The Hôtel de Ville became the head-quarters of the insurgents, and the Provisional Government transferred itself there. The military government of Paris was given to Lafayette. The royal troops were speedily driven in to the vicinity of the Louvre, and the situation of the ministers in the Tuileries became alarming. They decided that it was necessary for them to retire to St. Cloud. Before setting out they sent for General Marmont, that they might ascertain his means of defense.
"You may tell the king," said General Marmont, "that, come what may, and though the entire population of Paris should rise up against me, I can hold this position for fifteen days without further reinforcements. This position is impregnable."
Capture of artillery.
As this statement was repeated to the king he was much cheered by it. The monarchy was much stronger in the provinces than in Paris. The populace of the capital could do but little outside of its walls. A few days would give an opportunity to assemble numerous regiments of the Guard from the various positions they occupied in the vicinity of the metropolis. But affairs were rapidly assuming a more fatal aspect in Paris than General Marmont had deemed possible. The whole of the city, except the ground held by the royal troops around the Tuileries, was in the hands of the insurgents. An impetuous band of students from the Polytechnic School rushed upon and took every piece of artillery in the Rue St. Honoré.
The regiment placed in the Rue Castiglione, to guard the great entrance into the garden of the Tuileries from the boulevards, through the Rue de la Paix, opened its ranks, and the triumphant populace, with shouts which rang through Paris, entered the iron-railed inclosure. These disasters caused the withdrawal of a portion of the troops who had for some time been defending the Louvre from the colonnade opposite the Church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, where the insurgents were posted in great strength. Thus encouraged, the insurgents rushed vehemently across the street, and took the Louvre by storm. Flooding the palace like an ocean tide, they opened a deadly fire from the inner windows upon the Swiss in the Carrousel.
Retreat of the Royalists.
These brave men, thus assailed where successful resistance was hopeless, were thrown into a panic. With bullets whistling around them, deafened by the roar of the battle and the shouts of infuriated men, and seeing their comrades dropping every moment upon the pavement dead or wounded, they fled in wild disorder through the arch of the Tuileries into the garden, into which, from the side gate, as we have mentioned, the insurgents were pouring.
All was lost, and, as it were, in a moment. Such are the vicissitudes of battle. General Marmont rushed to the rear, the post of danger and of honor in a retreat. He did every thing which skill and courage could do to restore order, and succeeded in withdrawing his little band into the grand avenue of the Champs Elysées, through which they rapidly marched out of Paris, leaving the metropolis in the hands of the insurgents. In the midst of the storm of death which swept their retreating ranks General Marmont was the last to leave the garden of the Tuileries. One hundred of the Swiss troops, who had been posted in a house at the junction of the Rue de Richelieu and the Rue St. Honoré, were unfortunately left behind. They perished to a man.
Did these heroic troops do right in thus proving faithful to their oaths, their colors, and their king? Did these heroic people do right in thus resisting tyranny and contending for liberty at the price of their blood? Alas for man! Let us learn a lesson of charity.