About the 15th of June, 1792, the King refused his sanction to the two decrees ordaining the deportation of priests and the formation of a camp of twenty thousand men under the walls of Paris.  He himself wished to sanction them, and said that the general insurrection only waited for a pretence to burst forth.  The Queen insisted upon the veto, and reproached herself bitterly when this last act of the constitutional authority had occasioned the day of the 20th of June.

A few days previously about twenty thousand men had gone to the Commune to announce that, on the 20th, they would plant the tree of liberty at the door of the National Assembly, and present a petition to the King respecting the veto which he had placed upon the decree for the deportation of the priests.  This dreadful army crossed the garden of the Tuileries, and marched under the Queen’s windows; it consisted of people who called themselves the citizens of the Faubourgs St. Antoine and St. Marceau.  Clothed in filthy rags, they bore a most terrifying appearance, and even infected the air.  People asked each other where such an army could come from; nothing so disgusting had ever before appeared in Paris.

On the 20th of June this mob thronged about the Tuileries in still greater numbers, armed with pikes, hatchets, and murderous instruments of all kinds, decorated with ribbons of the national colours, Shouting, “The nation for ever!  Down with the veto!” The King was without guards.  Some of these desperadoes rushed up to his apartment; the door was about to be forced in, when the King commanded that it should be opened.  Messieurs de Bougainville, d’Hervilly, de Parois, d’Aubier, Acloque, Gentil, and other courageous men who were in the apartment of M. de Septeuil, the King’s first valet de chambre, instantly ran to his Majesty’s apartment.  M. de Bougainville, seeing the torrent furiously advancing, cried out, “Put the King in the recess of the window, and place benches before him.”  Six royalist grenadiers of the battalion of the Filles Saint Thomas made their way by an inner staircase, and ranged themselves before the benches.  The order given by M. de Bougainville saved the King from the blades of the assassins, among whom was a Pole named Lazousky, who was to strike the first blow.  The King’s brave defenders said, “Sire, fear nothing.”  The King’s reply is well known:  “Put your hand upon my heart, and you will perceive whether I am afraid.”  M. Vanot, commandant of battalion, warded off a blow aimed by a wretch against the King; a grenadier of the Filles Saint Thomas parried a sword-thrust made in the same direction.  Madame Elisabeth ran to her brother’s apartments; when she reached the door she heard loud threats of death against the Queen:  they called for the head of the Austrian.  “Ah! let them think I am the Queen,” she said to those around her, “that she may have time to escape.”