_ dragged 
HISTORY OF EUROPE, 
tivo o’clock, and if we credit the 
atteftations of her bed-chamber wo- 
men, flept foundly. At fix o’clock, 
2 numerous body of thofe ruffians 
who had arrived the day before 
ftom Paris, broke, with furious me- 
aces, into the courts of the palace, 
where they feized Monfrs. de Huttes 
and Varicourt, two of the life guards, 
them from their pofts, 
and murdered them in the mott 
cruel manner; their heads being, 
with many blows, fevered from their 
bodies/by the bungling hands and 
blunt axe of one Nicolas, a felf- 
conftituted executioner, who had 
from liking taken up this bufinefs, 
and from the beginning of the trou- 
bles gloried in mangling and be, 
heading all the fufpeéted royalifts 
_, that were put into his hands. 
Another party rufhed into the 
queen’s apartments, with loud out- 
¢ries, execrations, and threats, too 
horrid to be related or endured, by 
any bat the moft favage minds, in 
the recital. "The centinel, M. de 
Miomandre, after bravely refitting 
fora few minutes, finding himfelf 
‘entirely overpowered, opened the 
queen’s door, and called out with 
3 a loud voice, “ Save the queen, her 
“life is aimed at! Z fland alone 
_ * againtt tevo thoujand tigers !”” 
He 
‘Yoon after funk down covered with 
wounds, and was left for dead; but 
‘oming again to the ufe of his 
. fenfes, he had the fortune to creep 
| away unobdferved through the crowd: 
it will afford pleafure to all admir- 
rs of courage and fidelity to know 
‘that he was afterwards cured of his 
dunds, The unhappy queen 
‘Hew almoft naked through the apart- 
lents, ftarting at the Bund of the 
ftols which were continually fired 
the courts, and calling eagerly 
fuch guards as fhe happened to 
“meet, “O my friends! fave my 
[53 
“life, fave my children!” From 
whatever caufe it proceeded, fome 
inftantaneous impulfe feemed to fix 
a perfuafion in the minds of the 
attendants, that the life of the poor: 
young prince, the heir to the crown, - 
was particularly aimed at; and this 
operated fo ftrongly, that without 
Waiting for orders, they ran #n- 
flantly, as if by a common fympa- 
thy, to the children’s apartments, 
and brought them away half- 
naked, to place them under the 
protection of their royal father. 
Such being the force of ancient 
prejudice and opinton, that they 
ftill thought Frenchmen could not 
but pay fome reverence to the per- 
fon of their king. 
The king, awakened by the noife, 
flew through a private paflage to 
the queen’s apartment, in order to 
fave her life, er to perifh along 
with her. He was met by fore of 
his guards, who efcorted him back 
to his own apartment, where the 
queen was already artived, and the 
children {peedily after, The guards 
were in the mean time hunted from 
place to place, through all the pur- 
lieus of the palace, much in the fame 
manner that the proteltants had ~ 
been after the maflacre of St. Bar- 
tholomew. A confiderable party of 
thofe who had been on duty in the in- 
terior palace had only time to barri- 
cade themfelves in fome of the rooms 
adjoining to the royal apartments ; 
and being there completely enclofed, 
the parfuing murderers were in the 
act of forcing open the doors. At 
this critical moment La Fayette and 
his officers fortunately appeared, 
and with muck perfuafion and in- 
treaty induced them to defift. It 
would feem ftrange in any other 
poffible cafe, that a general at the 
head of a powerful army, inftead of 
immediately applying the force in 
his 
