136 Jeanette Needham. 
The defection of the French Guards was generally known. 
Arthur Young wrote on June 25: ‘The confusion is so great that 
the court have only the troops to depend on; and it is now said 
confidently, that if an order is given to the French Guards to 
fire on the people, they will refuse obedience.” On the same 
day, a similar report was sent to the British government by 
Dorset, ‘the English ambassador.*® The next day, a noble in 
Paris stated: ‘‘Already the disaffection of the troops is assured: 
the French Guards have declared that they are the third estate 
and that they will never fire except upon nobles and ecclesiastics. 
The officers are no longer masters; one of them was struck by a 
soldier .... At the Palais Royal they are applauded to the 
limit, they are regaled with ices and liquors. They had some 
pensioners come also, and regaled them too. I heard one of these 
old soldiers from the Invalides, still very vigorous, reassure the 
people by saying to them that they had nothing to fear from 
the soldiers; that the troops are for the nation who pays them 
and not for the king who happens to command them.’’*” 
In fact, June 25 and 26 seem to have been days of the wildest 
license among the French Guards. At least since the day of 
the royal session, if not earlier, the officers had been instructed 
to keep the men in their barracks.5* On June 25, however, a 
considerable number abandoned the barracks without leave and 
spread into the city, visiting public places and going to inns, or 
cabarets, where they were served ‘without expense. On other 
details, the accounts of this affair vary rather widely.*? Maleis- 
sye, who claims to have participated in it, says that two com- 
panies stationed in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine forced the sen- 
55 Young, 180. 
56 Dorset, I, 224-225. 
57 Correspondance d'un député . . . avec la Marquise de Crequy, Documents 
inédits, Revue de la rév., 11, 35-36. 
58 Besenval, II, 350-351; Maleissye, 22. The former does not state the 
date, but implies that it was before the desertion of June 25, of which, however, 
he does not give the date. 
59 Maleissye, 22-23; Besenval, II, 351; Salmour, in Flammermont, Les 
Correspondances des agents diplomatiques étrangers, 231; Bulletins d'un agent 
secret, La rév. frang., XXIV, 70; Bailli de Virieu, 106; Boullé, in Documents 
inédits, Revue de la rév., XIII, 27. 
250 
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