determined them to the most obstinate resistance against invaders, who were confident enough to treat them as a conquered people, even before a skirmish had been fought. The imprudence of the allied general recoiled on the unfortunate Louis, on whose account he used this menacing language. Men began to consider his cause as identified with that of the invaders, of course as standing in diametrical opposition to that of the country; and these opinions spread generally among the citizens of Paris. To animate the citizens to their defence, the Assembly declared, that the country was in danger; and in order that the annunciation might be more impressive, cannon were hourly discharged from the hospital of the Invalids-bands of military music traversed the streets-bodies of men were drawn together hastily, as if the enemy were at the gates—and all the hurried and hasty movements of the constituted authorities seemed to announce, that the invaders were within a day's march of Paris.1

These distracting and alarming movements, with the sentiments of fear and anxiety which they were qualified to inspire, aggravated the unpopularity of Louis, in whose cause his brothers and his allies were now threatening the metropolis of France. From these concurring circumstances the public voice was indeed so strongly against the cause of monarchy, that the Girondists ventured by their organ, Vergniaud, to accuse the King in the Assembly of holding intelligence with the enemy, or

' [Thiers, t. ii. p. 145.]

1

at least of omitting sufficient defensive preparations, and proposed in express terms that they should proceed to declare his forfeiture. The orator, however, did not press this motion, willing, doubtless, that the power of carrying through and enforcing such a decree should be completely ascertained, which could only be after a mortal struggle with the last defenders of the Crown; but when a motion like this could be made and seconded, it showed plainly how little respect was preserved for the King in the Assembly at large. For this struggle all parties were arranging their forces, and it became every hour more evident, that the capital was speedily to be the scene of some dreadful event.

1 [Lacretelle, t. ix. p. 172.]

CHAPTER IX.

The Day of the Tenth of August.—Tocsin sounded early in the Morning.-Swiss Guards, and relics of the Royal Party, repair to the Tuileries.-Mandat assassinated.— Dejection of Louis, and energy of the Queen.- King's Ministers appear at the Bar of the Assembly, stating the peril of the Royal Family, and requesting a Deputation might be sent to the Palace.-Assembly pass to the Order of the Day.-Louis and his Family repair to the Assembly.- Conflict at the Tuileries.-Swiss ordered to repair to the King's Person-and are many of them shot and dispersed on their way to the Assembly.-At the close of the Day almost all of them are massacred.-Royal Family spend the Night in the Convent of the Feuillans.

THE King had, since the insurrection of the 20th of June, which displayed how much he was at the mercy of his enemies, renounced almost all thoughts of safety or escape. Henry IV. would have called for his arms-Louis XVI. demanded his confessor. "I have no longer any thing to do with earth," he said; "I must turn all my thoughts on Heaven." Some vain efforts were made to bribe the leaders of the Jacobins, who took the money, and pursued, as might have been expected, their Own course with equal rigour. The motion for the declaration of the King's forfeiture1 still lin1 ["The question of abdication was discussed with a degree of frenzy. Such of the deputies as opposed the motion were

gered in the Convention, its fate depending upon the coming crisis. At length the fatal Tenth of August approached, being the day which, after repeated adjournments, had been fixed by the Girondists and their rivals for the final rising.

The King was apprised of their intention, and had hastily recalled from their barracks at CourbeVoie about a thousand Swiss guards, upon whose fidelity he could depend. The formidable discipline and steady demeanour of these gallant mountaineers, might have recalled the description given by historians, of the entrance of their predecessors into Paris under similar circumstances, the day before the affair of the Barricades, in the reign of Henry II. But the present moment was too anxious to admit of reflections upon past history.

Early on the morning of the 10th of August, the tocsin rung out its alarm peal over the terrified city of Paris, and announced that the long-menaced insurrection was at length on foot. In many parishes the Constitutional party resisted those who came to sound this awful signal; but the wellprepared Jacobins were found every where victorious, and the prolonged mournful sound was soon tolled out from every steeple in the metropolis.2

abused, ill-treated, and surrounded by assassins. They had a battle to fight at every step they took; and at length they did not dare to sleep in their houses."-MONTJOIE.]

Thus imitated by the dramatist Lee, from the historian Davila :

"Have you not heard-the King, preventing day,
Received the guards within the city gates;

The jolly Swisses marching to their pipes,

The crowd stood gaping heedless and amazed,
Shrunk to their shops, and left the passage free."

[Mad. de Staël, t. ii., p. 59.]

To this melancholy music the contending parties arranged their forces for attack and defence, upon a day which was doomed to be decisive.

The Swiss guards got under arms, and repaired to their posts in and around the palace. About four hundred grenadiers of the loyal section of Filles Saint Thomas, joined by several from that of Les Petits Pères, in whom all confidence could justly be reposed, were posted in the interior of the palace, and associated with the Swiss for its defence. The relics of the Royalist party, undismayed at the events of the 28th of February in the year preceding,' had repaired to the palace on the first signal given by the tocsin. Joined to the domestic attendants of the royal family, they might amount to about four hundred persons. Nothing can more strongly mark the unprepared state of the court, than that there were neither muskets nor bayonets for suitably arming these volunteers, nor any supply of ammunition, save what the Swiss and national grenadiers had in their pouches. The appearance also of this little troop tended to inspire dismay rather than confidence. The chivalrous cry of Entrance for the Noblesse of France," was the signal for their filing into the presence of the royal family. Alas! instead of the thousand nobles whose swords used to gleam around their monarch at such a crisis, there entered but veteran officers of rank, whose strength, though not their spirit, was consumed by years, mixed with boys scarce beyond the age of children, and with men

When they were, in similar circumstances, maltreated by the national guard. See ante, p. 226.