Disregarding the paper figures, which showed the Convention with
6<r-- 7o,ooo men under their command, he soon established that Barras
disposed of no more than 5-6,ooo effectives; moreover, ammunition was
low and Barras had no artillery. Facing them were zo,ooo well-armed
royalists, moving in towards the Tuileries in an ever-contracting ring of
steel. It was time for inspired measures.
Realising from his observations on ro August 1792 that the key to the
coming engagement was artillery, Napoleon ordered the squadron
commander of the zrst Chasseurs to seize the National Guard's artillery
in the Place des Sablons. The time was midnight, 4 October, and the man
to whom he gave the order was destined to loom large in his life: Joachim
Murat, a twenty-eight-year-old Gascon from Lot with a chequered
background. Murat, a huge man with a large nose, strong southern
brogue and a Gascon's arrogance to match, was an inspired cavalry leader
whose courage always outran his intelligence, but on this occasion he bore
himself superbly. He arrived at the Place des Sabl ons with z6o men at the
same time as a company of National Guardsmen, intent on the same
errand. Murat curtly told the opposition they would be cut to pieces if
they interfered, and under this threat they backed off. Murat then
requistioned horses and carts and dragged the forty big guns back to the
Tuileries.
Napoleon and Barras placed four thousand men in a protective cordon
around the Tuileries. Napoleon's strategy depended on using artillery fire
to prevent the insurgents from concentrating their forces under the
Palace windows and then overwhelming the defenders. He set up his
main battery ready to rake the rue St-Honore. Then he waited. He was
lucky, for the National Guardsmen proved pusillanimous and the
royalists' military commander, Danican, incompetent. Despite the fact
that rain had been pelting down all the day before, the royalists decided
to wait until it stopped before launching their onslaught. If they had
attacked at first light, Napoleon would not have had time to set up and
sight his batteries correctly.
Finally, at about 4·45 on the afternoon of 5 October, the attack on the
Tuileries began. The onrushing rebels ran into murderous artillery fire of
a kind never yet experienced in the revolutionary street battles. Taking
heavy losses, the attackers pulled back into the rue St-Roch and
regrouped at the church of that name. The boldest of them climbed the
church roof and took up sniper positions behind the chimneys and on the
steeple. Their movements could not have suited Napoleon better, as he
personally commanded the battery of two 8-pounders loaded with case
shot, facing the church. He called up more cannon and then unleashed a
marcin
(Marcin)
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