On October 1, 1789, a great military banquet was given at
Versailles. The King and Queen with the Dauphin were present. A royalist
demonstration began. The bugles sounded a charge, the officers drew
their swords, and the ladies of the court tore the tricolor from the
soldiers' coats and replaced it with the white cockade. On October 5, a
vast multitude poured out of Paris, and marched to Versailles. The next
day they broke into the palace, killed the guards, and carried the King
and Queen captive to the Tuileries. But Louis was so intellectually
limited that he could not keep faith with those who wished him well. On
July 14, 1790, the King swore, before half a million spectators, to
maintain the new constitution. In that summer he was plotting to escape
to Metz and join the army which had been collected there under the
Marquis de Bouille, while Bouille himself, after the rising at Nancy,
was busy in improving discipline by breaking on the wheel a selection
of the soldiers of the Swiss regiment of Chateauvieux which had refused
to march against Paris on the 14th of July, 1789.
Pages:
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155