At midnight, on the 9th of August, the dismal sound of the tocsin was heard. From steeple to steeple the boding tones floated through the dark air. A thousand drums beat the alarm at the appointed rendezvous, and the booming of guns shook the city. In an hour all Paris was in tumult. The clatter of iron hoofs, the rumbling of heavy artillery, the tramp of disciplined battalions, and the rush and the clamor of a phrensied mob, presented the most appalling scene of tumult and terror. A city of a million and a half of inhabitants was in convulsions. The friends of the king hurried to the palace, announcing with pale lips that the terrible hour had come. The event needed no announcement, for the whole city was instantly trembling beneath earthquake throes. The king, the queen, the two children, and Madame Elizabeth had assembled tremblingly in one of the rooms of the palace, as lambs huddle together when wolves are howling round the fold. Marie Antoinette was imperially brave, but she could not in that hour look upon her helpless son and daughter and not feel her maternal heart sink within her. Louis XVI. had the endurance of a martyr, but he could not, unmoved, contemplate the woes of his family.
The friends of the king speedily rallied, and brought up all their forces for his defense. The apartments of the palace were filled with Royalist gentlemen armed with swords, pistols, and even with shovels and tongs. Nine hundred Swiss guards, upon whom it was thought reliance could be reposed, were placed on the stairs, in the halls, and the large saloons. Six or eight hundred mounted dragoons were in one of the court-yards. Several battalions of the National Guard, who were most friendly to the king, were stationed in the garden with twelve pieces of artillery.[347] The defenders of the palace amounted in all to about four or five thousand men. But many of these were very lukewarm in their loyalty, and might at any moment be expected to fraternize with the populace.[348]
Pétion, the mayor, was sent for. He came, and after an awkward interview retired, leaving Mandat, who was general-in-chief of the National Guard, commander of the troops at the Tuileries. It was a sultry night. Every window at the Tuileries was thrown open, and the inmates listened anxiously to the uproar which rose from every part of the city. The queen and Madame Elizabeth ascended to a balcony opening from one of the highest stories of the palace. The night was calm and beautiful, the moon brilliant in the west, and Orion and the Pleiades shining serenely in the east.[349] There the queen and the princess stood for some time, trembling and in silence as the peal of bells, the clangor of drums, the rumbling of artillery wheels, and the shouts of the advancing bands, filled the air. From every direction, the east, the west, the north and the south, the portentous booming of the tocsin was heard, and infuriated insurgents, in numbers which could not be counted, through all the streets and avenues, were pouring toward the palace. The bridges crossing the river echoed with their tread, while the blaze of bonfires and the gleam of torches added to the appalling sublimities of the scene.[350]
The queen broke the silence. Pointing to the moon she said, "Before that moon returns again, either the allies will be here and we shall be rescued, or I shall be no more. But let us descend to the king."
The spectacle seemed but to have aroused the energies of Marie Antoinette. The spirit of her imperial mother glowed in her bosom.[351] Her cheeks were pale as death, her lips were compressed, her eyes flashed fire, and, as she returned to the room where her husband stood bewildered and submissive to his lot, she approached a grenadier, drew a pistol from his belt, and, presenting it to her husband, said,
"Now, sire! now is the time to show yourself a king."
But Louis XVI. was a quiet, patient, enduring man, with nothing imperial in his nature. With the most imperturbable meekness he took the pistol and handed it back to the grenadier. The mayor, Pétion, an active member of the Jacobin Club, had manifested no disposition to render effectual aid in the defense of the palace. But lest it should seem that he was heading the mob, he had reluctantly signed an order, as he left the Tuileries, authorizing the employment of force to repel force.
The insurgents had organized an insurrectional committee at the Hôtel de Ville, and immediately sent a summons for Mandat to present himself before them. Mandat, misinformed, understood that the summons came from the municipal government, and, as in duty bound, promptly obeyed. He had hardly left the palace ere word was brought back to the king that he had been assassinated by the mob. There was no longer any leader at the palace; no one to organize the defense; no one to issue commands. The soldiers in the court of the Tuileries and in the Garden were looking listlessly about and bandying jokes with the mob who were crowding against the iron railing.[352]
It was, however, now decided that the king should descend into the courts of the Carrousel, in the rear of the palace, and into the Garden, in front, to review the troops and ascertain the spirit with which they were animated.