A guard of soldiers was instantly called in, and the royal family descended the stairs, entered the garden, and crossed it unopposed. The leaves of autumn strewed the paths, and the young Dauphin kicked them before him as he walked along. It is characteristic of the weak mental qualities of the king, that in such an hour he should have remarked, “There are a great many leaves. They fall early this year.” Some writers have found in this expression the evidence of a deep and solemn mind _reflecting_ upon the calamities which had fallen upon France. Reflections! What had Louis XVI. to do with _reflections_ at a time like this? His affairs demanded _actions_, not _reflections_. At the hall of the Assembly they found an immense crowd blocking up the entrance. “They shall not enter here,” was the cry; “they shall no longer deceive the nation. They are the cause of all our misfortunes. _À bas le veto! à bas l’Autrichienne! Abdication ou mort!_” But the soldiers forced their way through, and the royal family entered the Assembly. The king approached the president. “I have come hither,” he said, “to prevent a great crime. I thought I could not be safer than with you.” “You may rely, sire,” the president replied, “on the firmness of the Assembly.” But few of the excited thousands who crowded all the approaches to the Tuileries were conscious that the royal family had escaped from the palace. The clamor rapidly increased to a scene of terrific uproar. The volleys of musketry, the deep booming of artillery, the cries of fury, and the shrieks of the wounded and dying filled the air. The hall of the Assembly was already crowded to suffocation, and the deputies stood powerless and appalled, for all now felt that a storm was beating against the throne which no human power could allay. Suddenly the king beckoned to an attendant, and spoke a few words to him in an undertone. The man started to leave the hall, but the terror-stricken deputies crowded around him. “What has the king said?” they anxiously inquired; “what new order has he given? Quick! quick! speak out!” “Why! my friends,” replied the messenger, laughing, “do you not know that you are dealing with a Bourbon? The king has simply _ordered his dinner_.” And so in the midst of the National Assembly, while outside a raging, howling mob was storming his palace of the Tuileries, and his good Swiss guard were pouring out their life-blood upon the marble stairs, and while the throne of his ancestors hung tottering in the balance, King Louis munched his bread and drank his wine. Thus low had fallen the descendant of the _Grand Monarque_. The king munched on; the mob took and sacked the palace; thousands lay dead in the Place du Carrousel, around the Tuileries, and in the Champs Élysées. The throne was demolished, and the last vestiges of the old court _régime_ and the monarchy of the superb _Louis Quatorze_ disappeared forever.