Soon an officer came in and informed the king that all resistance was hopeless; that six pieces of artillery were already pointed against the main door of the palace; that a mob of countless thousands, well armed, and dragging with them twelve heavy cannon, were rapidly approaching the scene of conflict; that the whole populace of Paris were up in arms against the king, and that no reliance whatever could be placed in the soldiers stationed for his defense. "There is not," said he, "a single moment to lose. You will all inevitably and immediately perish, unless you hasten to the hall where the Assembly is in session, and place yourself under the protection of that body." The pride of the queen was intensely aroused in view of appealing to the Assembly, their bitterest enemy, for succor, and she indignantly replied, "I would rather be nailed to the walls of the palace than leave it to take refuge in the Assembly." And the heroism of Maria Theresa instinctively inspiring her bosom, she seized, from the belt of an officer, two pistols, and, presenting them to the king, exclaimed, "Now, sire, is the time to show yourself, and if we must perish, let us perish with glory." The king calmly received the pistols, and silently handed them back to the officer.
The mother and the queen.
"Madame," said the messenger, "are you prepared to take upon yourself the responsibility of the death of the king, of yourself, of your children, and of all who are here to defend you? All Paris is on the march. Time presses. In a few moments it will be too late." The queen cast a glance upon her daughter, and a mother's fears prevailed. The crimson blood mounted to her temples. Then, again, she was pale as a corpse. Then, rising from her seat, she said, "Let us go." It was seven o'clock in the morning.
The royal family take refuge in the Assembly.
The king's speech.
The king and queen, with their two children, Madame Elizabeth, and a few personal friends, descended the great stair-case of the Tuileries, to pass out through the bands of soldiers and the tumultuous mob to the hall of the Assembly. At the stair-case there was a large concourse of men and women, gesticulating with fury, who refused to permit the royal family to depart. The tumult was such that the members of the royal family were separated from each other, and thus they stood for a moment mingled with the crowd, listening to language of menace and insult, when a deputy assured the mob that an order of the Assembly had summoned the royal family to them. The rioters then gave way, and the mournful group passed out of the door into the garden. They forced their way along, surrounded by a few friends, through imprecations, insults, gleaming daggers, and dangers innumerable, until they arrived at the hall of the Assembly, which the king was with difficulty enabled to enter, in consequence of the immense concourse which crowded him, thirsting for his blood, and yet held back by an unseen hand. As the king entered the hall, he said, with dignity, to the president, "I have come here to save the nation from the commission of a great crime. I shall always consider myself, with my family, safe in your hands." The royal family sat down upon a bench. Mournful silence pervaded the hall. A more sorrowful, heart-rending sight mortal eyes have seldom seen. The father, the mother, the saint-like sister, the innocent and helpless children, had found but a momentary refuge from cannibals, who were roaring like wolves around the hall, and battering at the doors to break in and slake their vengeance with blood. It was seriously apprehended that the mob would make a rush, and sprinkle the blood of the royal family upon the very floor of the sanctuary where they had sought a refuge.
The square box.
The king's serenity.
The mob at the palace.
Brutal massacre of the king's friends.
The mob sack the palace.
The dead bodies of the Royalists burned.
Behind the seat of the president there was a box about ten feet square, constituting a seat reserved for reporters, guarded by an iron railing. Into this box the royal family were crowded for safety. A few friends of the king gathered around the box. The heat of the day was almost insupportable. Not a breath of air could penetrate the closely-packed apartment; and the heat, as of a furnace, glowed in the room. Scarcely had the royal family got into this frail retreat, when the noise without informed them that their friends were falling before the daggers of assassins, and the greatest alarm was felt lest the doors should be driven in by the merciless mob. In this awful hour, the king appeared as calm, serene, and unconcerned as if he were the spectator of a scene in which he had no interest. The countenance of the queen exhibited all the unvanquished firmness of her soul, as with flushed cheek and indignant eye she looked upon the drama of terror and confusion which was passing. The young princess wept, and her cheeks were marked with the furrows which her tears, dried by the heat, had left. The young dauphin appeared as cool and self-possessed as his father. The rattling fire of artillery, and the report of musketry at the palace, proclaimed to the royal family and the affrighted deputies the horrid conflict, or, rather, massacre which was raging there. Immediately after the king and queen had left the Tuileries, the mob broke in at every avenue. A few hundred Swiss soldiers left there remained faithful to the king. The conflict was short—the massacre awful. The infuriated multitude rushed through the halls and the apartments of the spacious palace, murdering, without mercy and without distinction of age or sex, all the friends of the king whom they encountered. The mutilated bodies were thrown out of the windows to the mob which filled the garden and the court. The wretched inmates of the palace fled, pursued in every direction. But concealment and escape were alike hopeless. Some poor creatures leaped from the windows and clambered up the marble monuments. The wretches refrained from firing at them, lest they should injure the statuary, but pricked them with their bayonets till they compelled them to drop down, and then murdered them at their feet. A pack of wolves could not have been more merciless. The populace, now rioting in their resistless power, with no law and no authority to restrain them, gave loose rein to vengeance, and, having glutted themselves with blood, proceeded to sack the palace. Its magnificent furniture, and splendid mirrors, and costly paintings, were dashed to pieces and thrown from the windows, when the fragments were eagerly caught by those below and piled up for bonfires. Drunken wretches staggered through all the most private apartments, threw themselves, with blood-soaked boots, upon the bed of the queen, ransacked her drawers, made themselves merry over her notes, and letters, and the various articles of her toilet, and polluted the very air of the palace by their vulgar and obscene ribaldry. As night approached, huge fires were built, upon which the dead bodies of the massacred Royalists were thrown, and all were consumed.
The king dethroned.
The royal family removed to the Feuillants.
During all the long hours of that dreadful day, and until two o'clock the ensuing night, the royal family remained, almost without a change of posture, in the narrow seat which had served them for an asylum. Who can measure the amount of their endurance during these fifteen hours of woe? An act was passed, during this time, in obedience to the demands of the mob, dethroning the king. The hour of midnight had now come and gone, and still the royal sufferers were in their comfortless imprisonment, half dead with excitement and exhaustion. The young dauphin had fallen asleep in his mother's arms. Madame Elizabeth and the princess, entirely unnerved, were sobbing with uncontrollable grief. The royal family were then transferred, for the remainder of the night, to some deserted and unfurnished rooms in the old monastery of the Feuillants. Some beds and mattresses were hastily collected, and a few coarse chairs for their accommodation. As soon as they had entered these cheerless rooms, and were alone, the king prostrated himself upon his knees, with his family clinging around him, and gave utterance to the prayer, "Thy trials, O God! are dreadful. Give us courage to bear them. We adore the hand which chastens, as that which has so often blessed us. Have mercy on those who have died fighting in our defense."
Bitter sufferings of the royal family.