Some royalist officers of the National Guard seek vainly to defend the palace. No one heeds them. The door of the Royal Court opens its two leaves. The crowd presses through. No more dike to the torrent; the gendarmes set their caps on the ends of their sabres, and cry: "Live the nation!" The thing is done; the palace is invaded.
It is nearly four o'clock in the afternoon. The invasion of the Tuileries is beginning. Let us glance at the palace and get a notion of the apartments through which the crowd are about to rush. On approaching it by way of the Carrousel, one comes first to three courtyards: that of the Princes, in front of the Pavilion of Flora; the Royal Court, before the Pavilion of the Horloge; and the Swiss Court, before the Pavilion of Marsan. The assailants enter by the Royal Court, pass into the palace through the vestibule of the Horloge Pavilion, and climb the great staircase. On the left of this are the large apartments of the first story:--
1. The Hall of the Hundred Swiss (the future Hall of the Marshals);
2. The Hall of the Guards (the future Hall of the First Consul);
3. The King's Antechamber (the future Salon d'Apollon);
4. The State Bedchamber (the future Throne-room);
5. The King's Grand Cabinet (called later the Salon of Louis XIV.);
There are a battalion and two companies of gendarmes in the palace, as well as the guards then on duty and those they had relieved. But as no orders are given to these troops, they either break their ranks or fraternize with the enemy. No obstacle, no resistance, is offered, and nobody defends the apartments. The assailants, who have taken a cannon as far as the first story, enter the Hall of the Hundred Swiss, whose doors are neither locked nor barricaded. They penetrate into the Hall of the Guards with the same ease. But when they try to make their way into the OEil-de-Boeuf, or King's Antechamber, the locked door of this apartment arrests their progress. This exasperates them, and one of the panels is soon broken.
Where is Louis XVI. when the invasion begins? In his bedroom with his family. It communicates with the Grand Cabinet, and has windows commanding a view of the garden. M. Acloque, chief of the second legion of the National Guard, and a faithful royalist, hastens to the King by way of the little staircase leading from the Princes' Court to the royal chamber, in order to tell him what has happened. He finds the door locked; he knocks, gives his name, urgently demands admittance, and obtains it. He advises Louis XVI. to show himself to the people. { 200} The King, whom no peril has ever frightened, does not hesitate to follow this advice. The Queen wishes to accompany her husband; but she is opposed in this and forcibly drawn into the Dauphin's chamber, which is near that of Louis XVI. Happier than the Queen,--these are her own words,--Madame Elisabeth finds nobody to tear her from the King. She takes hold of the skirts of her brother's coat. Nothing could separate them.