But the glittering steel tide has arrived; it beats now against the Chateau barriers, and eastern Courts; irresistible, loud-surging far and wide;—­breaks in, fills the Court of the Carrousel, blackbrowed Marseillese in the van.  King Louis gone, say you; over to the Assembly!  Well and good:  but till the Assembly pronounce Forfeiture of him, what boots it?  Our post is in that Chateau or stronghold of his; there till then must we continue.  Think, ye stanch Swiss, whether it were good that grim murder began, and brothers blasted one another in pieces for a stone edifice?—­Poor Swiss! they know not how to act:  from the southern windows, some fling cartridges, in sign of brotherhood; on the eastern outer staircase, and within through long stairs and corridors, they stand firm-ranked, peaceable and yet refusing to stir.  Westermann speaks to them in Alsatian German; Marseillese plead, in hot Provencal speech and pantomime; stunning hubbub pleads and threatens, infinite, around.  The Swiss stand fast, peaceable and yet immovable; red granite pier in that waste-flashing sea of steel.

Who can help the inevitable issue; Marseillese and all France, on this side; granite Swiss on that?  The pantomime grows hotter and hotter; Marseillese sabres flourishing by way of action; the Swiss brow also clouding itself, the Swiss thumb bringing its firelock to the cock.  And hark! high-thundering above all the din, three Marseillese cannon from the Carrousel, pointed by a gunner of bad aim, come rattling over the roofs!  Ye Swiss, therefore:  Fire!  The Swiss fire; by volley, by platoon, in rolling-fire:  Marseillese men not a few, and ’a tall man that was louder than any,’ lie silent, smashed, upon the pavement;—­not a few Marseillese, after the long dusty march, have made halt here.  The Carrousel is void; the black tide recoiling; ’fugitives rushing as far as Saint-Antoine before they stop.’  The Cannoneers without linstock have squatted invisible, and left their cannon; which the Swiss seize.

Think what a volley:  reverberating doomful to the four corners of Paris, and through all hearts; like the clang of Bellona’s thongs!  The blackbrowed Marseillese, rallying on the instant, have become black Demons that know how to die.  Nor is Brest behind-hand; nor Alsatian Westermann; Demoiselle Theroigne is Sybil Theroigne:  Vengeance Victoire, ou la mort!  From all Patriot artillery, great and small; from Feuillants Terrace, and all terraces and places of the widespread Insurrectionary sea, there roars responsive a red whirlwind.  Blue Nationals, ranked in the Garden, cannot help their muskets going off, against Foreign murderers.  For there is a sympathy in muskets, in heaped masses of men:  nay, are not Mankind, in whole, like tuned strings, and a cunning infinite concordance and unity; you smite one string, and all strings will begin sounding,—­in soft sphere-melody, in deafening screech of madness!  Mounted Gendarmerie gallop distracted; are fired on merely as a thing running; galloping over the Pont Royal, or one knows not whither.  The brain of Paris, brain-fevered in the centre of it here, has gone mad; what you call, taken fire.