The dull dawn of a new morning, drizzly and chill, had but broken over Versailles, when it pleased Destiny that a Bodyguard should look out of window, on the right wing of the Chateau, to see what prospect there was in Heaven and in Earth. Rascality male and female is prowling in view of him.
His fasting stomach is, with good cause, sour; he perhaps cannot forbear a passing malison on them; least of all can he forbear answering such.
Ill words breed worse: till the worst word came; and then the ill deed.
Did the maledicent Bodyguard, getting (as was too inevitable) better malediction than he gave, load his musketoon, and threaten to fire; and actually fire? Were wise who wist! It stands asserted; to us not credibly. Be this as it may, menaced Rascality, in whinnying scorn, is shaking at all Grates: the fastening of one (some write, it was a chain merely) gives way; Rascality is in the Grand Court, whinnying louder still.
The maledicent Bodyguard, more Bodyguards than he do now give fire; a man's arm is shattered. Lecointre will depose (Deposition de Lecointre (in Hist.
Parl. iii. 111-115.) that 'the Sieur Cardaine, a National Guard without arms, was stabbed.' But see, sure enough, poor Jerome l'Heritier, an unarmed National Guard he too, 'cabinet-maker, a saddler's son, of Paris,' with the down of youthhood still on his chin,--he reels death-stricken; rushes to the pavement, scattering it with his blood and brains!--Allelew!
Wilder than Irish wakes, rises the howl: of pity; of infinite revenge. In few moments, the Grate of the inner and inmost Court, which they name Court of Marble, this too is forced, or surprised, and burst open: the Court of Marble too is overflowed: up the Grand Staircase, up all stairs and entrances rushes the living Deluge! Deshuttes and Varigny, the two sentry Bodyguards, are trodden down, are massacred with a hundred pikes. Women snatch their cutlasses, or any weapon, and storm-in Menadic:--other women lift the corpse of shot Jerome; lay it down on the Marble steps; there shall the livid face and smashed head, dumb for ever, speak.
Wo now to all Bodyguards, mercy is none for them! Miomandre de Sainte-Marie pleads with soft words, on the Grand Staircase, 'descending four steps:'--to the roaring tornado. His comrades snatch him up, by the skirts and belts; literally, from the jaws of Destruction; and slam-to their Door.
This also will stand few instants; the panels shivering in, like potsherds.
Barricading serves not: fly fast, ye Bodyguards; rabid Insurrection, like the hellhound Chase, uproaring at your heels!
The terrorstruck Bodyguards fly, bolting and barricading; it follows.
Whitherward? Through hall on hall: wo, now! towards the Queen's Suite of Rooms, in the furtherest room of which the Queen is now asleep. Five sentinels rush through that long Suite; they are in the Anteroom knocking loud: "Save the Queen!" Trembling women fall at their feet with tears; are answered: "Yes, we will die; save ye the Queen!"
Tremble not, women, but haste: for, lo, another voice shouts far through the outermost door, "Save the Queen!" and the door shut. It is brave Miomandre's voice that shouts this second warning. He has stormed across imminent death to do it; fronts imminent death, having done it. Brave Tardivet du Repaire, bent on the same desperate service, was borne down with pikes; his comrades hardly snatched him in again alive. Miomandre and Tardivet: let the names of these two Bodyguards, as the names of brave men should, live long.
Trembling Maids of Honour, one of whom from afar caught glimpse of Miomandre as well as heard him, hastily wrap the Queen; not in robes of State. She flies for her life, across the Oeil-de-Boeuf; against the main door of which too Insurrection batters. She is in the King's Apartment, in the King's arms; she clasps her children amid a faithful few. The Imperial-hearted bursts into mother's tears: "O my friends, save me and my children, O mes amis, sauvez moi et mes enfans!" The battering of Insurrectionary axes clangs audible across the Oeil-de-Boeuf. What an hour!
Yes, Friends: a hideous fearful hour; shameful alike to Governed and Governor; wherein Governed and Governor ignominiously testify that their relation is at an end. Rage, which had brewed itself in twenty thousand hearts, for the last four-and-twenty hours, has taken fire: Jerome's brained corpse lies there as live-coal. It is, as we said, the infinite Element bursting in: wild-surging through all corridors and conduits.
Meanwhile, the poor Bodyguards have got hunted mostly into the Oeil-de-Boeuf. They may die there, at the King's threshhold; they can do little to defend it. They are heaping tabourets (stools of honour), benches and all moveables, against the door; at which the axe of Insurrection thunders.--But did brave Miomandre perish, then, at the Queen's door? No, he was fractured, slashed, lacerated, left for dead; he has nevertheless crawled hither; and shall live, honoured of loyal France. Remark also, in flat contradiction to much which has been said and sung, that Insurrection did not burst that door he had defended; but hurried elsewhither, seeking new bodyguards. (Campan, ii. 75-87.)