by Eugène Sue
About two o’clock in the morning the Representatives, to the number of about two hundred, decided to convene the session. The tocsin, accompanied by the distant din of the drums beating the assembly or the forward march, was still to be heard. In the absence of the president of the Assembly, Citizen Pastoret took the chair, and the secretaries assumed their places at the table.
Hardly had the session been opened when the delegates of the Lombards Section appeared. The leader of the deputation, wearing a red cap and carrying his gun, strode forward and cried:
“Citizen Representatives, the court is betraying the people! The Lombards Section has joined the insurrection, and at break of day will do its duty in the attack on the Tuileries. We go to meet our brothers.”
“The people should respect the law and the Constitution,” was the answer of Pastoret.
At these words of Citizen Pastoret, loud murmurs arose from the extreme Left. Pastoret yielded the chair to Morlot, the president, who had come in; and at the same time there appeared at the bar of the Assembly three officers of the old Municipal Council.
“You have the floor,” said the president to them.
Pale and quavering one of the officers spoke: “The alarm bell sounds in Paris! The ferment is at its height! Everywhere the Sections are gathering in arms. Several of our colleagues, sent to the City Hall to learn how matters stood, have been arrested. The insurgents are preparing to march at daybreak upon the Tuileries.”
“An act of high justice!” cried one of the members of the Left. “Within the Tuileries’ walls resides the bitterest enemy of the public good! He must be annihilated by the sovereign people!”
The words were greeted with enthusiastic applause from the galleries; in the midst of which a hussar hurriedly approached the chair and delivered a letter to the president. The latter read it, and touched his bell as a signal for silence. When the cries of the gallery had partially subsided, he said:
“Gentlemen, I am advised by the police officials that every minute messengers come from the Sections asking for Monsieur Petion at the City Hall, assuring them that the rumor has spread that he went to-night to the palace, and that he runs great danger of death; it is feared the royalists may assassinate him.”
At these words the uneasiness and agitation of the galleries was extreme. The patriotism, the courage of Petion, his boundless devotion to the Revolution, had made him dear to the people.
At this moment Petion himself entered the hall and advanced to the bar. Thus reassured on the score of the dangers run at the Tuileries by the Mayor of Paris, the galleries broke into loud acclamations.
“Monsieur Petion,” the president said, “the Assembly has been keenly anxious for your safety. It would be pleased to receive your account of the dangers to which it is said you were exposed.”
Petion answered, calm and grave: “Occupied solely with public affairs, I quickly forget what affects my own person. It is true that to-night, on my arrival at the palace, I was quite illy greeted. Swords leaped from their scabbards, and I heard threats uttered against me. These did not disconcert me—”
The first rays of the sun were beginning to dim the lamps which lighted the hall; nearly all the Representatives of the people were assembled in their accustomed places. The Right seemed thrown into consternation by Petion’s calmness.
Of a sudden a deputy came tumbling into the hall, rushed to his seat on the Right, and, his features distorted, his clothes in disorder, he cried in a voice trembling with emotion:
“The Tuileries will be attacked! The Sections, in arms, hold all the approaches to the palace! Whole companies of the National Guard, notably the cannoniers, are fraternizing with the Sections. The cannon are trained upon the palace. The troops who defend it are decided on a desperate struggle. Blood will flow, the lives of the King and his family are in danger!”
The Assembly maintained a solemn silence. One deputy on the Right arose, and with a trembling voice said: “I ask that a committee be appointed this instant to go and invite the King and his family to come and place themselves in the heart of the Assembly, to be under our protection.”
“There is no necessity for your motion,” answered the president; “the Constitution leaves the King the power of placing himself in the heart of the Assembly whenever he finds it convenient.”
A justice of the peace, in a condition of extreme agitation, presented himself at the bar. “Monsieur President,” he exclaimed, “a quarter of an hour ago I was in the courtyard of the Tuileries. I witnessed grave things, which may enlighten the Assembly on the situation at the palace, at this moment when a terrible struggle is about to break out, which may mark the foundering of the monarchy.”
