Santerre. As they advanced they
were joined by the Marseillese, who had been quartered in a barrack near
the Hall of the Cordeliers, and their numbers were further swelled by
thousands of the populace. Soon after eight they reached the Carrousel,
forced the gates, and pressed on to the royal court, the National Guard
and Swiss falling back before them to the entrance to the royal
apartments, where the more confined space seemed to afford a better
prospect of making an effectual resistance.

But already the palace was deserted by those who were the intended objects
of the attack. Roederer, and one or two of the municipal magistrates, in
whom the indignity with which the new commissioners of the sections had
treated them had excited a feeling of personal indignation, had been
actively endeavoring to rouse the National Guards to an energetic
resistance; but they had wholly failed. Those who listened to them most
favorably would only promise to defend themselves if attacked, while some
of the artillery-men drew the charges from their guns and extinguished
their matches. Roederer, whom the strange vicissitudes of the crisis had
for the moment rendered the king's chief adviser, though there seems no
reason to doubt his good faith, was not a man of that fiery courage which
hopes against hope, and can stimulate waverers by its example. He saw that
if the rioters should succeed in storming the palace, and should find the
king and his family there, the moment that made them masters of their
persons would be the last of their lives and of the monarchy. He returned
into the palace to represent to Louis the utter hopelessness of making any
defense, and to recommend him, as his sole resource, to claim the
protection of the Assembly. The queen, who, to use her own words, would
have preferred being nailed to the walls of the palace to seeking a refuge
which she deemed degrading, pointed to the soldiers, and showed by her
gestures that they were the only protectors whom it became them to look
to. Roederer assured her that they could not he relied on. She seemed
unconvinced. He almost forgot his respect in his earnestness. "If you
refuse, madame, you will be guilty of the blood of the king, of your two
children; you will destroy yourself, and every soul within the palace."
While she was still hesitating between her feeling of shame and her
anxiety for those dearest to her, the king gave the word. "Let us go,"
said he. "Let us give this la