The populace now became, as it were, mad, they seized on five cannon they found in the court yard, and turned them against the chateau; they planted some more cannon on the _Pont-royal_ and in the garden, twenty-two pieces in all, and attacked the chateau on three sides at once. The Swiss continued their fire, and it is said they fired seven times to the people's once; the Swiss had 36 rounds of powder, whereas the people had hardly three or four. Expresses were sent several miles to the powder-mills, for more ammunition, even as far as _Essonne_, about twenty miles off, on the road to _Fontainebleau_. The people contrived however to discharge their twenty-two cannon nine or ten times.[24] From nine to twelve the firing was incessant; many waggons and carts were constantly employed in carrying away the dead to a large excavation, formerly a stone quarry, at the back of the new church _de la Madeleine de la ville l'Eveque_ (part of the _Fauxbourg St. Honore_, thus called.) [Note 24: The balls did no other damage to the palace than breaking the windows, and leaving impressions in the stones, perhaps an inch in depth.] Soon after noon the Swiss had exhausted all their powder, which the populace perceiving, they stormed the _chateau_, broke open the doors, and put every person they found to the sword, tumbling the bodies out of the windows into the garden, to the amount, it is supposed, of about two thousand, having lost four thousand on their own side. Among the slain in the _chateau_, were, it is asserted, about two hundred noblemen and three bishops: all the furniture was destroyed, the looking-glasses broken, in short, nothing left but the bare walls. Sixty of the Swiss endeavoured to escape through the gardens, but the horse (_gendarmerie nationale_) rode round by the street of _St. Honore_, and met them full butt at the end of the gardens; the Swiss fired, killed five or six and twenty horses and about thirty men, and were then immediately cut to pieces; the people likewise put the Swiss porters at the _pont-tournant_ (turning bridge) to death, as well as all they could find in the gardens and elsewhere: they then set fire to all the _casernes_ (barracks) in the _carousel_, and afterwards got at the wine in the cellars of the chateau, all of which was immediately drank; many citizens were continually bringing into the National Assembly jewels, gold, louis d'ors, plate, and papers, and many thieves were, as soon as discovered, instantly taken to lamp irons and hanged by the ropes which suspend the lamps. This timely severity, it is supposed, saved Paris from an universal pillage. Fifty or sixty Swiss were hurried by the populace to the _Place de Greve_, and there cut to pieces. At about three o'clock in the afternoon every thing was tolerably quiet, and I ventured out for the first time that day.[25] [Note 25: The whole of the foregoing account is taken from verbal information, and from all the French papers that could be procured.]