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being D'Artois 19 colour, the Hôtel-de-Ville has meal-sacks," in time even "flocks and herds" had to interfere in it; but of red and blue, encumber the Place de Grève.2 our old Paris colours: these, once based on a ground of constitutional white, are the famed TRICOLOR, Which (if Prophecy err not) "will go round the world."

And so it roars, and rages, and brays: drums beating, steeples pealing; criers rushing with hand-bells: "Oyez,3 oyez, All men to their Districts to be enrolled!" The Districts have met in gardens, open squares; are getting mar shalled into volunteer troops. No redhot ball has yet fallen from Besenval's Camp; on the contrary, Deserters with their arms are continually dropping in: nay now, joy of joys, at two in the afternoon, the Gardes Françaises,+ being ordered to Saint-Denis, and flatly declining, have come over in a body! It is a fact worth many. Three thousand six hundred of the best fighting men, with complete accoutre

All shops, unless it be the Bakers' and Vintners', are shut: Paris is in the streets;rushing, foaming like some Venice wine-glass into which you had dropped poison. The tocsin, by order, is pealing madly from all steeples. Arms, ye Elector Municipals; thou Flesselles with thy Echevins, give us arms! Flesselles gives what he can: fallacious, perhaps insidious promises of arms from Charleville; order to seek arms here, order to seek them there. The new Municipals give what they can; some ment; with cannoneers even, and cannon! three hundred and sixty indifferent firelocks, the equipment of the City-watch: "a man in wooden shoes, and without coat, directly clutches one of them, and mounts guard. Also as hinted, an order to all Smiths to make pikes with their whole soul.

Their officers are left standing alone; could not so much as succeed in "spiking the guns.'' The very Swiss, it may now be hoped, ChâteauVieux and the others, will have doubts about fighting.

Our Parisian Militia,-which some think it were better to name National Guard,-is prospering as heart could wish. It promised to be forty-eight thousand; but will in few hours double and quadruple that number: invincible, if we had only arms!

Heads of Districts are in fervent consultation; subordinate Patriotism roams distracted, ravenous for arms. Hitherto at the Hôtel-deVille was only such modicum of indifferent firelocks as we have seen. At the so-called Arsenal, there lies nothing but rust, rubbish But see, the promised Charleville Boxes. and saltpetre,-overlooked too by the guns of marked Artillerie! Here then are arms enough? the Bastille. His Majesty's Repository, what-Conceive the blank face of Patriotism, when they call Garde-Meuble, is forced and ran it found them filled with rags, foul linen, sacked: tapestries enough, and gauderies; but candle-ends, and bits of wood! Provost of the of serviceable fighting-gear small stock! Two silver-mounted cannons there are; an ancient gift from his Majesty of Siam to Louis Fourteenth; gilt sword of the Good Henri20; antique Chivalry arms and armour. These, and such as these, a necessitous Patriotism snatches greedily, for want of better. The Siamese cannons go trundling, on an errand they were not meant for. Among the indifferent firelocks are seen tourney-lances; the princely helm and hauberk glittering amid ill-hatted heads, as in a time when all times and their possessions are suddenly sent jumbling!

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Merchants, how is this? Neither at the Chartreux Convent, whither we were sent with signed order, is there or ever was there any weapon of war. Nay here, in this Seine Boat. safe under tarpaulings (had not the nose of Patriotism been of the finest), are "five thousand-weight of gunpowder;" not coming in, but surreptitiously going out! What meanest thou, Flesselles? 'Tis a ticklish game, that of amusing" us. Cat plays with captive mouse: but mouse with enraged cat, with enraged National Tiger?

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Meanwhile, the faster, O ye black-aproned Smiths, smite; with strong arm and willing heart. This man and that, all stroke from head to heel, shall thunder alternating, and ply the great forge-hammer, till stithy reel and ring again; while ever and anon, overhead, booms the alarm-cannon,-for the City has now got gunpowder. Pikes are fabricated; fifty thou

2 Now the Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville.
3 "Hear ye!"

4 The French Guards, the chief regiment of the
French army.

5 A regiment of Swiss troops.

sand of them, in six-and-thirty hours; judge whether the Black-aproned have been idle. Dig trenches, unpave the streets, ye others, assiduous, man and maid; cram the earth in barrelbarricades, at each of them a volunteer sentry; pile the whin-stones in window-sills and upper rooms. Have scalding pitch, at least boiling water ready, ye weak old women, to pour it and dash it on Royal-Allemand, with your skinny arms: your shrill curses along with it will not be wanting!-Patrols of the new-born National Guard, bearing torches, scour the streets, all that night; which otherwise are vacant, yet illuminated in every window by order. Strangelooking; like some naphtha-lighted City of the Dead, with here and there a flight of perturbed Ghosts.

of answer which is worse than none. A Council of Officers can decide merely that there is no decision: Colonels inform him, 'weeping,' that they do not think their men will fight. Cruel uncertainty is here: war-god Broglie sits yonder, inaccessible in his Olympus; does not descend terror-clad, does not produce his whiff of grape-shot;* sends no orders.

