Those shops were crowded with hundreds eating and drinking at free cost.  All the cafes and gaming-houses were lighted from top to bottom.  The streets were a solid throng, and almost as bright as at noonday, and the jangling of all the Savoyard organs, horns, and voices, the riot and roar of the multitude, and the frequent and desperate quarrels of the different sections, who challenged each other to fight during this lingering period, were absolutely distracting.  Versailles looked alternately like one vast masquerade, like an encampment of savages, and like a city taken by storm.  Wild work, too, had been done during the day.

“As, wearied to death, I threw myself down to rest on the steps of one of the churches, a procession of patriots happened to fix its quarters on the spot.  Its leader, an old grotesque-looking fellow, dressed in a priest’s vestments—­doubtless a part of the plunder of the night—­and seated on a barrel on wheels, like a Silenus, from which, at their several halts, he harangued his followers, and drank to the ’downfal of the Bourbons,’ soon let me into the history of the last twelve hours.  ‘Brave Frenchmen,’ exclaimed the ruffian, ’the eyes of the world are fixed upon you; and this night you have done what the world has never rivalled.  You have shaken the throne of the tyrant.  What cared you for the satellites of the Bourbon?  You scorned their bayonets; you laughed at their bullets.  Nothing can resist the energy of Frenchmen.’  This flourish was, of course, received with a roar.  The orator now produced a scarf which he had wrapped round his waist, and waved it in the light before them.  ‘Look here, citizen soldiers,’ he cried; ’brave Federes, see this gore.  It is the blood of the monsters who would extinguish the liberty of France.  Yesterday I headed a battalion of our heroes in the attack of the palace.  One of the slaves of the tyrant Capet rushed on me sword in hand; I sent a bullet through his heart, and, as he fell, I tore this scarf from his body.  See the marks of his blood.’  It may be conceived with what feelings I heard this narrative.—­The palace had been sacked, the queen insulted, my friends and comrades murdered.  I gave an involuntary groan; his fierce eye fell upon me as I endeavoured to make my escape from this horrible neighbourhood, and he ordered me to approach him.  The fifty pikes which were brandished at his word made obedience necessary.  He whispered, ’I know you well; you are at my mercy; I have often played the barrel organ outside the walls of your corps-de-garde; you are acquainted with the secret ways of the palace, and you must lead us in, or die upon the spot.’  He probably took my astonishment and silence for acquiescence; for he put a musket into my hand.  ‘This night,’ said he, aloud, ’will settle every thing.  The whole race of the Bourbons are doomed.  The fry may have escaped, but we have netted all the best fish.  We have friends, too, in high quarters;’