He then dismounts and endeavors to return to the Hotel-de-Ville, but his grenadiers bar the way: "Morbleu, General, you will stay with us; you will not abandon us!" Being their chief it is pretty plain that he must follow them; which is also the sentiment of the representatives of the commune at the Hotel-de-Ville, who send him their authorization, and even the order to march, "seeing that it is impossible for him to refuse." Fifteen thousand men thus reach Versailles, and in front of and along with them thousands of ruffians, protected by the darkness.

On this side the National Guard of Versailles, posted around the chateau, together with the people of Versailles, who bar the way against vehicles, have closed up every outlet.[1439] The King is prisoner in his own palace, he and his, with his ministers and his court, and with no defense.

For, with his usual optimism, he has confided the outer posts of the chateau to Lafayette's soldiers, and, through a humanitarian obstinacy which he is to maintain up to the last,[1440] he has forbidden his own guards to fire on the crowd, so that they are only there for show.

With common right in his favor, the law, and the oath which Lafayette had just obliged his troops to renew, what could he have to fear?
What could be more effective with the people than trust in them and prudence?
And by playing the sheep one is sure of taming brutes! From five o'clock in the morning they prowl around the palace-railings.
Lafayette, exhausted with fatigue, has taken an hour's repose,[1441] which hour suffices for them.[1442] A populace armed with pikes and clubs, men and women, surrounds a squad of eighty-eight National Guards, forces them to fire on the King's Guards, bursts open a door, seizes two of the guards and chops their heads off.

The executioner, who is a studio model, with a heavy beard, stretches out his blood-stained hands and glories in the act; and so great is the effect on the National Guard that they move off; through sensibility, in order not to witness such sights: such is the resistance! In the meantime the crowd invade the staircases, beat down and trample on the guards they encounter, and burst open the doors with imprecations against the Queen.