e could sweep all the approaches to the palace;
and, on Barras' orders, he despatched a dashing cavalry officer,
Murat--a name destined to become famous from Madrid to Moscow--to
bring the artillery from the neighbouring camp of Sablons. Murat
secured them before the malcontents of Paris could lay hands on them;
and as the "sections" of Paris had yielded up their own cannon after
the affrays of May, they now lacked the most potent force in
street-fighting. Their actions were also paralyzed by divided
counsels: their commander, an old general named Danican, moved his men
hesitatingly; he wasted precious minutes in parleying, and thus gave
time to Barras' small but compact force to fight them in detail.
Buonaparte had skilfully disposed his cannon to bear on the royalist
columns that threatened the streets north of the Tuileries. But for
some time the two parties stood face to face, seeking to cajole or
intimidate one another. As the autumn afternoon waned, shots were
fired from some houses near the church of St. Roch, where the
malcontents had their headquarters.[33] At once the streets became the
scene of a furious fight; furious but unequal; for Buonaparte's cannon
tore away the heads of the malcontent columns. In vain did the
royalists pour in their volleys from behind barricades, or from the
neighbouring houses: finally they retreated on the barricaded church,
or fled down the Rue St. Honore. Meanwhile their bands from across the
river, 5,000 strong, were filing across the bridges, and menaced the
Tuileries from that side, until here also they melted away before the
grapeshot and musketry poured into their front and flank. By six
o'clock the conflict was over. The fight presents few, if any,
incidents which are authentic. The well-known engraving of Helman,
which shows Buonaparte directing the storming of the church of St.
Roch is unfortunately quite incorrect. He was not engaged there, but
in the streets further east: the church was not stormed: the
malcontents held it all through the night, and quietly surrendered it
next morning.

Such was the great day of Vendemiaire. It cost the lives of about two
hundred on each side; at least, that is the usual estimate, which
seems somewhat incongruous with the stories of fusillading and
cannonading at close quarters, until we remember that it is the custom
of memoir-writers and newspaper editors to trick out the details of a
fight, and in the case of civil warfare to minimi