: HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. CONCLUSION OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY. THE Swiss had courageously defended the Tuileries, but their resistance had proved unavailing: the great staircase had been stormed and the palace taken. The people thenceforward victorious, forced their way on all sides into this abode of royalty, to which they had always attached the notion of immense treasures, unbounded felicity, formidable powers, and dark projects. What an arrear of vengeance to be wreaked at once upon wealth, greatness, and power! Eighty Swiss grenadiers, who had not had time to retreat, vigorously defended their lives and were slaughtered without mercy. The mob then rushed into the apartments and fell upon those useless friends who had assembled to defend the King, and who, by the name of knights of the dagger, had incurred the highest degree of popular rancour. Their impotent weapons served only to exasperate the conquerors, and to give greater probability to the plans imputed to the court. Every door that was found locked was broken open. Two ushers, resolving to defend the entrance to the great council-chamber and to sacrifice themselves to etiquette, were instantly butchered. The numerous attendants of the royal family fled tumultuously : through the long galleries, threw themselves from the windows, or sought in the immense extent of the palace some obscure hiding-place wherein to save their lives. The Queen's ladies betook themselves to one of her apartments, and expected every moment to be attacked in their asylum. By direction of the Princess of Tarentum, the doors were unlocked, that the irritation might not be increased by resistance. The assailants made their appearance and seized one of them. The sword was already uplifted over her head. "Spare the women!" exclaimed a voice; " let us not dishonour the nation!" At these words the weapon dropped; the lives of the Queen's ladies were spared; they were protected and conducted out of the palace by the very men who were on the point of sacrificing them, and who, with all the popular fickleness, now escorted them and manifested the most ingenious zeal to save them. After the work of slaughter followed that of devastation. The magnificent furniture was dashed in pieces, and the fragments scattered far and wide. The rabble penetrated into the private apartments of the Queen and indulged in the most obscene mirth. They pried into the most secret recesses, ransacked every depository of papers, broke open every lock, and enjoyed the twofold gratification of curiosity and destruction. To the horrors of murder and pillage were added those of conflagration. The flames, having already consumed the sheds contiguous to the outer courts, began to spread to the edifice, and threatened that imposing abode of royalty with complete ruin. The desolation was not confined to the melancholy circuit of the palace; it extended to a distance. The streets were strewed with wrecks of furniture and dead bodies. Every one who fled, or was supposed to be fleeing, was treated as an enemy, pursued, and fired at. An almost incessant report of musketry succeeded that of the cannon, and was every moment the signal of fresh murders. How many horrors are the attendants of victory, be the vanquished, the conquerors, and the cause for which they have fought, who and what they may ! The executive power being abolished by the suspension of Louis XVI., only two other authorities were left in Paris, that of the commune and that of the Assembly. As we have seen in the narrative of the 10th of August, deputies of the sections had assembled at the Hôtel de Ville, expelled the former magistrates, seized the municipal power, and directed the insurrection during the whole night and day of the 10th. They possessed the real power of action. They had all the ardour of victory, and represented that new and impetuous revolutionary class, which had struggled during the whole session against the inertness of the other more enlightened but less active class of men, of which the Legislative Assembly was composed. The first thing the deputies of the sections did was to displace all the high authorities, which, being closer to the supreme power, |