An alliance of the national guards and…
October 1789 CE
At about six o'clock in the morning, some of the protesters discover a small gate to the palace is unguarded.
Making their way inside, they search for the queen's bedchamber.
The royal guards race throughout the palace, bolting doors and barricading hallways and those in the compromised sector, the cour de marbre, fire their guns at the intruders, killing a young member of the crowd.
Infuriated, the rest surge towards the breach and stream inside.
Two guardsmen, Miomandre and Tardivet, each separately attempt to face down the crowd and are overpowered.
The violence boils over into savagery as Tardivet's head is shorn off and raised aloft on a pike.
As battering and screaming fills the halls around her, the queen runs barefoot with her ladies to the king's bedchamber and spends several agonizing minutes banging on its locked door, unheard above the din.
In a close brush with death, they barely escape through the doorway in time.
The chaos continues as other royal guards are found and beaten; at least one more is killed and his head too appears atop a pike.
Finally, the fury of the attack subsides enough to permit some communication between the former French Guards, who form the professional core of Lafayette's National Guard militia, and the royal gardes du corps.
The units have a history of cooperation and a military sense of mutual respect, and Lafayette, who has been snatching a few hours of sleep in his exhaustion, awakens to make the most of it.
To the relief of the royals, the two sets of soldiers are reconciled by his charismatic mediation and a tenuous peace is established within the palace.