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-Honoré, 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 yourselves be taken." Louis XVI. had said absolutely nothing on going away, and his departure discouraged his most faithful adherents. Add to this that the Swiss had not enough cartridges. What was to be the fate of this fine regiment, this corps d'élite, which everywhere and always had set the example of discipline and military honor; which ever since the Revolution began had haughtily repulsed every attempt to tamper with it; and whose red uniforms alone struck terror into the populace? These brave soldiers guarded respectfully the traditions of their ancestors who, at the famous retreat of Meaux, had saved Charles IX. "But for my good friends the Swiss," said that prince, "my life and liberty would have been in a bad way." What the Swiss of the sixteenth century had done for one King of France, the Swiss of the eighteenth century would have done for his successor. They would have saved Louis XVI. if he would have let himself be saved.

A major-general who had remained at the Tuileries, judging that it was impossible to defend the courts with so few soldiers, cried: "Gentlemen, retire to the palace!" "They had to leave six cannon in the power of the enemy and to abandon the courts. It should have been foreseen that it would be necessary to retake these under penalty of being burned in the palace; the common soldiers said so loudly. Meanwhile they obeyed, and were disposed as well as time and the localities permitted. The stairs and windows were lined with soldiers." (Account of Colonel Pfyffer d'Altishoffen, published at Lucerne in 1819.)

One post occupied the chapel, and another the vestibule and grand staircase. There were Swiss also at the windows looking into the courts. "Down with the Swiss!" cried the Marseillais. "Down! down! Surrender!" However, the struggle had not yet begun. Nearly fifteen minutes elapsed between the invasion of the Royal Court and the first shot. The Marseillais brandished their pikes and guns, but they were not confident, for at first they dared not cross the court more than half-way. The Swiss and National Guards who were at the windows made gestures to induce the populace to quiet down and go away. The throng of insurgents grew greater every minute. They had just got their cannon into battery against the Tuileries. What the Swiss specially intended was to defend the grand staircase, so as to prevent the apartments on the first floor from being invaded. 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."

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 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 cannoneers deserted their pieces and ran like the rest. The courts were cleared in an instant. Two Swiss officers, MM. de Durler and de Pfyffer, instantly made a sortie at the head of one hundred and twenty soldiers, took four cannon, and found themselves once more masters of the door of the Royal Court. A detachment of sixty soldiers formed themselves into a hollow square before this door and kept up a rolling fire on the rioters remaining on the Carrousel until the place was completely swept. At the same time, on the side of the garden, another detachment of Swiss, under Count de Salis, seized three cannon and brought them to the palace gate. Napoleon, who witnessed the combat from a distance, says: "The Swiss handled their artillery with vigor; in ten minutes the Marseillais were chased as far as the rue de l'Echelle, and never came back until the Swiss were withdrawn by the King's order."

It was now, in fact, that M. d'Hervilly arrived, hatless and unarmed, through the fusillade of grape. They wanted to show him the dispositions they had just made on the garden side. "There is no question of that," said he; "you must go to the Assembly; it is the King's order." The unfortunate soldiers flattered themselves that they might still be of use. "Yes, brave Swiss," cried Baron de Viomesnil, "go and find the King. Your ancestors did so more than once." In spite of their chagrin at abandoning the field of which they they had just become masters, they obeyed. Their only thought was to repair to that Assembly where a last humiliation awaited them. The officers had the drums beat the call to arms, and, in spite of the rain of balls from every side, they succeeded in marshalling the soldiers as if for a dress parade in front of the palace, opposite the garden. The signal for departure was given. An unforeseen peril was reserved for these heroes. The battalions of the National Guard, stationed at the door of the Pont Royal, at that of the Manège court, and the beginning of the terrace of the Feuillants, had stood still, with their weapons grounded, since the affray began. But hardly had the Swiss entered the grand alley than these battalions, neutral until now, detailed a number of individuals who hid behind the trees, and fired, with their muzzles almost touching the troops. On reaching the middle of the alley, the Swiss, who hardly deigned to return this fire, divided into two columns. The first, turning to the right under the trees, went towards the staircase leading to the Assembly from the terrace of the Feuillants. The second, which followed at a short distance and acted as a rearguard, went on as far as the Place Louis XV., where it found the mounted gendarmes. If this body of cavalry had done its duty, it would have united with the Swiss. But, far from that, it declared for the insurrection, and sabred them. It is said that the officers and soldiers killed in this retreat across the garden were interred at the foot of the famous chestnut whose exceptional forwardness has earned the surname of the tree of March 20. Thus the Bonapartist tree of popular tradition owes its astonishing strength of vegetation solely to the human compost furnished by the corpses of the last defenders of royalty.

