“In ten minutes the whole party were asleep.  I arose, stole away, left my newly found mother to lament her lost son again, and with a heavy heart took the road to Versailles.  The night had changed to sudden tempest, and the sky grown dark as death.  It was a night for the fall of a dynasty.  But there was a lurid blaze in the distant horizon, and from time to time a shout, or a sound of musketry, which told me only too well where Versailles lay.  I need not say what my feelings were while I was traversing that solitary road, yet within hearing of this tremendous mass of revolt; or what I imagined in every roar, as it came mingled with the bellowing of the thunder.  The attack might be commencing at the moment; the blaze that I saw might be the conflagration of the palace; the roar might be the battle over the bodies of the royal family.  I never passed three hours in such real anxiety of mind, and they were deepened by the total loneliness of the whole road.  I did not meet a single human being; for the inhabitants of the few cottages had fled, or put out all their lights, and shut themselves up in their houses.  The multitude had rushed on, leaving nothing but silence and terror behind.

“The church clocks were striking three in the morning when I arrived at Versailles, after the most exhausting journey that I had ever made.  But there, what a scene met my eye!  It was beyond all that I had ever imagined of ferocity and rabble triumph.  Though it was still night, the multitude thronged the streets; the windows were all lighted up, huge fires were blazing in all directions, torches were carried about at the head of every troop of the banditti; it was the bivouac of a hundred thousand bedlamites.  It was now that I owned the lucky chance which had made me a Federe.  In any other dress I should have been a suspicious person, and have probably been put to death; but in the brown coat, sabre, and red cap of the Sectionaire, I was fraternized with in all quarters.  My first object was to approach the palace, if possible.  But there I found a cordon of the national guard drawn up, who had no faith even in my mob costume; and was repelled.  I could only see at a distance, drawn up in front of the palace, a strong line of troops—­the regiment of Flanders and the Swiss battalion.  All in the palace was darkness.  It struck me as the most funereal sight that I had ever beheld.

“In my disappointment I wandered through the town.  The night was rainy, and gusts of wind tore every thing before them, yet the armed populace remained carousing in the streets—­all was shouting, oaths, and execrations against the royal family.  Some groups were feasting on the plunder of the houses of entertainment, others were dancing and roaring the ‘Carmagnole.’  One party had broken into the theatre, and dressed themselves in the spoils of the wardrobe; others were drilling, and exhibiting their skill by firing at the king’s arms hung over the shops of the restaurateurs.