seek sleep. In the masses of people outside the gates were thieves and
men of violence. "What a delightful prospect was opened for pillage in
the wonderful palace of Versailles, where the riches of France had been
amassed for more than a century!" exclaims the commentator, Michelet.
Here follows a dramatic account of what followed, based on the story of
Madame de Stael, who witnessed many of the bloody scenes in person. "At
five in the morning, before daylight, a large crowd was already prowling
about the gates, armed with pikes, spits, and scythes. About six
o'clock, this crowd, composed of Parisians and people of Versailles,
scale or force the gates, and advance into the courts with fear and
hesitation. The first who was killed, if we believe the Royalists, died
from a fall, having slipped in the Marble Court. According to another
and a more likely version, he was shot dead by the body-guard.

"Some took to the left, toward the Queen's apartment, others to the
right, toward the chapel stairs, nearer the King's apartment. On the
left, a Parisian running unarmed, among the foremost, met one of the body
guard, who stabbed him with a knife. The guardsman was killed. On the
right, the foremost was a militia-man of the guard of Versailles, a
diminutive locksmith, with sunken eyes, almost bald, and his hands
chapped by the heat of the forge. This man and another, without
answering the guard, who had come down a few steps and was speaking to
him on the stairs, strove to pull him down by his belt, and hand him over
to the crowd rushing behind. The guards pulled him towards them; but two
of them were killed. They all fled along the Grand Gallery, as far as
the _Oeil-de-boeuf_ (Bull's Eye), between the apartments of the King and
the Queen. Other guards were already there.

"The most furious attack had been made in the direction of the Queen's
apartment. The sister of her _femme de chambre_, Madame de Campan,
having half opened the door, saw a guardsman covered with blood, trying
to stop the furious rabble. She quickly bolted that door and the next,
put a petticoat on the Queen, and tried to lead her to the King. An
awful moment! The door was bolted on the other side! They knock again
and again. The King was not within; he had gone round by another passage
to reach the Queen. At that moment a pistol was fired, and then a gun
close to them. 'My friends, my dear friends,' cried the Queen, bursting
into tears,