Hours had passed since Bruno first received the desperate call from the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg. She had immediately relayed his orders to her people while she and her family took shelter in the cellar of the estate.
What remained of her armed forces—a mere company of gendarmes, whose primary task had been law enforcement, not civil defense—took up positions with old bolt-action rifles and began firing at the French brigands.
The palace grounds had become an active combat zone. Fortunately for the royal family, the few "soldiers" they had were expert marksmen. Using the palace interior as a kill zone, they dropped the French veterans—men who had turned to banditry in order to survive the collapse of the Republic—one by one, as they dared to intrude upon its depths.
