malison on them; least of all can he forbear answering
such.

Ill words breed worse: till the worst word came; and then the ill deed.
Did the maledicent Bodyguard, getting (as was too inevitable) better
malediction than he gave, load his musketoon, and threaten to fire;
and actually fire? Were wise who wist! It stands asserted; to us not
credibly. Be this as it may, menaced Rascality, in whinnying scorn, is
shaking at all Grates: the fastening of one (some write, it was a chain
merely) gives way; Rascality is in the Grand Court, whinnying louder
still.

The maledicent Bodyguard, more Bodyguards than he do now give fire; a
man's arm is shattered. Lecointre will depose (Deposition de Lecointre
in Hist. Parl. iii. 111-115.) that 'the Sieur Cardaine, a National
Guard without arms, was stabbed.' But see, sure enough, poor Jerome
l'Heritier, an unarmed National Guard he too, 'cabinet-maker, a
saddler's son, of Paris,' with the down of youthhood still on his
chin,--he reels death-stricken; rushes to the pavement, scattering it
with his blood and brains!--Allelew! Wilder than Irish wakes, rises the
howl: of pity; of infinite revenge. In few moments, the Grate of the
inner and inmost Court, which they name Court of Marble, this too
is forced, or surprised, and burst open: the Court of Marble too is
overflowed: up the Grand Staircase, up all stairs and entrances rushes
the living Deluge! Deshuttes and Varigny, the two sentry Bodyguards,
are trodden down, are massacred with a hundred pikes. Women snatch their
cutlasses, or any weapon, and storm-in Menadic:--other women lift the
corpse of shot Jerome; lay it down on the Marble steps; there shall the
livid face and smashed head, dumb for ever, speak.

Wo now to all Bodyguards, mercy is none for them! Miomandre de
Sainte-Marie pleads with soft words, on the Grand Staircase, 'descending
four steps:'--to the roaring tornado. His comrades snatch him up, by the
skirts and belts; literally, from the jaws of Destruction; and slam-to
their Door. This also will stand few instants; the panels shivering in,
like potsherds. Barricading serves not: fly fast, ye Bodyguards; rabid
Insurrection, like the hellhound Chase, uproaring at your heels!

The terrorstruck Bodyguards fly, bolting and barricading; it follows.
Whitherward? Through hall on hall: wo, now! towards the Queen's Suite
of Rooms, in the furtherest room of which the Queen is now asleep.
Five sentinels rush through that long Suite;