ctory to the defenders of the throne.

Chimeras! vain hopes! Louis XVI. has no longer but one idea: to cast
off all responsibility for events. He mustered up, so to say, the
little authority he had yet remaining, to write hastily, in pencil, the
last order he was to sign: the order to stop firing. He flattered
himself that the prohibition to shoot would justify him completely in
the sight of the National Assembly, and induce them to treat him with
more consideration. But he asked himself anxiously who would be bold
enough to carry his order as far as the palace. Would not so perilous
a mission intimidate even the most heroic? M. d'Hervilly, who was at
this moment in the box of the Logograph, offered himself. As the King
and Queen at first refused his offer, and pointed out all the dangers
of such an errand: "I beg Their Majesties," cried he, "not to think of
my danger; my duty is to brave everything in their service; my place is
in the midst of the firing, and if I were afraid of it I should be
unworthy of my uniform." These words determined Louis XVI. to give M.
d'Hervilly the order signed by his own hand; the valiant nobleman,
bearing this order which was to have such disastrous consequences for
the defenders of the palace, went hastily out of the Assembly hall and
made his way to the Tuileries through a rain of balls and canister.

{306}

XXX.

THE COMBAT.

What had taken place at the Tuileries after the departure of the royal
family for the Assembly? At the very moment when they abandoned this
palace which they were never to see again, the Marseillais, the
vanguard of the insurrection, were pounding at the gate of the
principal courtyard, furious because it was not opened. A few minutes
later, the column of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, after passing through
the rue Saint-Honore, debouched on the Carrousel. It was under command
of the Pole, Lazouski, and Westermann, who directed it toward the gate
of the Royal Court. As the Marseillais had not yet succeeded in
forcing this, Westermann had it broken open. The cannoneers, whose
business it was to defend the palace, at once declared on the side of
the riot and turned their pieces against the Tuileries. With the
exception of the domestics there were now in the palace only the seven
hundred and fifty Swiss, about a hundred National Guards, and a few
nobles. The sole instructions the Swiss received came from old Marshal
de Mailly: "Do not let your