I now expected the return of the officer every moment, but nevertheless he did not appear; and, still gazing forth upon the dark masses of the multitude, fluctuating hither and thither like the waves of a troubled sea, I soon after beheld a party of gentlemen, preceded by a royal trumpet, enter the Place de Grève, and endeavour to make their way through the people. At the head of this little body I at once recognised Monsieur de Villardin, riding beside a gentleman whom I did not know, but who, I found afterwards, was the Maréchal de L'Hôpital. With much difficulty they gained the steps of the Town-house, amidst the execrations and insults of the people; and every moment, while waiting the return of a messenger whom they sent into the building, they were exposed both to danger and offence. At length, when, as it appeared, the order for giving them admittance was returned, and they dismounted from their horses and entered the doors, a general rush of the people took place, apparently for the purpose of enveloping and massacring the King's officers, though they had come with a flag of truce. The doors, however, were closed promptly upon them; but the fury of the populace now passed all hounds: yells, more like the cries of demons than those of human beings, issued from the multitude; the signal for strife was given by the discharge of a musket; and while a number, who had possessed themselves of firelocks, kept up a scattered fire at the windows of the Hôtel de Ville, I saw a large body rush away towards the quay, from which they returned in a few minutes, bearing bundles of the fire wood which was there piled up for sale. Before any measures could be taken to prevent them, a mass of these faggots, between six and seven feet in height, was heaped up against the great door, some lighted embers were procured from a neighbouring house, and in a moment the whole was in a blase. It was now evident that the purpose of the multitude was to massacre all those that were within the Hôtel de Ville; and the cries of "Death to them all!" "Down with the Mazarines!" "Spare not the traitors!" "Take none to mercy!" which rose up in deafening shouts as the people continued firing in at the windows of the Town-house, and piling up fresh logs of wood upon the fire before the door, convinced me that, if something could not be done to save him, the life of Monsieur de Villardin would be lost within ten minutes. The guards, indeed, within the building, fired a few shots from time to time upon the people, but their number was too few to offer any serious resistance, and the efforts that they did make only served to irritate their assailants to a pitch of frenzy.