ink it cowardly
to preserve my life by such means."

Marie Antoinette was grave and tranquil in her heroism. There was
nothing affected about her, nothing theatrical, neither passion,
despair, nor the spirit of revenge. According to the expressions of
Roederer, who never left her, "she was a woman, a mother, a wife in
peril; she feared, she hoped, she grieved, and she took heart again."
She was also a queen, and the daughter of Maria Theresa. Her anxiety
and grief were restrained or concealed by {277} her respect for her
rank, her dignity, and her name. When she reappeared amidst the
courtiers in the Council Hall, after having dissolved in tears in
Thierry's room, the redness of her cheeks and eyes had disappeared.
The courtiers said to each other: "What serenity! what courage!"

The struggle might still seem doubtful. Something like two hundred
noblemen who had spontaneously repaired to the King, seven hundred and
fifty Swiss, and nine hundred mounted gendarmes posted at the
approaches of the Tuileries were the last resources of the
commander-in-chief of the French army. The Swiss, who through some
one's extreme imprudence had not cartridges enough, were posted in the
apartments, the chapel, and at the entry of the Royal Court. Baron de
Salis, as the oldest captain of the regiment, commanded at the
stairways. A reserve of three hundred men, under Captain Durler, was
stationed in the Swiss Court, before the Pavilion of Marsan. The
National Guards belonging to the sections _Petits-Peres_ and the
_Filles-Saint-Thomas_ showed themselves well disposed toward the King;
but it was different with the other companies. As to the mounted
gendarmes, Louis XVI. could not count on them, and before the riot
ended they were to join the insurgents in spite of all the efforts made
by their royalist officers. The artillerists of the National Guard,
charged with serving the cannons placed in the courts and before the
palace doors to defend the entry, were to act in the same manner.

{278}

Like the Swiss, the two hundred noblemen, martyrs to the old French
ideas of honor, had resolved to be loyal unto death. With their silk
coats and drawing-room swords, they seemed as if they had come to a
fete instead of a combat. The servants of the chateau joined them.
Some of them had pistols and blunderbusses. Some, for lack of other
weapons, had taken the tongs from the chimneys. They jested with each
other over their accoutreme