Part 7

EXCEPTING the coins which I purchased at the mint in Paris, I did not see a piece of gold or silver of any kind; a few brass sols and two sols were sometimes to be found in the coffee-houses, and likewise Mouneron's tokens.

The most common assignats or bills, are those of five livres, which are printed on sheets; each sheet containing twenty of such assignats, or a hundred livres; they are cut out occasionally, when wanted for change. I do not know that there are any of above a thousand livres. The lowest in value which I saw were of five sols, and these were of parchment. Those of five livres and upwards, have the king's portrait stamped on them, like that on the coins.

Besides the national assignats, which are current all over France, every town has its own assignats, of and under, but not above five livres; these are only current in such town and its neighbourhood.

The assignats of and above five livres are printed on white paper, those which are under, are for the convenience of the lower class of people, of which few can read, printed on different coloured paper according to their value; for instance, those of ten sols on blue paper, those of thirty on red, &c. though this method is not correctly adhered to.

I had projected many excursions in the neighbourhood of Paris, which were all put a stop to, in consequence of the events of the tenth of August, of which I shall give a true and impartial narrative, carefully avoiding every word which may appear to favour either party, and writing not as a politician, but as a spectator.

I had written many anecdotes, as well aristocratical as democratical, but as I was unable properly to authenticate some of them, and that others related to excesses which were inevitable, during such a time of anarchy, I thought it not proper to prejudice the mind of the public, and have accordingly expunged them all. I have only recounted facts, and the readers may form their own opinion.

Some particulars relative to the massacre in August, 1572, are inserted to corroborate the description of the similar situation of Paris, in August, 1792, though not from similar causes. The execrable massacre above-mentioned was committed by raging fanatics, cutting the throats of their defenceless fellow-creatures, merely for difference in religious opinion.

BATTLE AND MASSACRE AT THE TUILERIES.

ON Thursday, the 9th of August, the legislative body completed the general discontent of the people, (which had been raised the preceding day, by the discharge of every accusation against la Fayette) by appearing to protract the question relative to the king's decheance (forfeiture) at a time when there was not a moment to lose, and by not holding any assembly in the evening.

The fermentation increased every minute, in a very alarming manner. The mayor himself had declared to the representatives of the nation, that he could not answer for the tranquillity of the city after midnight. Every body knew that the people intended at that hour to ring the alarm-bell; and to go to the chateau of the Tuileries, as it was suspected that the Royal Family intended to escape to Rouen, and it is said many trunks were found, packed up and ready for taking away, and that many carriages were seen that afternoon in the court-yard of the Tuileries.

At eight in the evening the generale,(a sort of beat of drum) was heard in all the sections, the tocsin was likewise rung, (an alarm, by pulling the bells of the churches, so as to cause the clappers to give redoubled strokes in very quick time. Some bells were struck with large hammers.)

All the shops were shut, and also most of the great gates of the hotels; lights were placed in almost every window, and few of the inhabitants retired to their repose: the night passed however without any other disturbance; many of the members of the National Assembly were sitting soon after midnight, and the others were expected. Mr. Petion, the mayor, had been sent for by the king, and was then in the chateau; the number of members necessary to form a sitting, being completed, the tribunes (galleries) demanded and obtained a decree to oblige the chateau to release its prey, the mayor; he soon after appeared at the bar, and from thence went to the commune (mansion-house.)

It was now about six o'clock on Friday morning (10th) the people of the fauxbourgs (suburbs) especially of St. Antoine and St. Marcel, which are parted by the river, assembled together on the Place de la Bastille, and the crowd was so great that twenty-five persons were squeezed to death. At seven the streets were filled with-armed citizens, that is to say, with federates (select persons sent from the provinces to assist at the Federation, or confederacy held last July 14) from Marseille, from Bretagne, with national guards, and Parisian sans-culottes, (without breeches, these people have breeches, but this is the name which has been given to the mob.) The arms consisted of guns, with or without bayonets, pistols, sabres, swords, pikes, knives, scythes, saws, iron crows, wooden billets, in short of every thing that could be used offensively.

A party of these met a false patrol of twenty-two men, who, of course, did not know the watch-word. These were instantaneously put to death, their heads cut off and carried about the streets on pikes (on promena leurs tetes sur des piques.) This happened in la Place Vendome; their bodies were still lying there the next day. Another false patrol, consisting of between two and three hundred men, with cannon, wandered all night in the neighbourhood of the theatre francais: it is said they were to join a detachment from the battalion of Henri IV. on the Pont-neuf, to cut the throats of Petion and the Marseillois, who were encamped on the Pont St. Michel (the next bridge to the Pont-neuf) which caused the then acting parish assemblies to order an honorary guard of 400 citizens, who were to be answerable for the liberty and the life of that magistrate, then in the council-chamber. Mandat, commander-general of the National Guard, had affronted M. Petion, when he came from the chateau of the Tuileries, to go to the National Assembly; he was arrested and sent to prison immediately.

The insurrection now became general; the Place du Carrousel (square of the Carousals, a square in the Tuileries, so called from the magnificent festival which Lewis XIV. in 1662, there gave to the queen and the queen-mother) was already filled; the king had not been in bed; all the night had probably been spent in combining a plan of defence, if attacked, or rather of retreat; soon after seven the king, the queen, their two children (the dauphin, seven years old, and his sister fourteen) Princess Elizabeth, (the queen's sister, about 50 years old) and the Princess de Lamballe, crossed the garden of the Tuileries, which was still shut, escorted by the National Guard, and by all the Swiss, and took refuge in the National Assembly, when the Swiss returned to their posts in the chateau.

