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Updated: June 28, 2025
Men whose hands were red with the blood of Varicourt and Miomandre were allowed to defy justice, and a furious crowd was left for hours without molestation under the windows of the king. The only cry left for them to raise was "Paris," and it was sure in time to do its work. The king could not escape, for Lafayette held every gate. He could not resist, for Lafayette commanded every soldier.
"That was a death-cry," whispered Madame de Campan, trembling, and drawing back from the window. "They have certainly killed the Swiss guards, who are keeping the door; they will now pour into the palace. O God! what will become of Varicourt? I must know what is going on!" She flew through the antechamber and opened the door of the Swiss hall.
They carried with them the bloody tokens of this victory, the heads of Varicourt and Deshuttes, the faithful Swiss guards, who had died in the service of their king. They had hoisted both these heads upon pikes, which two men of the mob carried before the procession.
Madame de Campan often fixed her gaze upon it, and it seemed to her as if time must have ceased to go on, for it appeared to be an eternity since Varicourt had taken leave of her, and yet the two longer fingers on the dial had not indicated the fourth hour after midnight.
"Have mercy on his soul, O God! take him graciously to heaven!" whispered she, with trembling lips. "For whom are you praying?" asked the two women, in low voices, hurrying up to her. "Who is dead?" "Mr. Varicourt," answered Campan, with a sigh. "I heard his death- cry, as I was bolting the door of the antechamber. But we cannot stop to weep and lament. We must save the queen!"
All Louis's faithful servants, then the ministers and some of the deputies, had hurried to the palace to be at the side of the king and queen at the hour of danger. Every one of them brought new tidings of horror. St. Priest told how he, entering the Swiss room, at the door leading into the antechamber of the queen, had seen the body of Varicourt covered with wounds.
Madame de Campan thought of this, as she cast her glance over this antechamber which adjoined the Swiss hall, and this thought filled her with horror. Varicourt had not yet come in; nothing disturbed the silence around her, except the dreadful shouting and singing outside of the palace. "Let us go back into the waiting-room," whispered her companions, "it is too gloomy here.
As he turned like lightning to deliver a thrust to the left, a blow from a billhook on the right crushed his skull; he dropped, and his bleeding body was instantly robbed and dragged out to the Place d'Armes. Meanwhile du Repaire, inspired by the heroic conduct of de Varicourt, took advantage of the momentary diversion to slip across and occupy his fallen comrade's post.
As d'Aguesseau said, "what a load for a woman to bear!" The thought raised in Lecour the deepest pity. Opposite him was the door of the first antechamber, called the Grand Couvert, where had posted Varicourt, and within it some dozen others. There Varicourt stood, handsome and elegantly uniformed, at that beautiful door in that fine hall. Yet behind all this elegance what misery!
It was he who had cut off the head of the two gardes-du-corps, de Varicourt and des Huttes, at Versailles, on the 6th of October. It was he who, entering Paris, bearing the two heads at the end of a pike, reproached the people with being content with so little, and having made him go so far to cut off only two heads! He hoped for better things at Avignon, and went thither.
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