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IV.

1789.

political offences. When they heard the frightful din CHAP. within the fortress, they never doubted that their last hour was come an impression which was not diminished when, after repeated strokes of the sledge-hammer, the ponderous gates rolled back on their hinges, and a vehemently excited armed multitude broke in. It may be conceived, then, what was their astonishment when, on being brought out, they beheld de Launay's head on the top of a pike, with the inscription, "Traitor to the people!" Every thing in the prison was ransacked; and among the remnants of the olden time which were brought to light were many relics of feudal barbarity, sufficient to rouse to the highest pitch a less excitable people than the French. Arms of an old and now disused kind, frightful instruments of torture, the names and purposes of which had passed into oblivion, were dragged into light from its gloomy vaults and exhibited to the multitude. Among the rest was an iron corslet, which extended over every part of the body, and precluded the possibility of moving a single limb. Stone seats and couches were found, Dussault, worn with the number who had lain upon them. But no tille, 346, skeletons were discovered-no persons chained to walls; Amis,i.354, and the appearance of the instruments of torture suffi- 362. Moniciently proved that, for a very long period, they ceased to be applied to their horrid destination. fortress was, by order of the National Assembly, after razed to the ground.1

1

sur la Bas

348. Deux

teur, 23d

had July 1789. The voilée, Nos. soon p. 19.

Bastille Dé

109, 111,

tion in Paris

night.

The night which followed this decisive success was one 109. of extraordinary excitement in Paris. Though their Great agitavictory was complete, and the troops had all been with- during the drawn from the neighbourhood of the capital, and grouped round Versailles and the adjoining villages, yet the agitation was still extreme. Many houses were illuminated, but less from triumph than a dread of being left in the dark. Few eyes were closed, even after the wearisome labours of the three preceding days: the women watched in their houses; the men were congregated in the streets,

CHAP.
IV.

on the quays, and in the squares. A nocturnal attack was generally expected; men could not conceive that a 1789. military monarchy would so soon abandon the contest. The frequent march of the armed city guard and the Gardes Françaises, with their cannons and caissons, to the different points thought to be menaced, increased the general alarm.* All night the mournful clang of the tocsin was heard, interrupted by the cry, incessantly repeated in the streets, "Don't go to bed-keep your lamps burning." The most fearful reports were circulatedthat the foreign troops were to issue out of the cellars and sewers, and massacre the inhabitants-that a second St Bartholomew was in preparation. The people barri1 Prudhom. caded the streets, tore up the pavement, carried stones to the tops of the houses, and established guards in the I. p. 21, 22. principal quarters. But nothing occurred to justify the 343. Lab. alarm, and the anxiety of a sleepless night only added to Moniteur, the intense feelings which agitated the populace. Mean1789. Deux while, the energy displayed at the Hôtel de Ville con5. Lac. vii. tinued unabated; and such was the astonishing activity of Moreau de Saint Méry, who had been chosen to la v supply the place of Flesselles, the former president, that, without rising from his chair, he despatched before morning above three thousand orders.1

Rév. de

Paris, No.

Dussault,

iii. 224, 225.

23d July

Amis, ii. 2,

92, 93.

Clermont,

Mém. sur

125.

110. State of

While these terrible scenes were passing at Paris, the government at Versailles was very imperfectly informed and change of what was going forward; and its policy underwent, by the court. in the course of the insurrection, a complete alteration.

Versailles,

of measures

Misled by the confidence of the old officers by whom it
was surrounded, and urged on by the vehemence of a
gallant but inconsiderate noblesse, the court at first enter-
tained the idea of restoring tranquillity to the capital by

* “ Ωρσε δὲ τοὺς μὲν ̓Αρης, τοὺς δὲ γλαυκῶπις Αθήνη
Δεϊμός τ', ἠδὲ Φόβος καὶ Ερις ἄμοτον μεμαυία,
̓Αρεος ἀνδροφόνοιο κασιγνήτη, ἑτάρη τε,
Η τ' ὀλίγῃ μὲν πρῶτα κορύσσεται, αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα
Οὐρανῷ ἐστήριξε κάρη, καὶ ἐπὶ χθονὶ βαίνει.”

Iliad, A, 439-443.

IV.

1789.

military force; and as the people were in a state of open CHAP. insurrection, that was doubtless the course which duty, equally with policy, enjoined, if the troops could have been depended on. This measure, if successful, was to have been followed by the dissolution of the Assembly in a lit de justice, and the publication of forty thousand copies of the royal declaration of 23d July; and as that body had openly usurped the whole powers of government, and supplanted the King in his royal prerogative, there can be no doubt such a step would have been perfectly justifiable. Still the insurmountable and wellknown aversion of the King to the shedding of blood controlled all the measures of the army, and would probably have paralysed any vigorous movement; for there seems no doubt that he never would have permittted them to fire, except in resisting the aggression of the insurgents.1

i.

Lac. vii.

94. Toul.

76, 77. Moll. ii. 1,9.

