1The National Assembly had ordered the provinces to send 20,000 troops to Paris. With them they brought the revolutionary hymn, the “Marseillaise.” It was written and composed by a young artillery officer, named De Lisle. It was completed at the piano, after a night’s bout. He fell asleep over the instrument, and at length awakening, gradually recalled the air and words of a song, the fierceness of which sent more French men and women to the block than did any other motive.

2That song drove revolutionary France mad, and took from the royal family all hope of mercy.

3The royal family, however, were still at the Palace of the Tuileries; and while they remained there, the semblance of royalty was kept up—albeit, in fact, they were utterly prisoners.

4The Queen, early in August, still utterly relied upon Lafayette, who did not disguise his desire to retain the monarchy, under a protectorate—he himself to be the Protector.

5“Mistrust Lafayette,” had said Mirabeau; but the Queen’s faith was strong, and her confidence hastened events.

6However, one Gaudet, only twenty years of age, was rising to power amongst the Girondists; and he having intimated that he felt great interest in the royal family, matters were so managed that he had an interview with Marie Antoinette, who, poor lady, took him by the hand, and led him to the little cot in which her child was sleeping.

7“Educate him to liberty, madame,” said the orator. “It is the one condition of his life.”

8He kissed the child. Nine months afterwards he was one of those who sent the King and Queen to the scaffold.

9The royal family were now prohibited from shutting a door, and so much did they dread poison, that they only pretended to eat of the dishes prepared and set before them, and really subsisted upon cakes, and other food brought to them in the pockets of their attendants, who purchased the eatables at obscure shops.

10The Queen made the King wear as a breastplate fifteen-fold silk; but while the poor man complied, he said, “They will not assassinate me, but put me to death like a King, in open daylight.”

11He never appears to have thought of the possible execution of the Queen herself.

12“He is no coward,” she said of the King; “but he is calm in the presence of danger. His courage is in his heart, only it does not show itself—he is so timid.”

13The family now only showed themselves when going to church on Sunday, and then they were assailed with cries of “No King!” Louis said it was as though God himself had turned against him.

14One night, a chamber-valet, who slept at the Queen’s door, was awakened, to find an assassin, dagger in hand, stealing into the Queen’s room.

15Murders now became quite common. One D’Epremesnil, who had been a great favorite with the people, showed signs of moderation. Suddenly turned upon by the mob, he was cut down, dragged through the gutters, and was about to be thrown into a common sewer, when he was rescued by a squad of the National Guard. As he lay dying, Pétion, the Mayor of Paris, looked upon him, and fainted. Recovering his senses, the victim said to the Mayor, “And I—I, too, was once the idol of the people! May you meet with a better fate!”

16The sound of the soul-stirring “Marseillaise” had maddened Paris. The hourly news of the march of the Prussians upon France fatally intensified that hatred of all who were favorable to royalty—a hatred which was now about utterly to burst all bounds.

17An almost complete insurrection was adjourned to August 10.

18It was said by the people that Marie Antoinette daily cursed the people; that she had offered a pistol to the King, and prayed him to destroy himself: that she had vowed, sooner than leave the royal palace, she would be nailed to its walls.

19In truth, she was battling with her natural royalty—defending the unemotional King, and endeavoring to take his place without intruding on his prerogative.

20Meanwhile, the principal movers in the drama were being thinned by murder. Mandat, the commandant general, suspected of treachery rather than of duty, was shot down before his son’s eyes, and his body was cast into the Seine.

21On the morning of that terrible 10th of August, Madame Elizabeth, the King’s sister, who had been watching through the night, listening to the ringing of that bell which all the Royalists knew was the tocsin of murder,—this pure-hearted Elizabeth called to the Queen.

22“Sister,” she said, “come and see the sun rise.”

23And Marie Antoinette looked for the last time upon a sunrise (it was typically blood-red) which she was to see through the palace windows.

24To Rœderer, the deputy, was due the first suggestion of that act which was really the King’s abdication—that of abandoning the royal palace, and asking hospitality of the Parliament.

25“Place yourselves, madame,” he said, “in the care of the National Assembly. Your persons will then be as sacred as the constitution.”

26The constitution itself was to be a thing of the past in a few weeks.

27At five in the morning, the Queen had her children dressed and brought to her. The King himself, by his appearance, should have steeped the guard in confidence. He should have appeared in uniform. On the contrary, he appeared in a suit of violet silk—court mourning, in fact, without boots or spurs, in white silk stockings and pumps; while his hair presented an absurd spectacle, for it had not been dressed since the previous day; and while one side was still rounded and curled, the other was flat and ragged. He looked about smilingly, but with that vagueness in which no reliance can be placed. He was simply a good, stupid, amiable man. He kept apart, all his reign, making locks; he forgot his people, and he was weak enough to suppose his people would forget him.

28As for the Queen she was never more royal.

29“Take these!” she said, seizing a couple of pistols and forcing them into his hands; “and conquer or die with your friends.”

30The King however, handed them to a gentleman by his side, saying, “No; if I wore arms, the people might be angry.”

31A royal progress was made in the court-yard of the Tuileries, even in the palace-garden beyond. At first received with faint applause, the cries of hate soon overwhelmed the King, and it was with difficulty he gained the palace alone.

32The tocsin had now been calling to arms through many hours.

33Meanwhile, Danton, the man of blood, was maddening the people.

34“To arms!” he cried. “Do you not hear the call?”

35The infuriated people were now upon the palace.

36They attempted once more to burst the doors, while the artillerymen refused to fire upon the insurgents.

37And now the fatal, but inevitable, mistake was made.

38“Sire,” cried Rœderer to the King, “time presses. It is no longer entreaty we use, and only one means is left us. We ask your permission to use violence towards you; and, by force, to place you under the safety of the National Assembly.”

