. This staircase,
afterwards destroyed, was in the middle of the vestibule of the Horloge
Pavilion. The chapel, whose site was afterwards changed, was on the
level of the first landing; and from this landing, two symmetrical
flights, at right angles with the first, led to the Hall of the Hundred
Swiss (the future Hall of the Marshals). Westermann, bolder than the
other insurgents, had advanced as far as the vestibule with several
Marseillais. He began to parley with the soldiers, trying to set them
against their officers and induce them to lay down their arms.
Sergeant Blazer answered Westermann: "We are Swiss, and the Swiss only
lay down their weapons with their lives."

{309}

The officers caused a barricade of pieces of wood to be raised on the
first landing at the head of the stairs, to prevent new deputations
from coming to demoralize their men. The Marseillais attempted to take
it by main force. Some of them were armed with halberds terminating in
hooks. These they thrust below the barricade, trying to catch the men
defending it. They seized an adjutant in this way and disarmed him.
At the foot of the stairs "they seized the first Swiss sentry and
afterwards five others. They laid hold of them with hooked pikes which
they thrust into their coats and drew them forwards, disarming them at
once of their sabres, guns, and cartridge-boxes, amidst shouts of
laughter. Encouraged by the success of this forlorn hope, the whole
crowd pressed towards the foot of the stairs and there massacred the
five Swiss already taken and disarmed." (M. Peltier's Relation.) Then
a pistol-shot was heard. From which side did it come? Was it the
Marseillais who provoked the combat? Was it the Swiss who sought to
avenge their comrades, the sentries? Whoever it was, this pistol-shot
was the signal for the fight, which began about half-past ten in the
morning.

At first the Swiss had the advantage. Every shot they fired from the
windows told. Among the people crowding the courtyards were many who
had not come to fight, but through mere curiosity. Pale with fright,
they fled toward the Carrousel through the gate of the Royal Court,
which was strewn in an {310} instant with guns, pikes, and
cartridge-boxes. Some of the insurgents fell flat on their faces and
counterfeited death, rising occasionally and gliding along the walls to
gain the sentry-boxes of the mounted sentinels as best they could.
Even the majority of the can