dead. He was in flagrant insurrection against the people
themselves and abetting constituted authorities in resistance to their
master. By this first act of bloodshed the defence of the palace was
deprived of half its forces. The National Guards were without a
commander, and, left to themselves, it was uncertain how many would
fire on the people of Paris.

Having disposed of the general commanding, the new Commune appointed
Santerre to succeed him, and then took the place of the former
Commune. There was no obstacle now to the concentration and advance of
the insurgents, and they appeared in the space between the Louvre and
the Tuileries, which was crowded with private houses. It was between
seven and eight in the morning. All night long the royal family
expected to be attacked, and the king did nothing. Some thousands of
Swiss were within reach, at Courbevoie, and were not brought up in
time. At last, surrounded by his family, the king made a forlorn
attempt to rouse his guards to combat. It was an occasion memorable
for all time, for it was the last stand of the monarchy of Clovis. His
wife, his children, his sister were there, their lives depending on
the spirit which, by a word, by a glance, he might infuse into the
brave men before him. The king had nothing to say, and the soldiers
laughed in his face. When the queen came back, tears of rage were
bursting from her eyes. "He has been deplorable," she said, "and all
is lost." Others soon came to the same conclusion. Roederer went
amongst the men, and found them unwilling to fight in such a cause. He
was invested with authority as a high official; and although the
ministers were present, it was he who gave the law. The disappearance
of Mandat and the hesitation of the artillery convinced him that there
was no hope for the defenders.

There was a looker-on who lived to erect a throne in the place of the
one that fell that day, and to be the next sovereign who reigned at
the Tuileries. In 1813 Napoleon told Roederer that he had watched the
scene from a window on the Carrousel, and assured him that he had made
a fatal mistake. Many of the National Guard were staunch, and the
royal forces were superior to those with which he himself conquered in
Vendemiaire. He thought that the defence ought to have been
victorious. I do not suppose he seriously resented the blunder to
which he owed so much. Roederer was a clever man, and there is some
reason to doubt whether he was sin