39The King still did not wish to leave the palace. He turned to the Queen.

40“Let us go.”

41Never again did the royal couple step beneath the roof of that palace. They left it for a barred prison—that barred prison for the scaffold.

42The King and the royal family were taken to the Assembly, and put in the reporters’ box, amidst the reporters themselves.

43There were few members present when the King entered the house, but it soon filled up. The heat was intense, and the King perspired frightfully. This box was supposed to be not in the Assembly, because a grating was placed before it. As the day went on, it was feared the people might break in from behind, and catch the King in this dungeon. It was, therefore, ordered that the grating should be removed; and the workers being unskilful, the King’s knowledge in metal-work prevailing, he came forward, and helped at its removal; so that in the event of an attack by the people, whose menaces could be heard, the members of parliament might shelter the royal family by forming a living rampart around them.

44This agony lasted fourteen hours; but it did not tell upon the King’s heavy nature. At his usual hour, he was hungry, asked for food, and he ate a hearty meal as calmly as though he had passed some hours at lock-making. The Queen, who suffered dreadfully at the sight of this evidence of callousness on the part of the King, ate nothing, but drank a glass or two of iced water with much eagerness.

45The people, learning that the King had left the palace, turned upon this building to destroy it—not to sack it. The Revolutionists were greedy for blood—not wealth. “Death to thieves!” was their implacable motto. The Tuileries were chiefly defended by seven hundred Swiss, two hundred badly-armed gentlemen, and one hundred National Guard. At the end of the day, not one-tenth of them remained alive.

46The palace was forced. There stood a Swiss on guard, many files of comrades behind him. He had orders not to fire. The people hooked his belt with a pike, dragged him forward, and disarmed him. Another took his place; he, also, was disarmed. Five times was this episode repeated.

47A shot was fired—some say, by a Swiss; others, by an insurgent; and this appears to have been the signal.

48The people turned upon the five disarmed Swiss, and beat them to death. One man of huge stature and strength killed four. The Swiss were now ordered to fire. Many aimed at the huge man, and he fell with many more. In a moment, the hall was strewn with the dead and the dying. From that moment, the Swiss were doomed; though, for a short time, they were victorious; for the people were driven back.

49Meanwhile, the rattle of the musketry echoed through the building in which the National Assembly were deliberating; and its cause soon became known.

50“Long live the nation!” cried the parliamentarians, glaring at the King, who, unhappy man, now helped on the massacre of his Swiss guards by sending a written order to their commander to cease firing, whatever happened. This was really their death-warrant; for fidelity keeping them near the King’s person, fidelity would compel them to obey his last command—for this order was the last Louis XVI ever gave.

51Suddenly, shots sounded close at hand. The members thought it was the Swiss guard, about to fire upon and massacre the National Assembly. In truth, it was the National Guard firing upon that division of the Swiss which had accompanied the King to the National Assembly.

52“Now,” cried the President, “is the time to prove ourselves worthy of the people, and of the position they have given us, by dying at our posts.”

53It was a false alarm; it was royalty dying.

54The people now rallied, broke into the palace, and, maddened by the sight of the dead citizens in the great hall, charged the Swiss, who were serried on the grand staircase.

55Upon those stairs they were driven, leaving comrades upon every step. The incline afforded good shooting to the people, who, when they had forced their way to the top of the stairs, had slain every soldier who had faced them. The Swiss guard died bravely to the very last man.

56After that it was massacre, not fighting. Wherever a Swiss was found on guard throughout the palace, he was hacked to pieces. Many were thrown alive from the windows to the people below. Some few of these solitary Swiss sentinels showed fight; many threw down their arms, and either faced death unarmed, or uselessly asked for mercy.

57Seventeen were found kneeling in the palace chapel. In vain did they show their fire-arms, which, clear and bright, proved they had not fired upon the people. They were foreigners; the news came hourly that all Europe was about to pour upon France, and they were killed before the very altar.

58It is said the people had, to stimulate their bloodthirstiness, dissolved gunpowder in the wine and brandy they drank.

59Not a Swiss escaped.

60The Queen’s women remained trembling in the palace.

61One man alone defended their door, and fell—generous sentinel!

62Danton was the very king of the massacre; and publicly he thanked the people for their day’s work.

63Meanwhile, calm, patient, implacable, Robespierre—he who was to conquer Danton—waited quietly abiding his time, but always feeling his way.

64The Assembly soon learnt the true state of affairs; and, by their orders, a few Swiss were saved, by being hidden in the passages and cellars of the House of Assembly.

65And now, the Revolutionists, eager for blood, but not for riches, brought before the National Assembly the spoils of the Tuileries. Sacks upon sacks of gold, plate, precious stones, costly ornaments, and even heaps of letters—even the money found upon the dead Swiss was set out in a separate pile.

66The Girondists now felt that the time was come to abandon the throne. Vergniaud drew up an act for the provisional suspension of royalty. This was at once passed.

67The King’s fall was signed. A few hours before, he abandoned his palace. Now, by this Act, the King’s authority was revoked; payment of money to royalty was stopped; and the National Assembly declared to hold possession of the persons of the royal family until happier times arrived.

68This was virtually dethroning the King, and taking him prisoner.

69And how did the King accept this news?

70He smiled, and said jocosely, “This is not too constitutional!”

71He was the only human being that smiled in that place upon that fatal day—he whose heart should have felt the heaviest weight of grief.

72But the people around the building shouted for the King’s life.

73The people, however, must not be looked upon harshly. They had not stolen; and though many hundreds had been slain by them, they had lost three thousand six hundred men. The Swiss did not die unavenged.

74Then the people went back to their work, tired of bloodshed, for a few days.

75And the royal family were taken to the prison of the Temple, which three of them quitted only for the scaffold.