THE ROUT  
When the smoke from the cannon had cleared, the Sectionists who remained standing could see, not fifty paces from them, Bonaparte on horseback in the midst of his gunners, who were reloading their guns. They replied to the cannonade by a heavy fire. Seven or eight of the gunners fell, and Bonaparte's black horse sank to the ground, shot dead by a bullet in the forehead.
"Fire!" cried Bonaparte as he fell.
The cannon thundered a second time. Bonaparte had time to rise. He had concealed the battalion of '89 in the Cul-de-sac de Dauphine, which they had reached through the stables.
"This way, volunteers!" he cried, drawing his sword.
The battalion of volunteers rushed toward him with drawn swords. They were tried men who had seen all the first battles of the Revolution. Bonaparte noticed an old drummer standing in a corner.
"Come here," he said, "and beat the charge."
"The charge, my boy," said the old drummer, who saw that he had to do with a young man of twenty-five; "you want the charge? well, you shall have it; and a warm one."
[Pg 330]
And, placing himself at the head of the battalion of '89, he beat the charge. The regiment marched straight to the church steps, and, with their bayonets, pinned to the doors all the Sectionists who had remained standing.
"At a gallop to the Rue Saint-Honoré!" shouted Bonaparte.
The cannon obeyed as if they understood the command. The guns had been reloaded while the battalion of volunteers were marching against Saint-Roch.
"Wheel to the right!" said Bonaparte to the gunners in charge of one of the cannon.
"To the left," he cried to the others.
Then, to both at the same time, he shouted: "Fire!"
And he swept the whole length of the Rue Saint-Honoré with two charges of grape-shot.
The Sectionists, annihilated, without being able to tell whence the thunderbolt had fallen, took refuge in the church of Saint-Roch, in the Théatre du République, now the Théatre-Fran?aise, and in the Palais-égalité. Bonaparte had put them to flight, had broken and dispersed their ranks; it was for others to drive them from their last intrenchments. He mounted another horse which was brought him, and shouted: "Patriots of '89, the honor of the day is yours! Finish what you have so well begun."
These men who did not know him were astonished at being commanded by a boy. But they had seen him at work and were dazzled by his calmness under fire. They scarcely knew his name; they certainly did not know who he was. They put their hats on the ends of their muskets and cried: "Long live the Convention!"
The wounded, who were stretched along the side of the houses, raised themselves upon the doorsteps or clung to the gratings of the windows, shouting: "Long live the Republic!"
The dead lay in heaps in the street, and blood poured through the gutters as in a slaughter house, but enthusiasm hovered over the corpses.
[Pg 331]
"I have nothing more to do here," said the young general.
And putting spurs to his horse, he rode across the Place Vend?me, which was now empty, and reached the Rue Florentin almost in the midst of the fugitives whom he seemed to be pursuing, and from thence he passed into the Place de la Révolution.
There he directed General Montchoisy, who was in command of the reserves, to form a column, to take two twelve-pounders, and to advance by way of the Boulevard to the Porte-Saint-Honoré, in order to return to the Place Vend?me; from there he was to effect a junction with the guard attached to the sta............