“Speak, sir,” replied the president.
“This morning at six o’clock, the King descended into the courtyard of the Tuileries to review the troops. The Queen accompanied him; behind them went a group of gentlemen in civilian dress, armed some with swords, some with hunting-knives, others with carbines, or blunderbusses. This unaccustomed escort first of all produced a very bad impression upon the National Guard; then, as firm and decisive as was the Queen’s countenance, that of the King was undecided, embarrassed, I would even say sour. He seemed to be still half asleep. Some cries, nevertheless, of ‘Long live the King!’ were heard from some of the companies, but the battalions from Red-Cross and all the cannoniers cried ‘Long live the Nation!’ I even heard some cries of ‘Down with Veto!’ ‘Down with the traitor!’ The King turned pale, made a gesture of wrath, and returned brusquely into the palace. The Queen, left in the courtyard, approached the staffs of the battalions of Ill-Counsel and Arcis which had just arrived, and said to them, indicating the group of gentlemen who attended her, ‘These gentlemen are our best friends. They follow us at the moment of danger. They will show the National Guard how one dies for his King—’”
The justice was interrupted, his voice was drowned in the great tumult which arose outside, in the courtyard of the Riding Academy. Nearer and nearer drew the clamors. Many of the deputies rose to their feet; some climbed down precipitately from their benches, crying in affright, “The people are invading the Assembly!” “Keep your places!” called out several of their colleagues to those who had quitted their seats, “Let us know how to die, if die we must, at our posts.” The agitation waxed its greatest in the hall and the galleries. In vain the president rang his bell, begging his colleagues to return to their benches and be seated. His exhortations falling unheeded, he rose and put on his hat, as a sign that the session was closed. The cries without came closer and closer. Several ushers burst in. One of them, leaping up the steps to the chair, spoke a few words to the president. The latter clasped his hands with a gesture of extreme surprise. Then he uncovered again, and began again to ring his bell vigorously, while the other ushers, going from group to group, or mounting on the benches, spread among the Representatives the news which seemed to produce so extraordinary a sensation. Little by little calm was established. The president was able to make himself heard, and said in a voice of emotion:
“Gentlemen, the King and his family have left the palace. They throw themselves upon the National Assembly!”
Another member of the old Municipal Council presented himself at the bar, saying:
“Monsieur President, the King asks leave to come to you accompanied by his guard, which will watch over him, and over the National Assembly.”
At this proposition a part of the Center, the Left, the extreme Left and the galleries, all gave vent to their indignation. On all sides people cried “No! No! The Assembly is under the safekeeping of the people! No bayonets here! Down with the pretorians! Long live the Nation! Down with the King!”
Ringing his bell the president called out loudly: “I propose the following resolution: The National Assembly, considering that it needs no other guard than the love of the people, charges its committee-men to watch over the tranquility within its precincts, and proceeds to the order of business.”
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br /> A thunder of applause overwhelmed the closing words of this motion, which was adopted with an immense majority. The municipal officer took his leave to report to the King the decision of the National Assembly, when almost immediately another usher rushed in, crying:
“The King and Queen ask to be introduced to the care of the Assembly.”
So, indeed, it was. The King was garbed in a suit of violet silk, which disclosed his blue sash worn crosswise; he wore a hat of the National Guard, for which he had exchanged his bonnet with the white plume. His puffy features, empurpled with heat and emotion, and dripping perspiration, expressed a mixture of fear and crafty irritation. His obesity made his gait heavy and ungainly. Behind him advanced Marie Antoinette, giving her arm to Count Dubouchage, Minister of Marine, and leading the Dauphin by the hand. Trembling and terrified, the child pressed close to his mother, who, pale and haughty, and more enraged than frightened, trod with a firm step, casting about her looks of disdain. She preceded the King’s sister, Madam Elizabeth, who leaned on the arm of Bigot of St. Croix, Minister of Foreign Affairs. The lady sustained herself with difficulty, and hid her face, bathed with tears, in her handkerchief. Then in order followed the Marchioness of Tourzel, the governess of the King’s children, on the arm of Major Hervilly, one of the King’s officers; and finally, behind her, the beautiful Princess Lamballe, the intimate friend of the Queen, accompanied by another seigneur of the court.
