Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/303

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278
EVENTS AT THE TUILERIES.

ple, on the terrible August 24th, 1572; and while the groans of the Protestants resounded in his ears, continued to excite his ruffian soldiers, with the hoarse and horrible cry of "Kill! kill!"

At the summer solstice, two hundred and twenty years after this massacre of St. Bartholomew, the Tuileries again reëchoed with the howling of an infuriated mob, and the shrieks of the dying. Throngs of laborers, and the terrible women from the faubourg St. Antoine, with the brewer Santerre at their head, swelling, as they passed along, to twenty thousand, beat down the gates of the palace, hewed their way through the doors with hatchets, trampled through the royal apartments, brandishing their cutlasses, pikes, and knives, rifled the bureaus in the bed-chambers, and alarmed the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, with the most disgusting and brutal threats. The king, Louis the Sixteenth, adventured his person among the mob, and was miraculously preserved, after enduring great rudeness and indignity.

On the 10th of August, of this same memorable 1791, the dreadful immolation of the Swiss Guards deluged the grand staircase, the council-chamber, the chapel, and the throne-room, with blood.

Emerging from these gates on the 19th of March, 1815, Louis the Eighteenth appeared at midnight, attended by only a few persons, and moving feebly, with sadness depicted on his countenance, abdicated his palace, and the throne of his ancestors. Behind him was the sound of the banners of the Corsican, rush-