Young bloods

Chapter 64

10th August

Napoleon was woken from his sleep by a distant volley of musket fire. By the time he reached the street and began running towards the sound, the firing was continuous. He passed a clock-maker's window and saw that the time was just after eight.The gunfire had started to draw other people outside too, and they hurried toward the sound.Then, a small group of men emerged from the Rue des Petits-Champs, running against the flow. In their midst a man held a pike aloft. A head had been jammed on to the top of the pike and blood trickled down the wooden shaft. Napoleon slowed to a halt and stared at the sight in horror as the men came down the street, crying out. 'Long live France! Long live the nation!'

Then one of the group saw Napoleon's uniform and thrust out his arm. 'Citizens! Look there! A soldier!'

The mob swerved from its course and approached and surrounded Napoleon. The man who had spotted him stepped forward. In one hand he carried a bloodied hatchet and he raised it towards Napoleon.

'You! You're an army officer. A regular.'

Napoleon nodded, forcing himself not to look at the head swaying from side to side above the group of men. 'Lieutenant Buona Parte.' He tried to sound like he had some authority. 'What's the meaning of this? What's going on here?'

'Quiet!' The man thrust the axe towards his face, spattering blood on Napoleon's jacket. 'You're a royalist! I can see it in your eyes!'

The man seemed to have surrendered his senses to the madness of the mob and Napoleon knew that he was moments away from death unless he could steer the confrontation.To try to use reason would be suicidal. Only madness could confront madness. He slapped the head of the axe aside, and thrust his finger into the man's breast. 'How dare you call me a royalist! I'm a Jacobin! A Jacobin, d'you hear!'

The man's mad gaze flickered and he faltered for a moment, before he tried to regain the upper hand. 'All right, citizen. Then tell me, who are you for? King, or country?'

'Long live the nation!' Napoleon thrust his fist into the air. 'Long live the nation!'

The others took up the cry, and their leader stared at Napoleon a moment before nodding in satisfaction. He raised his axe and pointed back up the street. 'Come on, boys. That way!'

Napoleon stood still as the group of men rushed past him, against the flow of the crowd streaming towards the Tuileries Palace. They were soon lost in the mob; only their gory trophy marked their progress as they spread word of the battle taking place in the heart of the city.

Napoleon continued forward, his heart pounding. When he reached the Place du Carousel he saw that the iron railings had been torn down and beyond, in the royal courtyard, a bank of gunpowder smoke wafted in the air. Within the smoke bright orange stabs of flame flickered, briefly illuminating the pikes and bayonets of the mob surging towards the entrance to the palace. Napoleon hurried across the square and saw the first bodies stretched out on the cobbles: a handful of National Guardsmen, a civilian and the mutilated corpse of one of the Swiss Guards. On the corner of the square was a furniture shop with a sign in the window saying that it was closed for business. But the mob had already smashed the door in and looted the contents. Shards of broken glass crunched under his boots as Napoleon stepped inside. He crossed the floor and climbed the stairs at the back of the shop.When he reached the second floor he found a storeroom and went to the window. As he had hoped, the window gave him a clear view towards the palace.

The Swiss Guards had formed a line four deep across the entrance to the palace, and even as Napoleon watched they fired a volley into the dense mass of people in the courtyard. As the crash of musket fire carried across the square there was a deep groan from the mob, which instantly transformed into a cry of rage, and they swept forward once again. Another ripple of fire darted out from the red-coated ranks of the Swiss Guards and then they were fighting hand to hand with the mob. Against such odds there could only be one outcome and the Swiss were forced back up the steps and into the palace. Instinctively Napoleon glanced up at the balcony of the royal apartments where the King had appeared a few weeks earlier. If the royal family were still in there, they would surely be slaughtered without mercy this time.

Napoleon hurried back down into the square. He paused a moment, fearful that his uniform might attract unwanted attention again. Then he saw a revolutionary cockade in the hat of one of the National Guardsmen who had fallen in the square. Removing his bicorn, he went over, wrenched the cockade free, jammed it into the crown of his hat and ran across towards the entrance to the palace. By the time he reached the tangled ruin of the main gate most of the mob had entered the building and were rampaging through the royal apartments. The muffled thud of musket fire told of the desperate resistance that was still being mounted inside the Tuileries.

The courtyard looked like a battlefield. Scores of bodies lay sprawled on the ground. Many wore the uniforms of the National Guard but most belonged to the household guard, slaughtered like cattle as they had made the retreat to the palace entrance.The flagstones in front of the palace were splashed with blood.With a look of distaste Napoleon picked his way over the carnage towards the steps.

