At midnight, on the 9th of August, the dismal sound of the tocsin was heard. From steeple to steeple the boding tones floated through the dark air. A thousand drums beat the alarm at the appointed rendezvous, and the booming of guns shook the city. In an hour all Paris was in tumult. The clatter of iron hoofs, the rumbling of heavy artillery, the tramp of disciplined battalions, and the rush and the clamor of a phrensied mob, presented the most appalling scene of tumult and terror. A city of a million and a half of inhabitants was in convulsions. The friends of the king hurried to the palace, announcing with pale lips that the terrible hour had come. The event needed no announcement, for the whole city was instantly trembling beneath earthquake throes. The king, the queen, the two children, and Madame Elizabeth had assembled tremblingly in one of the rooms of the palace, as lambs huddle together when wolves are howling round the fold. Marie Antoinette was imperially brave, but she could not in that hour look upon her helpless son and daughter and not feel her maternal heart sink within her. Louis XVI. had the endurance of a martyr, but he could not, unmoved, contemplate the woes of his family. The friends of the king speedily rallied, and brought up all their forces for his defense. The apartments of the palace were filled with Royalist gentlemen armed with swords, pistols, and even with shovels and tongs. Nine hundred Swiss guards, upon whom it was thought reliance could be reposed, were placed on the stairs, in the halls, and the large saloons. Six or eight hundred mounted dragoons were in one of the court-yards. Several battalions of the National Guard, who were most friendly to the king, were stationed in the garden with twelve pieces of artillery.[347] The defenders of the palace amounted in all to about four or five thousand men. But many of these were very lukewarm in their loyalty, and might at any moment be expected to fraternize with the populace.[348]