on the
plea that the Assembly must continue its deliberations, and that the law
forbade them to be conducted in the presence of the sovereign, he assigned
him and his family a little box behind the president's chair, which was
usually set apart for the reporters of the debates. A Jacobin deputy
proposed their removal into one of the committee-rooms, with the idea, as
he afterward boasted, that it would be easy there to admit a band of
assassins to murder them all; but Vergniaud and his party divined his
object and overruled him. It might seem that the Girondins, though they
had been the original promoters and chief organizers of the insurrection,
were as yet disposed to be content with the overthrow of the throne, and
had not arrived at the hardihood which can not be sated without murder;
and it is a remarkable instance of the rapidity with which unprincipled
men sink deeper and deeper into iniquity, that they who now exerted
themselves successfully to save the life of Louis, five months afterward
were as unanimous as the most ferocious Jacobins in destroying him.

One object of Louis in abandoning his palace had been to save the lives of
the National Guards and of the Swiss, by withdrawing them from what he
regarded as an unequal combat with the infuriated multitude; and of the
National Guard the greater part did escape, drawing off silently in small
detachments, when the sovereign whom it had been their duty to defend,
seemed no longer to require their service. But the Swiss remained bravely
at their posts around the royal staircase, though, as they abstained from
provoking the rioters by any active opposition, which now seemed to have
no object, they hoped that they might escape attack. But the mob and
Santerre were bent on their destruction. Some of the insurgents tried to
provoke them by threats. Some endeavored to tamper with them to desert
their allegiance. But an accidental interruption suddenly terminated their
brief period of inaction. In the confusion a pistol went off, and the
Swiss fancied it was meant as a signal for an assault upon them. Thinking
that the time was come to defend their own lives, they leveled their
muskets and fired: they charged down the steps, driving the insurgents
before them like sheep; they cleared the inner or royal court, forced
their way into the Carrousel, recovered the cannon which were posted in
the large square, and were so completely victorious that, had there been
any superi