Guards; the others, on learning
that the King is going, consider their services at an end and
disperse.[2687]--All seems to be over in the sacrifice of royalty. Louis
XVI. imagines that the Assembly, at the worst, will suspend him from
his functions, and that he will return to the Tuileries as a private
individual. On leaving the palace, indeed, he orders his valet to
keep up the service until he himself returns from the National
Assembly.[2688]

He did not count on the exigencies, blindness and disorders of the riot.
Threatened by the Jacobin gunners remaining with their artillery in the
inside courts, the gatekeepers open the gates. The insurgents rush
in, fraternise with the gunners, reach the vestibule, ascend the grand
staircase, and summon the Swiss to surrender.[2689]--These show no
hostile spirit; many of them, as a mark of good humor, throw packets of
cartridges out of the windows; some even go so far as to let themselves
be embraced and led away. The regiment, however, faithful to its orders,
will not yield to force.[2690] "We are Swiss," replies the sergeant,
Blaser; "the Swiss do not part with their arms but with their lives. We
think that we do not merit such an insult. If the regiment is no longer
wanted, let it be legally discharged. But we will not leave our post,
nor will we let our arms be taken from us." The two bodies of troops
remain facing each other on the staircase for three-quarters of an hour,
almost intermingled, one silent and the other excited, turbulent, and
active, with all the ardor and lack of discipline peculiar to a popular
gathering, each insurgent striving apart, and in his own way, to
corrupt, intimidate, or constrain the Swiss Guards. Granier, of
Marseilles, at the head of the staircase, holds two of them at arms'
length, trying in a friendly manner to draw them down.[2691] At the foot
of the staircase the crowd is shouting and threatening; lighter men,
armed with boat-hooks, harpoon the sentinels by their shoulder-straps,
and pull down four or five, like so many fishes, amid shouts of
laughter.--Just at this moment a pistol goes off; nobody being able to
tell which party fired it.[2692] The Swiss, firing from above, clean out
the vestibule and the courts, rush down into the square and seize
the cannon; the insurgents scatter and fly out of range. The bravest,
nevertheless, rally behind the entrances of the houses on the Carrousel,
throw cartridges into the courts of the small buil