The alarm-bells, which were incessantly ringing, the accounts of the carrying heads upon pikes, and of the march of almost all Paris in arms; the presence of the king, throwing himself, as it were, on the mercy of the legislative body; the fierce and determinate looks of the galleries; all these things together had such an effect on the National Assembly, that it immediately decreed the suspension of Lewis XVI. which decree was received with universal applause and clapping.

At this moment a wounded man rushed into the Assembly, crying, "We are betrayed, to arms, to arms, the Swiss are firing on the citizens; they have already killed a hundred Marseillois."

This was about nine o'clock. The democrats, that is to say, the armed citizens, as beforementioned, had dragged several pieces of cannon, six and four pounders, into the carousel square, and were assembled there, on the quais, the bridges, and neighbouring streets, in immense numbers, all armed; they knew the king was gone to the National Assembly, and came to insist on his decheance (forfeiture) or resignation of the throne. All the Swiss (six or seven hundred) came out to them, and permitted them to enter into the court-yard of the Tuileries, to the number of ten thousand, themselves standing in the middle, and when they were peaceably smoking their pipes and drinking their wine, the Swiss turned back to back, and fired a volley on them, by which about two hundred were killed; the women and children ran immediately into the river, up to their necks, many jumping from the parapets and from the bridges, many were drowned, and many were shot in the water, and on the balustrades of the Pont-royal, from the windows of the gallery of the Louvre.

The populace now became, as it were, mad, they seized on five cannon they found in the court yard, and turned them against the chateau; they planted some more cannon on the Pont-royal and in the garden, twenty-two pieces in all, and attacked the chateau on three sides at once. The Swiss continued their fire, and it is said they fired seven times to the people's once; the Swiss had 36 rounds of powder, whereas the people had hardly three or four. Expresses were sent several miles to the powder-mills, for more ammunition, even as far as Essonne, about twenty miles off, on the road to Fontainebleau. The people contrived however to discharge their twenty-two cannon nine or ten times. From nine to twelve the firing was incessant; many waggons and carts were constantly employed in carrying away the dead to a large excavation, formerly a stone quarry, at the back of the new church de la Madeleine de la ville l'Eveque (part of the Fauxbourg St. Honore, thus called.)

Soon after noon the Swiss had exhausted all their powder, which the populace perceiving, they stormed the chateau, broke open the doors, and put every person they found to the sword, tumbling the bodies out of the windows into the garden, to the amount, it is supposed, of about two thousand, having lost four thousand on their own side. Among the slain in the chateau, were, it is asserted, about two hundred noblemen and three bishops: all the furniture was destroyed, the looking-glasses broken, in short, nothing left but the bare walls.

Sixty of the Swiss endeavoured to escape through the gardens, but the horse (gendarmerie nationale) rode round by the street of St. Honore, and met them full butt at the end of the gardens; the Swiss fired, killed five or six and twenty horses and about thirty men, and were then immediately cut to pieces; the people likewise put the Swiss porters at the pont-tournant (turning bridge) to death, as well as all they could find in the gardens and elsewhere: they then set fire to all the casernes (barracks) in the carousel, and afterwards got at the wine in the cellars of the chateau, all of which was immediately drank; many citizens were continually bringing into the National Assembly jewels, gold, louis d'ors, plate, and papers, and many thieves were, as soon as discovered, instantly taken to lamp irons and hanged by the ropes which suspend the lamps. This timely severity, it is supposed, saved Paris from an universal pillage. Fifty or sixty Swiss were hurried by the populace to the Place de Greve, and there cut to pieces.

At about three o'clock in the afternoon every thing was tolerably quiet, and I ventured out for the first time that day.

The quais, the bridges, the gardens, and the immediate scene of battle were covered with bodies, dead, dying, and drunk; many wounded and drunk died in the night; the streets were filled with carts, carrying away the dead, with litters taking the wounded to hospitals; with women and children crying for the loss of their relations, with men, women, and children walking among and striding over the dead bodies, in silence, and with apparent unconcern; with troops of the sans-culottes running about, covered with blood, and carrying, at the end of their bayonets, rags of the clothes which they had torn from the bodies of the dead Swiss, who were left stark naked in the gardens.

One of these sans-culottes was bragging that he had killed eight Swiss with his own hand. Another was observed lying wounded, all over blood, asleep or drunk, with a gun, pistols, a sabre, and a hatchet by him.

The courage and ferocity of the women was this day very conspicuous; the first person that entered the Tuileries, after the firing ceased, was a woman, named Teroigne, she had been very active in the riots at Brussels, a few years ago; she afterwards was in prison a twelvemonth at Vienna, and when she was released, after the death of the Emperor, went to Geneva, which city she was soon obliged to leave; she then came to Paris, and headed the Marseillois; she began by cleaving the head of a Swiss, who solicited her protection, and who was instantaneously cut in pieces by her followers. She is agreeable in her person, which is small, and is about twenty-eight years of age.

Many men, and also many women, as well of the order of Poissardes (which are a class almost of the same species and rank with our fishwomen, and who are easily distinguished by their red cotton bibs and aprons) as others, ran about the gardens, ripping open the bellies, and dashing out the brains of several of the naked dead Swiss.

At six in the evening I saw a troop of national guards and sans-culottes kill a Swiss who was running away, by cleaving his skull with a dozen sabres at once, on the Pont-royal, and then cast him into the river, in less time than it takes to read this, and afterwards walk quietly on.

The shops were shut all this day, and also the theatres; no coaches were about the streets, at least not near the place of carnage; the houses were lighted up, and patroles paraded the streets all night. Not a single house was pillaged.