Joseph, with General Duphot, boldly advanced as the soldiers were reloading their muskets, and ordered them to retire from the jurisdiction of France, saying that the ambassador would charge himself with the punishment of the insurgents, and that he would immediately send one of his own officers to the Vatican or to the Governor of Rome, and that the affair would thus be settled. The soldiers seemed to pay no regard to this, and continued loading their muskets. General Duphot, one of the most brave and impetuous of men, leaped forward into the midst of the bayonets of the soldiers, prevented one from loading and struck up the gun of another, who was just upon the point of firing. Joseph and General Sherlock, as by instinct, followed him. Some of the soldiers seized General Duphot, dragged him rudely beyond the sacred precincts of the ambassador's palace and the flag of France, and then a soldier discharged a musket into his bosom. The heroic general fell, and immediately painfully rose, leaning upon his sabre. Joseph, who witnessed it all, in the midst of this scene of indescribable confusion called out to his friend, who the next day was to be his brother-in-law, to return. General Duphot attempted it, when a second shot prostrated him upon the pavement. More than fifty shots were then discharged into his lifeless body. The soldiers now directed their fire upon Joseph and General Sherlock. Fortunately there was a door through which they escaped into the garden of the palace, where they were for a moment sheltered from the bullets of the assassins. Another company of Government troops had now arrived, and was firing from the other side of the street. Two French officers, from whom Joseph had been separated, now joined him and General Sherlock in the garden. There was nothing to prevent the soldiers from entering the palace, where Joseph's wife and her sister, who the next day was to have become the wife of General Duphot, were trembling in terror. Joseph and his friends regained the palace by the side of the garden. The court was now filled with the soldiers, and with the insurgents who had so foolishly and ignominiously caused this horrible scene. Twenty of the insurgents lay dead upon the pavement.