Never 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.
The King and the royal family were taken to the Assembly, and put in the reporters’ box, amidst the reporters themselves.
There 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.
This 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.
The 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.
The 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.
A shot was fired—some say, by a Swiss; others, by an insurgent; and this appears to have been the signal.
The 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.
Meanwhile, the rattle of the musketry echoed through the building in which the National Assembly were deliberating; and its cause soon became known.
“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.