In exitu Israel

by S. Baring-Gould

Fires were burning in the open square, and men and women were treading on one another to warm their hands and dry their clothes at the blaze. A hunchback on a tall horse was trotting up and down and haranguing the people. A very handsome man, with long black hair and beard, dressed in the costume of a Greek slave, with bare arms and legs and throat, gesticulated, put himself into postures, and recited scraps of poetry.

To understand what followed, certain particulars must be explained. The guard of the castle had been refused to Lafayette, and he had been given only the outer posts. Those of greater importance were confided to the Swiss and to the body-guard. These latter had received an order to retire, but they had been recalled when it was ascertained that their squadron had left Versailles, and were retained in the posts they had occupied the day before. During the 5th, all the iron gates of the Château had been shut and guarded by sentinels, so that the people had been unable to penetrate within the walls. It was otherwise on the morning of the 6th.

When the French guard had attended on the king, they had been charged with the custody of the railing in face of the grand court of entrance, and of the gates opening into the gardens. To facilitate their service, the gates of the Princes' court had been wont to be left open, so that they might pass through into the park to relieve the sentinels. When it was decided that the national guard should resume the posts formerly occupied by the French guard, the gates of the courts of the Ministers and of the Princes were opened as of old.

About half-past five the women, who had been sleeping in the barrack adjoining the Place d'Armes, woke up and issued forth into the square. Finding the gate into the grand court of entrance open, they passed through it, without the sentry of the national guard refusing them admission. On the left was the gate into the court of the Princes, guarded by two soldiers of the same militia corps; the women, probably more from curiosity than any other reason, penetrated into this court, and finding that it gave access to the park, ran out upon the terrace to admire the gardens and the ponds full of statuary.

These explorers were speedily followed by other women, and by the rabble of armed men; and the terrace was soon crowded with them, talking noisily beneath the queen's windows.

Their voices awoke the queen, who rang the bell for her lady-in-waiting, Madame Thibault. This woman looked out of the window, and told her majesty that the noise arose from a number of women who, having been unable to find shelter during the night, were walking about. This reply satisfied the queen, and Madame Thibault returned to her bed.

By this time the grand court was full of the rabble which began to arrive from all sides, and poured through the gates armed with cutlasses, pistols, guns, and pikes, vowing vengeance against the body-guard and the queen.

Major d'Aguesseau at once sent guards into the passage opening out of the court of the Princes into the Cour Royale. But, too few to withstand such a mass of people, they were driven back, and a horde of ruffians precipitated themselves into the Cour Royale, uttering horrible threats and cries of rage. One detachment rushed towards the vestibule leading to the apartments of the queen and the princesses; another flung itself upon the sentinel at the gate of the court, disarmed him, threw him down, and stabbed him with their pikes and sabres. The fellow in the costume of a Greek slave—his name was Jourdain, and he was an artist's model—rushed upon the guard, armed with a hatchet, and, jumping on his breast, chopped at his neck till the head came off and rolled among the feet of the by-standers.

Whilst this horrible scene was being transacted in the court, the band of ruffians who had run to the vestibule, found the door shut in their faces by the sentinels. They then directed their attack upon the marble staircase, which was defended by Corporal Deschwanden and another Swiss. Foremost among them was a militiaman of the guard of Versailles, a diminutive locksmith, bald-headed, with small sunken eyes, and his hands chapped and begrimed. The rioters assailed the Swiss, and by dint of numbers forced them up several steps. The corporal was disarmed and maltreated. The little locksmith, seeing him deprived of his gun and sword, sprang vindictively at him and struck him in the breast with a long knife he held in his hand; then leaving him, hanging over the balustrade bleeding and faint, he ran up the steps screaming and flourishing his knife, and the crowd poured after him to the landing, where several guards were prepared to defend the door into the hall of the king. One of the guards, Miomandre, descended a few steps, and asked the rabble, 'What, my friends! do you love the king, and seek to disturb him in his palace?'

Without answering him, the locksmith seized him by the belt, others caught him by the hair, and they would have flung him down the stairs to the ruffians below, had not his companions rescued him. Too few in number to oppose the crowd, the guard retired into the hall and shut and locked the door. Then the rioters endeavoured to break it open, and succeeded in staving in one of the panels. The soldiers blocked the hole with a wooden chest and kept them out.