On the 4th of October (called in the revolutionary almanack the 13th Vendemaire) the affray accordingly occurred.  Thirty thousand National Guards advanced, about two p.m., by different streets, to the siege of the palace:  but its defence was now in far other hands than those of Louis XVI.

Buonaparte, having planted artillery on all the bridges, had effectually secured the command of the river, and the safety of the Tuileries on one side.  He had placed cannon also at all the crossings of the streets by which the National Guard could advance towards the other front; and having posted his battalions in the garden of the Tuileries and Place du Carousel, he awaited the attack.

The insurgents had no cannon; and they came along the narrow streets of Paris in close and heavy columns.  When one party reached the church of St. Roche, in the Rue St. Honore, they found a body of Buonaparte’s troops drawn up there, with two cannons.  It is disputed on which side the firing began; but in an instant the artillery swept the streets and lanes, scattering grape-shot among the National Guards, and producing such confusion that they were compelled to give way.  The first shot was a signal for all the batteries which Buonaparte had established; the quays of the Seine, opposite to the Tuileries, were commanded by his guns below the Palace and on the bridges.  In less than an hour the action was over.  The insurgents fled in all directions, leaving the streets covered with dead and wounded:  the troops of the Convention marched into the various sections, disarmed the terrified inhabitants, and before nightfall everything was quiet.

This eminent service secured the triumph of the Conventionalists, who now, assuming new names, continued in effect to discharge their old functions.  Barras took his place at the head of the Directory, having Sieyes, Carnot, and other less celebrated persons, for his colleagues; and the First Director took care to reward the hand to which he owed his elevation.  Within five days from the day of the Sections Buonaparte was named second in command of the army of the interior; and shortly afterwards, Barras, finding his duties as Director sufficient to occupy his time, gave up the command-in-chief of the same army to his “little Corsican officer.”

He had no lack of duties to perform in this new character.  The National Guard was to be re-organised; a separate guard for the representative body to be formed; the ordnance and military stores were all in a dilapidated condition.  The want of bread, too, was continually producing popular riots, which could rarely be suppressed but by force of arms.  On one of these last occasions, a huge sturdy fishwife exhorted the mob to keep to their places, when Buonaparte had almost persuaded them to disperse.  “These coxcombs with their epaulettes and gorgets,” said she, “care nothing for us; provided they feed well and fatten, we may starve.”  “Good woman,” cried the general of the interior, who at this time was about the leanest of his race, “only look at me,—­and decide yourself which of the two is the fatter.”  The woman could not help laughing:  the joke pleased the multitude, and harmony was restored.