The Duc de Raguse proposed a suspension of hostilities: it took place at some points and was not carried out at others. The marshal had sent for one of the two Swiss battalions posted at the Louvres. They dispatched to him the battalion which lined the colonnade. The Parisians, seeing the colonnade deserted, came up to the walls and entered by the masked doors which lead from the Jardin de l'Infante to the interior; they made for the windows and opened fire on the battalion standing in the court-yard. Under the terror of the memory of the 10th of August, the Swiss rushed from the Palace and hurled themselves into their battalion, which was posted opposite the Parisian outposts; here, however, the suspension of hostilities was being observed. The mob, which from the Louvre had reached the gallery of the Museum, began to fire from the midst of the master-pieces on the Lancers drawn up in the Carrousel. The Parisian posts, carried away by this example, broke off the suspension of hostilities. Flung headlong under the Arc de Triomphe, the Swiss drove the Lancers to the porch of the Pavillon de l'Horloge and debouched in confusion into the garden of the Tuileries. Young Farcy[235] met his death in this scuffle: his name is written up at the corner of the café where he fell; a beet-factory stands at Thermopylae to-day. The Swiss had three or four men killed or wounded: this small loss was changed into a frightful butchery.
The mob entered the Tuileries, with Messieurs Thomas[236], Bastide[237] and Guinard[238], by the Pont-Royal gate. A tricolour flag was planted on the Pavillon de l'Horloge, as in the time of Bonaparte, apparently in remembrance of liberty. Furniture was broken up, pictures slashed with sword-cuts; in a cupboard they found the King's hunting journal, with particulars of his fine exploits against the partridges: an old custom of the gamekeepers of the Monarchy. They put a corpse on the empty throne, in the Throne Room: that would be a formidable thing, if the French of to-day were not always playing at drama. The artillery museum, at Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, was pillaged, and the centuries passed down the river, under the helmet of Godfrey of Bouillon and with the lance of Francis I.
Then the Duc de Raguse left the Staff Office, leaving 120,000 francs in bags behind him. He went through the Rue de Rivoli and entered the Tuileries Gardens. He gave the order for the troops to retire, first to the Champs Élysées, and next to the Étoile. It was believed that peace was made, that the Dauphin was coming; some carriages from the Royal Mews and a baggage-wagon were seen to cross the Place Louis XV.: it was the ministers going after their works.
On arriving at the Étoile, Marmont received a letter: it informed him that the King had given M. le Dauphin the command-in-chief of the troops, and that he, the marshal, would serve under his orders.
A company of the 3rd Guards had been forgotten in the house of a hatter in the Rue de Rohan; after a long resistance the house was carried. Captain Meunier, wounded in three places, jumped from a third-floor window, fell on a roof below, and was taken to the Hôpital du Grand-Caillou: he has survived. The Caserne Babylone, attacked between twelve and one in the day by three pupils of the Polytechnic School, Vaneau, Lacroix and Ouvrier, was guarded only by a depot of Swiss recruits numbering about a hundred men; Major Dufay, an officer of French descent, was in command: he had served with us for thirty years; he had been an actor in the great exploits of the Republic and the Empire. He was called upon to surrender, refused all conditions, and locked himself up in his barrack. Young Vaneau was killed. Some firemen set fire to the barrack-door, which fell in pieces; at once Major Dufay issued through this mouth of flame, followed by his highlanders, with fixed bayonets. He fell, struck by the musket-shot of a neighbouring publican: his death saved his Swiss recruits; they joined the different corps to which they belonged.
*
M. le Duc de Mortemart[239] arrived at Saint-Cloud on Wednesday the 28th, at ten o'clock in the evening, to take up his service as Captain of the Hundred Swiss: he was not able to speak to the King till the next day. At eleven o'clock, on the 29th, he made a few efforts to induce Charles X. to recall the Ordinances; the King said to him:
"I do not want to climb into the cart, like my brother; I will not go back by a foot."
A few minutes later, he was to go back by a kingdom!
Charles X. and his ministers.