The Countess of Charny; or, The Execution of King Louis XVI

"To go and surround the Assembly. We have twelve guns, but shall not use e'er a one if you do as we wish."

"What do you wish?"

"The dethronement of the king."

"This is a grave question, sir," observed Roederer.

"Very grave," replied Pitou, with his customary politeness.

"It calls for some debate."

"That is only fair," returned Ange. "It is going on ten o'clock, less the quarter," said he; "if we do not have an answer by ten as it strikes, we shall begin our striking, too."

"Meanwhile, I suppose you will let us shut the door?"

Pitou ordered his crowd back; and the door was closed; but through the momentarily open door the besiegers had caught a glimpse of the formidable preparations made to receive them.

As soon as the door was closed, Pitou's followers had a keen desire to keep on parleying.

Some were hoisted upon their comrades' shoulders, so that they could bestride the wall, where they began to chat with the National Guardsmen inside. These shook hands with them, and they were merry together as the quarter of an hour passed.

Then a man came from the palace with the word that they were to be let in.

The invaders believed that they had their request granted, and they flocked in as soon as the doors were opened, like men who had been kept waiting – all in a heap. They stuck their caps on their pikes and whooped "Hurrah for the nation!" – "Long live the National Guard!" – "The Swiss forever!"

The National Guard echoed the shout of the nation, but the Swiss kept a gloomy and sinister muteness.

The inrush only ceased when the intruders were up to the cannon muzzles, where they stopped to look around.

The main vestibule was crammed with Swiss, three deep; on each step was a rank, so that six could fire at once.

Some of the invaders, including Pitou, began to consider, although it was rather late to reflect.

But though seeing the danger, the mob did not think of running away; it tried to turn it by jesting with the soldiers. The Guards took the joking as it was made, but the Swiss looked glum, for something had happened five minutes before the insurrectionary column marched up.

In the quarrel between the Guards and the grenadiers over the insult to Mandat, the former had parted from the Royalist guards, and as they went off they said good-bye to the Swiss, whom they wanted to go away with them.

They said that they would receive in their own homes as brothers any of the Swiss who would come with them.

Two from the Waldenses – that is, French Swiss – replied to the appeal made in their own tongue, and took the French by the hand. At the same instant two shots were fired up at the palace windows, and bullets struck the deserters in the very arms of those who decoyed them away.

Excellent marksmen as chamois-hunters, the Swiss officers had nipped the mutiny thus in the bud. It is plain now why the other Swiss were mute.

The men who had rushed into the yard were such as always oddly run before all outbreaks. They were armed with new pikes and old fire-arms – that is, worse than unarmed.

The cannoniers had come over to their side, as well as the National Guards, and they wanted to induce the Switzers to do the same.

They did not notice that time was passing and that the quarter of an hour Pitou had given Roederer had doubled; it was now a quarter past ten. They were having a good time; why should they worry?

One tatterdemalion had not a sword or a pike, but a pruning-hook, and he said to his next neighbor:

"Suppose I were to fish for a Swiss?"

"Good idea! Try your luck," said the other.

So he hooked a Swiss by the belt and drew him toward him, the soldier resisting just enough to make out that he was dragged.

"I have got a bite," said the fisher for men.

"Then, haul him in, but go gently," said his mate.

The man with the hook drew softly indeed, and the guardsman was drawn out of the entrance into the yard, like a fish from the pond onto the bank. Up rose loud whoops and roars of laughter.

"Try for another," said the crowd.

The fisherman hooked another, and jerked him out like the first. And so it went on to the fourth and the fifth, and the whole regiment might have melted away but for the order, "Make ready – take aim!"

On seeing the muskets leveled with the regular sound and precise movement marking evolutions of regular troops, one of the assailants – there is always some crazy-head to give the signal for slaughter under such circumstances – fired a pistol at the palace windows.

During the short space separating "Make ready" and "Fire" in the command, Pitou guessed what was going to happen.

"Flat on your faces!" he shouted to his men; "down flat, or you are all dead men!"

Suiting the action to the word, he flung himself on the ground.

Before there was time for his advice to be generally followed, the word "Fire!" rang in the entrance-way, which was filled with a crashing noise and smoke, while a hail of lead was spit forth as from one huge blunderbuss.

The compact mass – for perhaps half the column had entered the yard – swayed like the wheat-field before the gust, then like the same cropped by the scythe, reeled and fell down. Hardly a third was left alive.

These few fled, passing under the fire from two lines of guns and the barracks firing at close range. The musketeers would have killed each other but for the thick screen of fugitives between.

This curtain was ripped in wide places; four hundred men were stretched on the ground pavement, three hundred slain outright.

The hundred, more or less badly injured, groaned and tried to rise, but falling, gave part of the field of corpses a movement like the ocean swell, frightful to behold.

But gradually all died out, and apart from a few obstinate fellows who persisted in living, all fell into immobility.

The fugitives scattered over the Carrousel Square, and flowed out on the water-side on one hand and on the street by the other, yelling, "Murder – help! we were drawn into a death-trap."

On the New Bridge, they fell in with the main body. The bulk was commanded by two men on horseback, closely attended by one on foot, who seemed to have a share in the command.

"Help, Citizen Santerre!" shouted the flyers, recognizing in one of the riders the big brewer of St. Antoine, by his colossal stature, for which his huge Flemish horse was but a pedestal in keeping; "help! they are slaughtering our brothers."

"Who are?" demanded the brewer-general.

"The Swiss – they shot us down while we were cheek by jowl with them, a-kissing them."

"What do you think of this?" asked Santerre of the second horseman.