instantly closed and the vehicle
drove off at a furious rate, surrounded by an escort of dragoons,
cuirassiers and National Guards, two hundred in number, taking the
water-side toward St. Cloud. The other carriage, similarly escorted,
followed at a like rapid pace, the children standing at the windows,
their faces pressed to the glass, gazing eagerly, with the innocent
curiosity of infancy, on a scene from which their future fate would take
shape.

"He is gone!" shouted a stentorian voice, breaking the momentary
stillness as the carriages, surrounded by their escort, swept from the
view.

"Let him go! Let him go!" was the stern and significant response. "We
are not regicides!"

"To the Tuileries! To the Tuileries!" was now the tremendous shout which
rose from the multitude, as they rushed toward the deserted palace.

But the Tuileries had already fallen. It was no longer the
dwelling-place of kings.

Even before the Royal abdication was declared, even before it was
signed, the troops of the Line in the courtyard of the palace--infantry,
artillery, dragoons--to the number at least of twenty-five thousand,
were summoned to surrender their posts, while the fraternal shout, "Vive
la Ligne!" elicited from the lips of many of the soldiers the answering
cry of "Vive la Reforme!" In vain was it that Marshal Bugeaud, the
veteran of a hundred battles, menaced and blasphemed. In vain did his
old protege and subaltern, but now bitter foe, General Lamoriciere,
dashing from one end of the line to the other on his white horse,
entreat and persuade with his eloquent tongue. The people insisted--the
National Guard fraternized--the Line wavered. And yet most imminent at
that moment was their own peril.

The 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 6th and 10th Legions of the National Guard
invested the Tuileries, and others were on the march, accompanied by
countless masses of the people. Within the courtyard were twenty-five
thousand of the best troops in the world of every arm, and a park of
ordnance charged to the muzzle frowned upon the dense masses which
swarmed the Place du Carrousel. The watchful artilleryman stood at his
cannon's breech, with the lighted linstock in his hand, which he kept
alive by constant motion. He awaited but a word from the pale, firm lips
of General Lamoriciere, and that vast and magnificent space now
swarming with life would have been swept as if by destruction's besom.
Death in all its most horrid forms would have been