OR er ay 
Meeting of the Estates-General, 1780. ey 
tinel about nine o’clock in the morning. As soon as he heard of 
the desertion, he hurried over into the Faubourg Saint-Morceau 
'to see if there was a disturbance in that quarter. He set out 
to report to the colonel, but on the way, met the two companies, 
who were being brought back by an under officer who had hurried 
after them. He adds that he put himself at their head, hoping 
to rally them by the old, familiar cry: Vive le Roi! They 
responded; Vive le Rot!, mais toujours le tiers état en avant! An 
hour later the same companies again left the barracks and 
returned to the cabarets, where they were feasted. He states 
further that at noon a company stationed in the Faubourg of 
the Temple did the same thing.® Others reported that the 
guards went to the Palais Royal, where they fraternized with 
their fellow citizens. Salmour says that bands went to all the 
public places crying: Vive le Roi! Vive le tiers état! and then to 
‘the cabarets, where fanatics distributed handfuls of money to 
them. On Friday, June 26, he adds, they repeated their per- 
formances of the previous day and made several patrols of 
Swiss Guards lower their arms. The following day, they were 
kept in their barracks, only as the result of a personal appeal 
made by the Duc de Chatelet at every barrack. Nevertheless, 
other accounts indicate that French Guards were on the streets 
that day also. . 
Many pamphlets, appearing during the days of unrest between 
the royal session and the union of the orders on June 27, confirm 
this testimony of various eyewitnesses concerning the defection 
of the guards. Most of these brochures were anonymous in 
origin, but some appear to be actual decrees, agreed to by the 
troops in their barracks. These seem to give conclusive proof 
that the king could not rely upon the troops in Paris. One 
pamphlet, entitled Arrété des soldats de la garde de Paris, ran 
60 Maleissye, 22-23. He reports this affair of the French Guards as 
occurring on June 23, but evidently he is mistaken, for he wrote several 
years after the occurrence. No account written at the time mentions such an 
event on June 23, but what he tells seems to be the same incident referred to 
by Bailli de Virieu, Salmour, and the writer of the Bulletins, all of whom were 
in Paris, and Boullé, who wasin Versailles, as occurring June 25. Besenval 
does not indicate the time directly. 
6 Bulletins d’un agent secret, La rév. frang., XXIV, 74-75. 
251 
