The approaches were swept by artillery. The court was very
confident. On the night of August 9, Mandat was murdered, an
insurrectional committee seized the City Hall, and when Louis XVI came
forth to review the troops on the morning of the 10th of August, they
shouted, "Vive la Nation" and deserted. Then the assault came, the Swiss
guard was massacred, the Assembly thrust aside, and the royal family
were seized and conveyed to the Temple. There the monarchy ended. Thus
far had the irrational opposition of a moribund type thrown into
excentricity the social equilibrium of a naturally conservative people.
They were destined to drive it still farther.
In this supreme moment, while the Prussians were advancing, France had
no stable government and very imperfect means of keeping order. All the
fighting men she could muster had marched to the frontier, and, even so,
only a demoralized mass of levies, under Dumouriez and Kellermann, lay
between the most redoutable regiments of the world and Paris. The
emigrants and the Germans thought the invasion but a military promenade.
At home treason to the government hardly cared to hide itself.
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