Profound was the silence that fell over the Assembly. Louis, who so far had alone kept his hat on, now removed his National Guardsman’s head-gear and said in a snappish voice that revealed at once fear and surly anger:
“I have come here to escape a great crime. I think I am safe among you, gentlemen?”
“You may count, Sire, on the firmness of the National Assembly. Its members have sworn to die in the defense of the rights of the people and the authorities recognized by the Constitution.”
Representative Bazire rose to speak: “I propose that Louis XVI and his family be invited to occupy the logotachygraphes’ room, which is within the Assembly, but without the precincts of its deliberations.”
The proposal was adopted. The royal family and its suite left the hall in order to reach the reporters’ booth, the entry to which was in one of the corridors. Soon the King and his followers reappeared in the room assigned to them, which was separated from the chamber of the Assembly by an iron grating, Louis XVI being placed at the right, the Queen at the left, the Dauphin between them; and behind these three the other persons of the royal suite. No sooner had the King seated himself than he received from the hands of Major Hervilly some bread, a plate holding a fowl, a knife and a fork. Placing the plate on his knees, Louis commenced to dissect the pullet and devour it with avidity, obedient to the mandates of that formidable appetite peculiar to the house of Bourbon.
Outside, in the deputies’ chamber, Roederer, the legal attorney of the Commune, had appeared at the bar, and, at the invitation of the president, was speaking:
“I am come, gentlemen, to inform you of what is going on in Paris. I was with the King this morning, up till the time when Carousel Place and the surrounding streets were invaded by the Sections in arms and dragging their cannon. Seeing a large number of the National Guard fraternizing with the people, I counselled the King and the royal family to abandon the palace and place themselves under the protection of the National Assembly. The people know that the King is here. The attack on the Tuileries being now objectless, it is to be hoped that it will not be entered upon, and that there will be no shedding of blood to be deplored.”
Hardly had Roederer pronounced the words when the detonation of an artillery discharge shook the windowpanes of the chamber. The fight at the Tuileries was on! The first discharge was answered by a rapid fire of musketry, broken every now and again by the thunder of a new cannonade. Stupor seized the Assembly and the galleries. It was a fresh royalist act of treason.
The almost incessant boom of artillery and rattle of musketry bore evidence to the warmth of the engagement. It is impossible to picture the anxiety, the heaving agitation of the chamber and the people in the hall. Among the latter, exasperation reached the last pitch. They broke into threats, into curses against Veto, against the Austrian woman. “Down with the King!” “Down with the Queen!” rang the cry.
Of a sudden the cannonade burst into still wilder fury. The reverberations of the artillery fire were so violent that several windows in the hall were shivered to bits. But soon the volleys slackened; they became less and less lively and frequent; then one heard only gunshots, rare, desultory, far between; and then one heard — nothing.
Victory, evidently, not a suspension of hostilities, had terminated the battle. Clearly, also, the victory had been a decisive one. But who were the conquerors, the inhabitants of the Sections, or the Swiss regiments? Terrible alternative! Under the spell of this incertitude the tumult, at its height some minutes before, fell of itself. A poignant load weighed upon every heart, choked every voice, paralyzed every movement; a mournful silence held sway over the house. If the insurrection were victorious, it was done for Louis XVI and the monarchy! Marie Antoinette by her attitude and facial expression revealed her belief — she was confident the royal troops had won the day.