The first column, that which was on its way to the Assembly, presented itself resolutely in front of the terrace of the Feuillants, which was full of people. These took flight, and the Swiss entered the corridors of the Assembly. Carried away by his zeal, one of their officers, Baron de Salis, entered the hall with his naked sword in his hand. The left uttered a cry of affright. A deputy went out to order the commander, Baron de Durler, to make his troop lay down their arms. M. de Durler, having refused, he was conducted to the King. "Sire," said he, with sorrowful indignation, "they want me to lay down arms." Louis XVI. responded: "Put them in the hands of the National Guard; I am not willing that brave men like you should perish." To surrender arms! Did Louis XVI. fully comprehend that for soldiers like these such an outrage was a hundred times worse than death? The King's words were like a thunderbolt to them. They wept with rage. "But," said they, "even if we have no more cartridges, we can still defend ourselves with our bayonets!" Such devotion, such courage, such discipline, such heroism to end like this! And yet the unfortunate Swiss, though grieved to the heart, resigned themselves to the last sacrifice their master required from their fidelity, laid down their arms, and were imprisoned in the ancient church of the Feuillants, to the number of about two hundred and fifty. It was all that remained of this magnificent regiment. The others had been killed in the garden or had their throats cut in the palace, and the greater part of the survivors were to be assassinated in the massacres of September.

"Thus ended the French King's regiment of Swiss Guards, like one of those sturdy oaks whose prolonged existence has affronted so many storms, and which nothing but an earthquake can uproot. It fell the very day on which the ancient French monarchy also fell. It counted more than a century and a half of faithful services rendered to France. To destroy this worthy corps a combination of unfortunate events had been required; it had been necessary to deprive the Swiss of their artillery, their ammunition, their staff, and the presence of the King; to enfeeble them five days before the combat by sending away a detachment of three hundred men; to forbid the two hundred men who accompanied the King to the Assembly to fire a shot; to render useless the wise dispositions of MM. de Maillardoz and de Bachmann by an ill-advised order at the moment of the attack; and to have M. d'Hervilly come at the moment of victory to divide and enfeeble the defence." (Relation of Colonel Pfyffer d'Altishoffen.)

The Swiss republic has honored the memory of these sons who died for a king. At the entrance of Lucerne, in the side of a rock, a grotto has been hollowed out, in which may be seen a colossal stone lion, the work of Thorwaldsen, the famous Danish sculptor. This lion, struck by a lance, and lying down to die, holds tight within his claws the royal escutcheon upon a shield adorned with fleurs-de-lis. Underneath the lion are engraved the names of the Swiss officers and soldiers who died between August 10 and September 2, 1792. Above it may be read this inscription cut in the rock:—

HELVETIORUM FIDEI AC VIRTUTI.
To the fidelity and courage of the Swiss.

Louis XVI. had to repent his weakness bitterly. The wretched monarch had at last reached the bottom of the abyss where the slippery descent of concessions ends, and for having been willing to spare the blood of a few criminals, he was to see that of his most loyal and faithful adherents shed in torrents. It is said that Napoleon, who witnessed the combat from a distance, cried several times, in speaking of Louis XVI.: "What, then, wretched man! Have you no cannon to sweep out this rabble?" Behind the people of the 10th of August, the man of Brumaire already appeared as a conqueror.

Work away, then, insurgents! This unknown young man, this "straight-haired Corsican," hidden in the crowd, will be the master of you all! He will crush the Revolution, he will made himself all-powerful in that palace of the Tuileries where the riot is lording it at this moment! And after him, the brother of the King whom you insult to-day and will kill to-morrow, the Count de Provence, that émigré who is the object of your hatred, will triumphantly enter the palace of his forefathers. And each of them in his turn, the Corsican gentleman and the brother of Louis XVI., will be received with the same transports in that fatal palace which is now red with the blood of the Swiss! How surprised these people would be if they could foresee what the future has in store for them! Among these frenzied demagogues, these ultra-revolutionists, these dishevelled Marseillais with lips blackened by powder, and jackets all blood, how many will be the fanatical admirers and soldiers of a Cæsar!