This was M. Maurice, editor of "Le Courrier des Spectacles."
"Leave me, leave me, Monsieur!" she exclaimed, in great excitement, evidently mistaking the words. Then regaining her husband, she again grasped his arm, and the mass at the same time opening its ranks, the two hastened on to a couple of those little black one-horse vehicles, chancing there to stand, which run to St. Cloud. In one of these already sat the Duchesses of Montpensier and Nemours with two of the children. In the other stood the two remaining children. Into the latter hurriedly stepped the Royal pair. The door was instantly closed and the vehicle drove off at a furious rate, surrounded by an escort of dragoons, cuirassiers and National Guards, two hundred in number, taking the water-side toward St. Cloud. The other carriage, similarly escorted, followed at a like rapid pace, the children standing at the windows, their faces pressed to the glass, gazing eagerly, with the innocent curiosity of infancy, on a scene from which their future fate would take shape.
"He is gone!" shouted a stentorian voice, breaking the momentary stillness as the carriages, surrounded by their escort, swept from the view.
"Let him go! Let him go!" was the stern and significant response. "We are not regicides!"
"To the Tuileries! To the Tuileries!" was now the tremendous shout which rose from the multitude, as they rushed toward the deserted palace.
But the Tuileries had already fallen. It was no longer the dwelling-place of kings.
Even before the Royal abdication was declared, even before it was signed, the troops of the Line in the courtyard of the palace—infantry, artillery, dragoons—to the number at least of twenty-five thousand, were summoned to surrender their posts, while the fraternal shout, "Vive la Ligne!" elicited from the lips of many of the soldiers the answering cry of "Vive la Réforme!" In vain was it that Marshal Bugeaud, the veteran of a hundred battles, menaced and blasphemed. In vain did his old protégé and subaltern, but now bitter foe, General Lamoricière, dashing from one end of the line to the other on his white horse, entreat and persuade with his eloquent tongue. The people insisted—the National Guard fraternized—the Line wavered. And yet most imminent at that moment was their own peril.
The 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 6th and 10th Legions of the National Guard invested the Tuileries, and others were on the march, accompanied by countless masses of the people. Within the courtyard were twenty-five thousand of the best troops in the world of every arm, and a park of ordnance charged to the muzzle frowned upon the dense masses which swarmed the Place du Carrousel. The watchful artilleryman stood at his cannon's breech, with the lighted linstock in his hand, which he kept alive by constant motion. He awaited but a word from the pale, firm lips of General Lamoricière, and that vast and magnificent space now swarming with life would have been swept as if by destruction's besom. Death in all its most horrid forms would have been there. That pavement would have run with gore! The façades of those splendid edifices would have been polluted with shreds and fragments of human flesh, and spattered with human blood. Yet dreadful would have been the sure retribution! Indiscriminate massacre of all unfortunate souls within that Royal palace would have been inevitable and instantaneous. Yet, such a catastrophe might be precipitated by a single word!—the avalanche might be started by a single breath; and blood once shed, Paris would be deluged!
"In the name of the people I demand to speak with the commandant of the Tuileries!" shouted a young man in the uniform of an officer of the National Guard, advancing to the iron railing of the court near the Rue de Rivoli.