Louise and Gabrielle were waiting for news. He had been uncommunicative, when he came in.
“Georges-Jacques intends to remain at City Hall, in control of operations. Francois is there, too, working away in the next office.”
Louise: “Will he be safe?”
“Well, apart from a great earthquake, and the sun going black, and the moon becoming as blood, and the heavens departing as a scroll when it is rolled together, and the coming of the seven last angels with the seven last plagues—all of which is an ever-present risk, I agree—I can’t see much going wrong for him. We’ll all be safe, as long as we win.”
“And at the palace?” Gabrielle said.
“Oh, at the palace they’ll be killing people by now.”
ANTOINETTE: We still have a defense here.
ROEDERER: Madame, all Paris is marching on you. Do you wish to be responsible for the massacre of the King, of yourself and your children?
ANTOINETTE: God forbid.
ROEDERER: Time presses, Sire.
Louis: Gentlemen, I beg you to abandon a futile defense, and withdraw. There’s nothing to be done here, either for you or for me. Let’s go.
The account of Thomas Blaikie, a Scottish gardener employed at the French court:
But all seemed to prepaire for the great catostrophe of the 10th August and many people wished a Change and they talked of people come from Marsielles to attact the Thuilleries; this seemed a projected affaire and the Thuileries was garded by the Suisse gardes and many more in Suisse dress was expecting to take part with the King. The night before we was nearly informed of what was to happen although non could emagine how it was to turn; the evening of the 9 by the fall of a Bottle from the wall which happened to cut my leg and render me lame so that I was forced to sit on our Terrasse which was opposite the Champs Elize and the Thuileries, where I could hear the first coup de Cannon about 9 and then the other firing and tumult continued. I could see the people running to and fro in the Champs Elize and the horror of the misacre increased and as the King left his gardes and went to the Nationalle assembly, so that those poor wretches that had come to defend him being deserted by him was left to be misacred by the rabble, whereas if the King had stopt there was the greatest part of the Sections ready to defend him; but when they found he had gone to the Assembly they all turned to the mesacre of the poor Suisse gardes … . Many of these anthrophages passed in the Street and stoppt to show us parts of the Suisses they had misacred some of whom I knew … every one seemed to glory in what he had done and to show even their fury on the dead body by cutting them or even tearing their clothes as monuments of triumph, so that this seemed as if the people were struck with a sort of Madness … . But it was impossible to describe all the acts of wanten horor that happened this day … .
“Camille.” A young National Guardsman whom he’d never seen before, pop-eyed with nervousness and expecting to be slapped down. “We have taken a royalist patrol, they were dressed in our uniforms, we have them shut in our guard room at the Cour de Feuillants. Some people are trying to take them off us. Our commander has asked for reinforcements to clear the courtyard but no one has come. We can’t hold them back much longer—can you talk to this rabble, can you talk some sense into them?”
“What is the point?” Freron said.
“People shouldn’t be killed like dogs, Monsieur,” the boy said to Freron. His mouth trembled.
“I’m coming,” Camille said.
When they reached the courtyard, Freron pointed: “Theroigne.”
“Yes,” Camille said calmly. “She’ll get killed.”
Theroigne had taken charge; here was her own, her little Bastille. A hostile, unfocused rabble had a leader now; and already it was too late for the prisoners in the guardroom, for above the shouts, above the woman’s own voice, you could hear the crash of glass and the splinter of wood. She had driven them on, as they stoved in the door and pitted their strength, like goaded beasts in a cage, at the iron bars of the windows. But they were breaking in, not breaking out; confronted by bayonets in a narrow passage, they had dropped back for a moment, but now they were tearing the building apart. They were stone-eating beasts, and it was not meant for a siege; they had pick-axes, and they were using them. Behind the front rank of attackers the courtyard was swarming with their well-wishers, shouting, shaking their fists, waving weapons.
Seeing the Guardsman’s uniform, the tricolor sashes, sections of the crowd gave way to them, letting them pass. But before they reached the front of the crowd, the boy put a hand on Camille’s arm, holding him back. “Nothing you can do now,” he said.
Theroigne wore black; she had a pistol in her belt, a saber in her hand, and her face was incandescent. A cry went up: “The prisoners are coming out.” She had stationed herself before the doorway, and as the first of the prisoners was dragged out she gave the signal to the men beside her and they raised their swords and axes. “Can’t someone stop her?” Camille said. He shrugged off the Guardsman’s restraining hand and began to push forward, yelling at people to get out of his way. Freron forced a path after him and took him by the shoulder. Camille pushed him violently away. The crowd fell back, diverted by the prospect of two patriotic officials about to take each other apart.
But the few seconds of grace had passed; from the front rank there was an animal scream. Theroigne had dropped her arm, like a public executioner; the axes and swords were at work, and the prisoners were being kicked and hauled, one by one, to the deaths prepared for them.
Camille had made headway; the National Guardsman was at his back. Louis Suleau was the fourth prisoner to emerge. At a shout from Theroigne the crowd held off; they even moved back, and as they did so they crushed the people behind them, so that Camille was helpless, immobile, arms pinioned to his sides, when he saw Theroigne approach Louis Suleau and say to him something that only he could have heard; Louis put up a hand, as if to say, what’s the point of going into all this now? The gesture etched itself into his mind. It was the last gesture. He saw Theroigne raise her pistol. He did not hear the shot. Within seconds they were surrounded by the dying. Louis’s body—perhaps still breathing, no one could know—was dragged into the crowd, into a vortex of flailing arms and blades. Freron yelled into the National Guardsman’s face, and the young man, red with anguish and bewilderment, drew his saber and shouted for a way out. Their feet splashed through fresh blood.
“There was nothing you could do,” the young man kept saying. “Please, Camille, I should have come before, they were royalists anyway and there was really nothing you could do.”
Lucile had been out to buy some bread for breakfast. No point in asking Jeanette to go; with daylight, the woman’s nerve had snapped, and she was running round the apartment, as Lucile said, like a hen without a head.
