the body-guard and the Flemish regiment who have trampled
on the national cockade. If the King of France is too feeble to wear
his crown, let him take it off; we will crown his son and things will go
better."

In vain Lafayette refuses, and harangues them on the Place de Greve; in
vain he resists for hours, now addressing them and now imposing silence.
Armed bands, coming from the Faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau,
swell the crowd; they take aim at him; others prepare the lamp-post. He
then dismounts and endeavors to return to the Hotel-de-Ville, but his
grenadiers bar the way:

"Morbleu, General, you will stay with us; you will not abandon us!"

Being their chief it is pretty plain that he must follow them; which
is also the sentiment of the representatives of the commune at the
Hotel-de-Ville, who send him their authorization, and even the order to
march, "seeing that it is impossible for him to refuse."

Fifteen thousand men thus reach Versailles, and in front of and along
with them thousands of ruffians, protected by the darkness. On this side
the National Guard of Versailles, posted around the chateau, together
with the people of Versailles, who bar the way against vehicles, have
closed up every outlet.[1439] The King is prisoner in his own palace,
he and his, with his ministers and his court, and with no defense. For,
with his usual optimism, he has confided the outer posts of the chateau
to Lafayette's soldiers, and, through a humanitarian obstinacy which he
is to maintain up to the last,[1440] he has forbidden his own guards
to fire on the crowd, so that they are only there for show. With common
right in his favor, the law, and the oath which Lafayette had just
obliged his troops to renew, what could he have to fear? What could be
more effective with the people than trust in them and prudence? And by
playing the sheep one is sure of taming brutes!

From five o'clock in the morning they prowl around the palace-railings.
Lafayette, exhausted with fatigue, has taken an hour's repose,[1441]
which hour suffices for them.[1442] A populace armed with pikes and
clubs, men and women, surrounds a squad of eighty-eight National Guards,
forces them to fire on the King's Guards, bursts open a door, seizes
two of the guards and chops their heads off. The executioner, who is a
studio model, with a heavy beard, stretches out his blood-stained hands
and glories in the act; and so great is the effect on the National G