first care was to dispatch Murat, then a major of Chasseurs, to Sablons,
five miles off, where fifty great guns were posted. The Sectionaries
sent a stronger detachment for these cannon immediately afterwards; and
Murat, who passed them in the dark, would have gone in vain had he
received his orders but a few minutes later.

On the 4th of October (called in the revolutionary almanack the 13th
Vendemaire) the affray accordingly occurred. Thirty thousand National
Guards advanced, about two p.m., by different streets, to the siege of
the palace: but its defence was now in far other hands than those of
Louis XVI.

Buonaparte, having planted artillery on all the bridges, had effectually
secured the command of the river, and the safety of the Tuileries on one
side. He had placed cannon also at all the crossings of the streets by
which the National Guard could advance towards the other front; and
having posted his battalions in the garden of the Tuileries and Place du
Carousel, he awaited the attack.

The insurgents had no cannon; and they came along the narrow streets of
Paris in close and heavy columns. When one party reached the church of
St. Roche, in the Rue St. Honoré, they found a body of Buonaparte's
troops drawn up there, with two cannons. It is disputed on which side
the firing began; but in an instant the artillery swept the streets and
lanes, scattering grape-shot among the National Guards, and producing
such confusion that they were compelled to give way. The first shot was
a signal for all the batteries which Buonaparte had established; the
quays of the Seine, opposite to the Tuileries, were commanded by his
guns below the Palace and on the bridges. In less than an hour the
action was over. The insurgents fled in all directions, leaving the