The royal family, exhausted with the fatigues of so terrible a day, retired to rest, the queen expressly enjoining her ladies to follow her example.  Fortunately they were too anxious for her safety to obey her, and, with their own attendants, kept watch in the room outside her bed-chamber.  But La Fayette, in spite of the responsibility which he had taken upon himself, felt no such anxiety.  He declared himself tired and sleepy; and, leaving the palace, went to a friend’s house to ask for a bed.[5] Yet he well knew that the crowd was still assembled around the palace, and was increasing in violence.  Though the night was stormy and wet, the rioters sought no shelter except such as was afforded by a hurried resort to the wine-shops in the neighborhood, where they inflamed their intoxication, and from which they soon returned to renew their savage clamor and threats, increasing the disorder by keeping up a frequent fire of their muskets.  Throughout the night the Duc d’Orleans was briskly going to and fro, his emissaries scattering money among the rioters, who seemed to have no definite purpose or plan, till, as day began to break, one of the gates leading into the Princes’ Court was seen to be open.  It had been intrusted to some of La Fayette’s soldiers, and could not have been opened without treachery.  The crowd poured in, uttering fiercer threats than ever, from the belief that their prey was within their reach.  There was, in truth, nothing between them and the staircase which led to the royal apartments except two gallant gentlemen, M. des Huttes and M. Moreau, the sentries of the detachment of the Body-guard on duty, whose quarters were at the head of the staircase in a saloon opposite to the queen’s chamber.  But these brave men were worthy of the best days of the French army.  The more formidable the mob, and the greater the danger, the more imperative to their loyal hearts was the duty to defend those whose safety was intrusted to their vigilance; and with so dauntless a front did they stand to their posts that for a moment the ruffians recoiled and shrunk from attacking them, till D’Orleans himself came forward, waving to them with his hand a signal to force the way in, and pointing out to them which way to take.

What, then, could two men effect against such a multitude?  Des Huttes perished, pierced by a hundred pikes, and torn into pieces by his blood-thirsty assailants.  Moreau, with equal valor, but with better fortune, backed up the stairs, fighting so desperately as he retreated that he gave his comrades time to barricade the doors leading to the queen’s apartments, and to come to his assistance.  As they drew him back, terribly wounded, into the guardroom, De Varicourt and Durepaire took his place.  De Varicourt was soon slain, but Durepaire, a man of prodigious strength and prowess, held the assassins at bay for some time, till he too fell, reduced to helplessness by a score of deep wounds; when he, in his turn, was replaced