i. 264. Th.

Aware of their danger, the Court had for some time been making such preparations as their slender means would admit to resist the threatened attack. All the sentinels in and around the palace were tripled; barriers had been erected at the entry of the court, and forty grenadiers of the section Filles de St Thomas, and as many gendarmes on horseback, were drawn up opposite the great gate. But these precautions were as nothing against an insurgent city. The only real reliance of the royal family was on the firmness of the Swiss Guards, whose loyalty, always conspicuous, had been wrought up to the highest pitch by the misfortunes and noble demeanour of the King and Queen. The Assembly had, a few days before, ordered them to be removed from Paris; but the ministers, on various pretexts, had contrived to delay the execution of

VII.

1792.

the order, though they had not ventured to bring to the CHAP. defence of the palace the half of the corps, which lay at Courbevoie. The number of the guard actually in attendance was about eight hundred; they took their stations, and were soon drawn up in the court of the Carrousel in the finest order, and with that entire silence which formed so marked a contrast to the din and strife of tongues in the city forces. The most faithful of the national guard rapidly arrived, in number about four thousand five hundred, and filled the court of the Tuileries; the grenadiers of the quarter of St Thomas had been at their post even before the signal of insurrection was given. Seven or eight hundred royalists, chiefly of noble families, filled the interior of the palace, determined to share the dangers of their sovereign; but their presence rather injured than promoted the preparations for defence. A motley group, without any regular uniform, variously armed with pistols, sabres, and firelocks, they were incapable of any useful organisation; while their presence cooled the ardour of the national guard, by awakening their ill-extinguished jealousy of the aristocratic party. The most generous of the friends of the royal family hastened to share their dangers, now that they had become imminent; among whom was the Duchesse de la Maillé, whose principles had led to her being regarded with distrust by the court at the commencement of the Revolution; but who now hastened on foot, unattended, to the gates of the palace, to share their fate.* The heavy dragoons, nine Campan, hundred strong, on horseback, with twelve pieces of Weber, ii. artillery, were stationed in the gardens and court; but in 265, 266. that formidable arm the royalists were deplorably inferior Mig. i. 189. to the forces of the insurgents. The troops on the royal xvi. 433. side were numerous, but little reliance could be placed on

"La foule l'écartait comme une insensée. 'Laissez-moi aller,' s'écriat-elle, là où l'amitié et le devoir m'appellent. Les femmes n'ont-elles pas aussi leur honneur! C'est leur cœur ! Le mien est à la Reine ! Votre patriotisme est de la haïr: le mien est de mourir a ses pieds.'"-LAMARTINE, Histoire des Girondins, iii. 151.

1

ii. 217, 218.

241. Lac. i.

Th. ii. 243.

Hist. Parl.

VII.

1792.

95.

Infamous

treachery

lation of

Pétion.

a great proportion of them; and the gendarmerie à cheval, a most important force in civil conflicts, soon gave a fatal example of disaffection, by deserting in a body to the enemy. This powerful corps was chiefly composed of the former French Guards, who had thus the infamy, twice during the same convulsions, of betraying at once their sovereign and their oaths.

Pétion arrived at midnight, and inspected the posts of the palace ostensibly to examine into the preparations and dissimu- for defence, really to be enabled to report to the insurgents how they might be best overcome. The grenadiers of the Filles de St Thomas, by whom he was attended in the palace, had resolved to detain him as a hostage ; but the Assembly, playing into his hands, eluded this intention by ordering him to the bar of the Assembly, to give an account of the state of the capital. No sooner was he there, than they ordered him to repair to his post-not at the Tuileries, which was threatened, but at the Hôtel de Ville, which was the headquarters of the insurgents. The object of this was soon apparent. While this was going on at the Assembly and in the palace, the whole forty-eight sections of Paris had appointed commissioners, who had met at the Hôtel de Ville, supplanted the former municipality, democratic as it was, and elected a new one, still more revolutionary, in its stead. When Pétion arrived there at six o'clock in the morning, he found the new municipality installed in power; and he suffered himself, without the slightest opposition, to be made prisoner by the civil force there. Still carrying on his detestable system of hypocrisy, he next issued an order, as mayor of Paris, though his powers as such were at an end, summoning Mandat, the commander of the national guard, a man of honour and courage, to repair to the Hôtel de Ville, without making him aware of the change which had taken place in the municipality. In obedience to the civil authority, and wholly ignorant of the fraud which had been practised, that gallant officer

VII.

1792.

xvi. 409, 431. Camp.

went there; he was immediately seized by order of the CHAP. authorities, and accused of having ordered his troops to fire upon the people. Perceiving from the new faces around him that the magistracy was changed, he turned His Parl. pale; he was instantly sent under a guard to the Abbaye, but murdered by the populace on the very steps of the Weber, ii. municipal palace. The new municipality forthwith gave Mig. i. 190. the command of the national guard to the brewer San- Th. ii. 249. terre, the leader of the insurgents.1

240, 245.

217, 218.

Toul. ii. 233.

of the na

The death of Mandat was an irreparable loss to the 96. royal cause, as his influence was indispensable to per- Irresolution suade the national guards to fight, who had become tional guard. already much shaken by the appearance of so many royalists among the defenders of the King. At five in the morning the King visited the interior parts of the palace, accompanied by the Queen, the Dauphin, and Madame Elizabeth. The troops in the inside were animated with the best spirit, and the hopes of the royal family began to revive; but they were cruelly undeceived on descending the staircase, and passing in review the forces in the Place Carrousel and the garden. Some battalions, particularly those of the Filles de St Thomas and the Petits Pères, received them with enthusiasm : but, in general, the troops were silent and irresolute; and some, particularly the cannoneers and the battalion of Croix Rouge, raised the cry of "Vive la Nation!" Two regiments of pikemen, in defiling before the King, openly shouted, "Vive la Nation!" "Vive Pétion! A bas le Veto, à bas le Traitre!" Overcome by these ominous symptoms, the King returned, pale and depressed, to the palace. The Queen displayed the ancient spirit of her race. "Everything which you hold most dear," said she to the grenadiers of the national guard, "your homes, your wives, your children, depends on our existence. To-day, our cause is that of the people." These words, spoken with dignity, roused the enthusiasm of the troops who heard them to the highest degree ;