Bert. de

111.

resolves on

But the alarming accounts received on the 12th, of the defection of the troops, and especially of the open The King adherence of the Gardes Françaises to the side of the concession. insurgents, induced the King, on the morning of the 13th, July 13. to abandon the idea of using force, to which he had always felt the strongest aversion; and he accordingly wrote to the Comte d'Artois, at eleven o'clock on the forenoon of that day, to the effect that he had given up all idea of coercion, and ordered the troops to withdraw from Paris.* It was in consequence of this total change of measures in the most critical period of the revolt, that the troops occupied on the 14th no posts in Paris-that they

* "Versailles, 13 Juillet, 11 du matin.-J'avais cédé, mon cher frère, à vos sollicitations, aux représentations de quelques sujets fidèles; mais j'ai fait d'utiles réflexions. Résister en ce moment, ce serait s'exposer à perdre la monarchie; c'est nous perdre tous. J'ai rétracté les ordres que j'avais donnés: mes troupes quitteront Paris; j'employerai des moyens plus doux. Ne me parlez plus d'un coup d'autorité, d'un grand acte du pouvoir; je crois plus prudent de temporiser de céder à l'orage, et de tout attendre du temps, du réveil des gens de bien, et de l'amour des Français pour leur Roi.—(Signé,) LOUIS." This letter, written at the most critical point of his agitated life, expresses the whole policy of Louis.—See Correspondance Inédite de Louis XVI., i. 131; and Histoire Parlementaire de la France, ii. 101.

IV.

1789.

CHAP. remained passive spectators of the pillage of the Invalides, and retired from the Champ de Mars, during the attack on the Bastille, to Sèvres and Versailles. Situated as the King was, there can be no doubt that this was the only prudent course that remained to him; for the defection of part of the troops, and the hesitation of all, had in truth deprived him of the only means of enforcing his orders. But such a change of policy, in the middle of an insurrection, even when constrained by external and irresistible events, was one of the most fatal circumstances that could have occurred; for it at once revealed, and perhaps magnified, the weakness of the throne, and by depriving it of the prestige of military power, converted an urban tumult into a national revolution. "Ipse inutili Pol. et Conf. cunctatione agendi tempora consultando consumpsit; mox XVI. i. 88, utrumque consilium aspernatus, quod inter ancipitia deteriii. 230, 231. rimum est, dum media sequitur, nec ausus est satis nec providit.1"*

1 Corresp.

de Louis

and 99. Lab.

112. Violent agitation in the Assem

bly.

During these events the Assembly was in the most
violent state of agitation. The most alarming reports
arrived
every half-hour from Paris; the members remained
in the hall of meeting in the utmost anxiety; the sound
of the cannon was distinctly heard, and they applied their
ears to the ground to catch the smallest reverberation.
No less than five deputations, during forty-eight hours,
waited on the King, who was in as great a perplexity
and terror at the effusion of blood as themselves.
addresses they brought were all in the same strain, and
clearly revealed the revolutionary spirit of the Assembly.
Nothing was said of re-establishing order in Paris; no
address was issued against the insurgents in that city;
the constant demand was for the King to remove the
troops-in other words, surrender himself and the govern-
ment to the rebels. Great part of the members were in

The

"He himself wasted the time for action in useless deliberation; and then, rejecting the counsels of both sides, sought a middle course-the worst possible policy in perilous circumstances, as he neither foresaw nor dared enough.”— TACITUS, Hist. iii. 40.

1

a state of undisguised apprehension. But nothing could daunt the audacious spirit of Mirabeau. "Tell the King," said he to the last deputation which set out, " "that the foreign bands by which we are surrounded have yesterday been visited and flattered by the princess and prince, and received from them both presents and caresses. Tell him, that all night, in his palace even, these foreign satellites, amidst the fumes of wine, have never ceased to predict the subjugation of France, and to breathe wishes for the destruction of the Assembly. Tell him that, in his very palace, the courtiers have mingled dancing with their impious songs; and that such was the prelude to the massacre of St Bartholomew."1*

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113.

court on the

14th.

The sound of the cannon employed at the storming of the Bastille was distinctly heard at Versailles during the State of the afternoon of the 14th; but the couriers despatched by night of the the military commanders in its vicinity were so effectually intercepted by the insurgents that it was only known, and that in a very indistinct way, that the arsenal of the Invalides had been taken and pillaged. The old officers, however, laughed at the idea of the Bastille sharing the same fate, and persisted in representing the tumults as mere local disorders which would soon be appeased. Every effort was made to secure the fidelity of the regiments in the vicinity of the palace the princesses and ladies of the court walked in the orangery where one of them was stationed, and

* The following was one of these addresses; they were all in the same strain:"12 Juillet 1789.-L'Assemblée Nationale, profondément affectée des malheurs qu'elle n'avait que trop prévus, n'a cessé de demander à sa Majesté la retraite entière et absolue des troupes extraordinairement rassemblées dans la capitale et aux environs. Elle a encore envoyé dans ce jour deux députations au Roi sur cet objet, dont elle n'a cessé de s'occuper nuit et jour. Elle fait part aux clecteurs des deux réponses qu'elle a reçues. Elle renouvelera demain les mêmes démarches; elle les fera plus pressantes encore, s'il est possible. Elle ne cessera de les répéter, et de tenter de nouveaux efforts, jusqu'à ce qu'elles aient eu le succès qu'elle a droit d'attendre, et de la justice de sa reclamation, et du cœur du Roi, lorsque des impressions étrangères n'en arrêteront plus les mouvemens."- BERTRAND DE MOLLEVILLE, Histoire de la Révolution, ii. 12.

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