The throng, passing by the left bank, had arrived at the Chamber of Deputies, and the formal sitting became a revolutionary one. At three o'clock the imperial dynasty was proclaimed as at an end, and a provisionary government installed. Henri Rochefort, the present editor of the "Intransingeant," was delivered from the prison of Sainte Pélagie and made a member of the government.
By this time the mob which had invaded the Place de la Concorde became menacing. The cry, "Aux Tuileries," first launched by the street gamins, soon became the slogan of the crowd. To say it was to do it; the great iron gates were closed, but in default of a protecting force of arms it was an easy matter to scale them.
Behind the curtained windows of the palace the empress witnessed the assault and murmured to her ladies-in-waiting: "It is then finished." She turned towards the Prince de Metternich and the Chevalier Nigra, and, in the voice of a suppliant, demanded: "Que me consillez vous?"
"You must leave at once, Madame; in a moment the palace will be invaded."
The empress became resigned and accompanied by Madame Le Breton, Metternich and Nigra started for the Pavilion de Flore, passing through the Galerie de Musée and the Galerie d'Apollon, finally leaving by the gate of the Louvre, which is opposite Saint Germain l'Auxerrois.
The empress was at last out of the palace, but not yet out of danger. A band of manifestants, making for the Hotel de Ville and shouting; "Vive la Republique," recognized the empress, but she mounted an empty fiacre with Madame Le Breton, and giving the driver the first address that entered her mind thus escaped further indignities, and perhaps danger. Finally she found a refuge with Doctor Evans, the American dentist living in the Avenue Malakoff, from whose house she left for England on the following day.
This is the Frenchman's point of view of one of the picturesque incidents of history. It disposes of the legend that the empress left the Tuileries in the carriage of Doctor Evans, but this cannot be helped, with due regard for the consensus of French opinion. Doctor Evans was a family friend, besides being the dentist who cared for the imperial teeth, and it is not going beyond the truth to state that the fortunate American acquired not a little of his vogue and wealth by his association with Napoleon III and his family.
By this time the populace had invaded the palace and cursed with indignities unmentionable the marble halls, and the furnishings in general, and pillaged such portable property as pleased the individual fancies of the spoilsmen.
After the signing of the Peace Treaty by the Bordeaux Assembly, which now represented the governmental head, and Thiers had become president, that worthy would do away with the cannon of which the National Guard still held possession in their garrison on the Butte of Montmartre. The orders which he sent forth came to be the signal for another outbreak on the part of the populace. On March 18 the Commune was proclaimed and Citoyen Dardelle, an old African hunter, was appointed military governor of the Tuileries. Whatever this individual's military qualifications may have been, he delivered himself to the enjoyment of a high and dissolute life in his luxurious apartments in the palace; a fact which was speedily made note of by the still restless populace.
The Citoyen Rousselle, a member of the Communal Government, had the idea of organizing a series of popular concerts in the gardens of the Tuileries for the profit of the wounded in the late friction.