The uncertainty was not long in being dispelled. A deputation of members of the new Commune of Paris presented itself at the bar of the Assembly. It was attended by citizens bearing a banner with the device “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.”
The head of the deputation spoke:
“Citizens, we are the victors! After prodigies of heroism, the people have taken the Tuileries! Long live the Nation!”
The majority of the Representatives rose in their seats, and all repeated with enthusiasm:
“Long live the Nation!”
The joy, the patriotic exaltation of the galleries bordered on delirium. The session previously so agitated was now resumed amid relative calm. All doubt as to the triumph of the people being laid, the deputies went back to their places; the president tapped his bell, and said:
“I beg the members of the Assembly, as well as the public in the galleries, to refrain from further interruption. The graver the circumstances, all the more should we preserve calmness and dignity in our deliberations. The delegate of the Commune has the floor.”
“Citizen legislators,” resumed the latter, “in the name of the victorious people, we have come to demand of you the deposition of Louis Capet.” All eyes were turned towards the booth where Louis XVI sat with his face in his hands. “To-morrow we shall bring to the Assembly the records of this memorable day of the tenth of August, 1792. This record should be sent to the forty-four thousand municipalities of France, that it may arouse their national pride!” (Applause.) “We announce to you that Petion, Manuel and Danton are still our colleagues in the Commune. We have named Citizen Santerre commander of the armed force of Paris.”
Seeing the delegate was through, President Morlot announced to the Assembly: “During the invasion of the Tuileries by the people, a box of jewels was found in the Queen’s apartment. A citizen, wounded in the attack, has just thrown it on the table.”
This lofty act, so free from all thought of pillage or petty personal gain, stirred the admiration of the Assembly, and prepared the way for others of similar stamp. “I propose,” said Bazire, rising, “that the Assembly decree that the Swiss citizens and all other foreigners residing in Paris are placed in the safekeeping of the law and in the hospitality of the French people!”
The motion was carried unanimously, amidst the echoing applause of the galleries.
Several of the combatants from the Tuileries, covered with dust, now appeared at the bar. One of these, in the uniform of the National Guard, his forehead bound in a bloody bandage, held in one hand his gun, and with the other dragged after him a Swiss soldier, pale and overcome with terror. The unhappy fellow’s red uniform was in ribbons; he seemed ready to swoon. The wounded citizen, leaning on
his weapon, drew close to the bar and said with emotion:
“Legislators, we come to express to you our indignation! Long has a perfidious court trifled with the French people. To-day it has drawn our blood. We penetrated the palace only over the corpses of our massacred brothers. We have taken prisoner several Swiss soldiers, wretched instruments of tyranny! Some of them have thrown down their arms. As to us, we shall use toward them only the arms of generosity; we shall treat them as brothers.”
At ten o’clock that evening, when the illumination of the lamps had long replaced the light of day, the National Assembly, having been in continuous session since the night of August 9, took a recess of an hour.
At eleven o’clock, when the Assembly reconvened, the reporters’ lodge was still occupied by the royal family. Louis XVI was crushed. His flaccid lips, his fixed and sunken eyes, announced his complete mental prostration. Marie Antoinette, on the contrary, seemed to have preserved all the energy of her character. Her eyes were red and dry; but her glance, when she occasionally allowed it to travel about, bore still its look of hateful disdain and defiance.
The Dauphin slept on the knees of Madam Elizabeth, who bent her pale brow toward the child. Dames Tourzel and Lamballe were silent and dazed.
Almost as soon as the session was reopened, a citizen presented himself at the bar:
“Legislators, the Swiss soldiers arrested during the day have been placed, according to the orders of the Assembly, in the building of the Feuillants. They have been, like us, the victims of royalist treason; we must save them.”
From the gallery Mailhe called out: “I have just come from addressing the people. They are disposed to listen to the language of justice and humanity. I ask that the Swiss be admitted within these precincts, and that they be kept here till all danger to them has passed, and till they can be taken to a place of safety.”