For three hours this extraordinary scene continued. The Assembly, agitated with grief and indignation, had no resource but submission. The mob, having passed through the hall of the Assembly, now attempted to enter the garden of the Tuileries, but the gates were closed and defended by numerous detachments of the National Guard. The king, however, perhaps hoping, by a show of confidence, to disarm the mob, ordered the garden gates to be thrown open. The mob, like an inundation, rushed in, and with their mighty mass soon filled the whole inclosure. Some cried out for the king to show himself. Others shouted, "Down with the _veto_!" A few voices kindly gave utterance to the old excuse, "The king means well, but he is imposed upon." The mob, which now appeared countless and almost limitless, flowing out from the garden by the gate leading to the Pont Royal, proceeded along the quay and through the wickets of the Louvre into the Place du Carrousel. They were soon gathered in a dense mass before the royal gate of the palace. A strong guard there refused them admittance. Santerre brought up two pieces of cannon to blow down the gate. Two municipal officers then strangely ordered the gates to be thrown open. The multitude rushed impetuously into the court, filling it in an instant, and crowding into the vestibule of the palace. It was now four o'clock in the afternoon. They clambered the magnificent staircase, even dragging a piece of cannon up to the first floor, and poured in locust legions into every part of the palace. Wherever they found a door barred against them they speedily, with swords and hatchets, hewed it down. The king was in one of the interior apartments, surrounded by some of the servants of his household and by several officers of the National Guard. His sister, Madame Elizabeth, happened to be with him; but the queen, who was in another room with her children, had not been able to join her husband, so sudden had been the irruption. The crowd arrested her in her flight in the council-chamber. She begged earnestly to be led to her husband, but the throng pouring by was so dense that it was impossible. Her friends placed her in a corner, and rolled the council-table before her as a barrier. There she stood stupefied with horror, and her eyes suffused with tears, while the low and brutal masses, with no apparent exasperation, end, or aim, crowded by. Her daughter clung to her side, terrified and weeping. Her son, but seven years of age, too young to understand the terrible significance of such an inundation, gazed upon the spectacle with half alarmed, half pleased wonder. Some of the palace-guard gathered around the group for its protection. Occasional scowls and mutterings of defiance and insult alarmed the queen in behalf of her children rather than herself. Some one handed her son the red cap of the Jacobins. The queen, hoping that it might appease the mob, placed it upon his head.