multitude from
degradation, penury, and infamy, into power, by the destruction of the
throne, and the subjection of the middling classes, and the entire
subversion of all the distinctions of wealth and rank. The approach of
the allies united both of these latter classes against the throne. A
motion was immediately introduced into the Assembly that the monarchy be
entirely abolished, and a mob rioting through Paris threatened the
deputies with death unless they dethroned the king. But an army of one
hundred and fifty thousand men were marching upon Paris, and the
deputies feared a terrible retribution if this new insult were heaped
upon their sovereign. No person can describe the confusion and
consternation with which the metropolis of France was filled. The mob
declared, on the 9th of August, that, unless the dethronement were that
day pronounced, they would that night sack the palace, and bear the
heads of the royal family through the streets upon their pikes. The
Assembly, undecided, and trembling between the two opposing perils,
separated without the adoption of any resolve. All knew that a night of
dreadful tumult and violence must ensue. Some hundreds of gentlemen
collected around the king and queen, resolved to perish with them.
Several regiments of soldiers were placed in and around the palace to
drive back the mob, but it was well known that the troops would more
willingly fraternize with the multitude than oppose them. The sun went
down, and the street lamps feebly glimmered through the darkness of the
night. The palace was filled with armed men. The gentlemen surrounding
the king were all conscious of their utter inability to protect him.
They had come but to share the fate of their sovereign. The queen and
the Princess Elizabeth ascended to an upper part of the palace, and
stepped from a low window into the dark shadow of a balcony to look out
upon the tumultuous city. The sound, as of the gathering of a resistless
storm, swept through all the streets, and rose loud and threatening
above the usual roar of the vast metropolis. The solemn tones of the
alarm bells, pealing through the night air, summoned all the desperadoes
of France to their several places of rendezvous, to march upon the
palace. The rumbling of artillery wheels, and the frequent discharge of
musketry, proclaimed the determination and the desperation of the
intoxicated mob. In darkness and silence, the queen and her sister stood
listening to th