Before he reached them, there was a screech of triumph and three women emerged from behind one of the pediments at the bottom of the staircase, dragging a small figure in the red coat and white breeches of the Swiss Guard. He could not have been more than twelve years old and must have been one of the drummer boys, Napoleon realised. The women dragged him out on to the steps, then one of them rummaged in her haversack and drew out a large cleaver. As soon as the boy saw it he screamed in terror. He caught sight of Napoleon and stretched out his hands, fingers splayed and begging for help. Then the women dragged him down and one pinned his head on a step. The cleaver flashed down and thudded into his neck with a wet crunch, cutting off his screams. The bloodied cleaver rose and fell, rose and fell again and then one of the women stood up, brandishing the boy's head, as blood coursed down the steps and dripped on to the cobblestones. Snatching up a crudely sharpened stake from one of the dead bodies littering the ground in front of the steps, the woman thrust the little head down onto the point and then, grasping the base of the stake, she lifted it over her head with a gleeful cry. Then the three of them set off towards the Place du Carousel. Napoleon stared at them in numbed horror as they passed by him, and refused to acknowledge their greeting.

He turned back to the palace and mounted the steps, stained with blood and covered with more bodies. On the threshold of the massive entrance hall he paused. The shouts of those inside echoed round the cavernous space and there was still sporadic musket fire. The last of the Swiss Guards defending the royal apartments had made a final stand on the staircase where their bodies lay in an untidy heap. Around them lay the bodies of some of their attackers, many entwined with their victims, killed while fighting with their bare hands. Napoleon did not want to risk being mistaken for a royalist in his artillery uniform, and hurried away to the terrace at the back of the palace.The doors at the far end stood open.

Emerging on to the terrace he found himself confronted by a nightmare scene. The vast expanse of the ornate flowerbeds and lawns of the Tuileries gardens was covered with figures running in all directions. Men in scarlet uniforms were fleeing for their lives. Small groups of civilians and men of the National Guard were chasing them down and slaughtering them without mercy. A flash of scarlet in the branches of a tree a hundred or so paces away drew Napoleon's eye and he saw that one of the Swiss Guards had climbed into the highest branches to try to escape his pursuers. A small crowd was shouting angrily and beckoning to the man to come down. Then a National Guardsman approached. He raised his musket and calmly took aim on the Swiss soldier as if he was out shooting fowl. There was a flash and a puff of smoke before the crack reached Napoleon's ears.The man in the tree convulsed, and he balanced on his branch for a moment as a bright red patch spread across the white facings of his uniform. Then his legs collapsed, his grip failed him and he tumbled through the branches like a rag doll before he hit the ground and was instantly lost from sight as the mob surged over his body.

A crunch of gravel on the terrace behind him made Napoleon flinch and he spun round. A National Guardsman was staring at him down the barrel of a musket, but he smiled as he saw Napoleon's cockade, and lowered his weapon.

'Sorry, sir. Thought you were a royalist… Looks like it's all over,' the man said as he came and stood beside Napoleon and stared out across the gardens. 'We've won, then. Paris belongs to us now.'

'Some victory,' Napoleon muttered as he gazed out across the killing fields of the Tuileries. 'Do you know what's become of the royal family?'

The man snorted. 'Louis gave in the moment we breached the first gate.Took his family and ran for shelter in the riding school. Didn't bother to tell his men until it was too late to do any good. There's a lot of blood on his hands today.'

'I suppose so.' Napoleon nodded towards the mob in the gardens. 'I don't imagine the deputies will be able to protect the King for long.'

'King? He's not King any more. Not after today.You mark my words, Lieutenant. The monarchy's finished, and not even the Duke of Brunswick can do anything about it.'

Napoleon remembered the fate the Prussian commander had promised for the city if the Tuileries was attacked. 'I pray that you're right, citizen.'

Napoleon had seen enough – more than enough. When he had joined the army, he had never imagined that his first sight of a battlefield would be here amid the grandeur of Europe's finest palace. And he had never imagined it would look like a vision of hell. So this was what happened when the people ran out of control. Despite his sympathy for the suffering of the poorest classes of French society he could find no justification for the scene before him. Nor could he staunch the bitter feeling of disgust that swelled up inside him. Napoleon nodded farewell to the National Guardsman and turned to walk away, leaving the man to his victory.