“He has halted and harangued so often on the march; spent nine hours on four leagues of road. At Montreuil, close on Versailles, the whole host had to pause, and, with uplifted right hand in the murk of night, to these pouring skies, swear solemnly to respect the king’s dwelling, to be faithful to king and National Assembly. Rage is driven down out of sight by the laggard march; the thirst of vengeance slaked in weariness and soaking clothes. Flandre is again drawn out under arms; but Flandre grown so patriotic, now needs no ‘exterminating.’ The wayworn battalions halt in the Avenue; they have, for the present, no wish so pressing as that of shelter and rest.
“Anxious sits President Mounier; anxious the Château. There is a message coming from the Château, that M. Mounier would please to return thither with a fresh deputation swiftly, and so at least unite our two anxieties. Anxious Mounier does of himself send, meanwhile, to appraise the general that his Majesty has been so gracious as to grant us the acceptance pure and simple. The general, with a small advance column, makes answer in passing, speaks vaguely some smooth words to the National President, glances only with the eye at that so mixtiform National Assembly, then fares forward towards the Château. There are with him two Paris Municipals; they were chosen from the three hundred for that errand. He gets admittance through the locked and padlocked gates, through sentries and ushers, to the royal halls.
“The court, male and female, crowds on his passage to read their doom on his face, which exhibits, say historians, a ‘mixture of sorrow, of fervor and valor,’ singular to behold. The king, with Monsieur, with ministers and marshals, is waiting to receive him. He ‘is come,’ in his highflown chivalrous way, ‘to offer his head for the safety of his Majesty’s.’ The two Municipals state the wish of Paris; four things of quite pacific tenor. First, that the honor of guarding his sacred person be conferred on patriot National Guards, say the Centre Grenadiers, who as Gardes Françaises were wont to have that privilege. Second, that provisions be got if possible. Third, that the prisons, all crowded with political delinquents, may have judges sent them. Fourth, that it would please his Majesty to come and live in Paris. To all which four wishes, except the fourth, his Majesty answers readily Yes; or indeed may almost say that he has already answered it. To the fourth he can answer only Yes or No, would so gladly answer Yes and No! But in any case, are not their dispositions, thank Heaven, so entirely pacific? There is time for deliberation. The brunt of the danger seems past.
“La Fayette and D’Estaing settle the watches; Centre Grenadiers are to take the guard-room, they of old occupied as Gardes Françaises; for indeed the Gardes-de-Corps, its late ill-advised occupants, are gone mostly to Rambouillet. That is the order of this night; sufficient for the night is the evil thereof. Whereupon La Fayette and the two Municipals, with highflown chivalry take their leave.
“So brief has the interview been, Mounier and his deputation were not yet got up. So brief and satisfactory, a stone is rolled from every heart. The fair palace dames publicly declare that this La Fayette, detestable though he be, is their saviour for once. Even the ancient vinaigrous Tantes admit it; the king’s aunts, ancient Graille and Sisterhood, known to us of old. Queen Marie Antoinette has been heard often to say the like.
“Towards three in the morning all things are settled; the watches set, the Centre Grenadiers put into their old guard-room, and harangued; the Swiss and few remaining body-guard harangued. The wayworn Paris battalions, consigned to the hospitality of Versailles, lie dormant in spare beds, spare barracks, coffee-houses, empty churches.
“The troublous day has brawled itself to rest; no lives yet lost but that of one war-horse. Insurrectionary Chaos lies slumbering round the palace like ocean round a diving-bell,—no crevice yet disclosing itself. Deep sleep has fallen promiscuously on the high and on the low, suspending most things, even wrath and famine. Darkness covers the earth. But, far on the northeast, Paris flings up her great yellow gleam far into the wet, black night. For all is illuminated there, as in the old July nights; the streets deserted, for alarm of war; the municipals all wakeful; patrols hailing with their hoarse Who goes?
“La Fayette, in the Hôtel[Hôtel] de Nôailles, not far from the Château, having now finished haranguing, sits with his officers, consulting. At five o’clock the unanimous best counsel is, that a man so tossed and toiled for twenty-four hours and more, fling himself on a bed and seek some rest....
“The dull dawn of a new morning, drizzly and chill, had but broken over Versailles. Rascality is in the Grand Court.... Barricading serves not; fly fast, ye body-guards: rabid Insurrection, like the hell-bound chase, uproaring at your heels.... ‘Save the Queen!’ Tremble not, women, but haste, for, lo! another voice shouts far through the outermost door, ‘Save the Queen!’ It is brave Miomandre’s voice that shouts this second warning. He has stormed across imminent death to do it; fronts imminent death, having done it....
“Trembling maids-of-honor hastily wrap the queen, not in robes of state. She flies for her life across the Œil-de-Bœuf, against the main door of which, too, Insurrection batters. She is in the king’s apartment, in the king’s arms; she clasps her children amid a faithful few. The imperial-hearted bursts into mother’s tears: ‘O my friends, save me and my children’ (O mes amis, sauvez-moi et mes enfants!). The battering of insurrectionary axes clangs audible across the Œil-de-Bœuf. What an hour!...