Truly, in the Château3 of Versailles all seems mystery: in the Town of Versailles, were we there, all is rumour, alarm and indignation. An august National Assembly sits, to appearance, menaced with death; endeavouring to defy death. It has resolved 'that Necker carries with him the regrets of the Nation.' It has sent solemn Deputation over to the Château, with entreaty to have these troops withdrawn.

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O poor mortals, how ye make this Earth bit-In vain: his Majesty, with a singular comter for each other; this fearful and wonderful posure, invites us to be busy rather with our Life fearful and horrible; and Satan has his own duty, making the Constitution! place in all hearts! Such agonies and ragings So at Versailles. But at Paris, agitated and wailings ye have, and have had, in all Besenval, before retiring for the night, has times: to be buried all, in so deep silence; stept over to old M. de Sombreuil, of the Hôtel and the salt sea is not swoln with your tears. des Invalidest hard by. M. de Sombreuil has, Great meanwhile is the moment, when tidings what is a great secret, some eight-and-twentyof Freedom reach us; when the long-enthralled thousand stand of muskets deposited in his soul, from amid its chains and squalid stag- cellars there; but no trust in the temper of his nancy, arises, were it still only in blindness and Invalides. This day, for example, he sent bewilderment, and swears by Him that made twenty of the fellows down to unscrew those it, that it will be free! Free! Understand muskets; lest Sedition might snatch at them: that well, it is the deep commandment, dimmer | but scarcely, in six hours, had the twenty unor clearer, of our whole being, to be free. Freedom is the one purport, wisely aimed at, or unwisely, of all man's struggles, toilings and sufferings, in this Earth. Yes, supreme is such a moment (if thou have known it): first vision as of a flame-girt Sinai,1 in this our waste Pilgrimage, which thenceforth wants not its pillar of cloud by day, and pillar of fire by night!2 Something it is even,-nay, something considerable, when the chains have grown corro-ments, under the midnight sky, aloft over the sive, poisonous,-to be free from oppression by our fellow-man.' Forward, ye maddened sons of France; be it towards this destiny or towards that! Around you is but starvation, falsehood, corruption and the clam of death. Where ye are is no abiding.

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screwed twenty gun-locks, or dogsheads (chiens) of locks,-each Invalide his dogshead! If ordered to fire, they would, he imagines, turn their cannon against himself.

Unfortunate old military gentlemen, it is your hour, not of glory! Old Marquis de Launay too, of the Bastille, has pulled up his drawbridges long since, 'and retired into his interior;' with sentries walking on his battle

glare of illuminated Paris;-whom a National Patrol passing that way, takes the liberty of firing at: 'seven shots towards twelve at night,' which do not take effect. This was the 13th day of July 1789; a worse day, many said, than the last 13th was, when only hail fell out of Heaven, not madness rose out of Tophet,5 ruining worse than crops!

3 The residence of the king.

4 An establishment for disabled soldiers, not far
from the Champs de Mars.
5 Hell.

Broglie had boasted that he would settle the
Third Estate with a "whiff of grape-shot"
(salve de canons). Six years later the whiff
was delivered by Napoleon, and the Revolution
ended. See the next to the last chapter of
Carlyle's History.

But a new, Fourteenth morning dawns.ing, our National Volunteers rolling in long Under all roofs of this distracted City is the wide flood, south-westward to the Hôtel des noduse of a drama, not untragical, crowding Invalides; in search of the one thing needful. towards solution. The bustlings and preparings, the tremors and menaces; the tears that fell from old eyes! This day, my sons, ye shall quit you like men. By the memory of your fathers' wrongs, by the hope of your children's rights! Tyranny impends in red wrath: help for you is none, if not in your own right hands. This day ye must do or die.

King's Procureur M. Ethys de Corny and officials are there; the Curé of Saint-Etienne du Mont marches unpacific, at the head of his militant Parish; the Clerks of the Basoche12 in red coats we see marching, now Volunteers of the Basoche; the Volunteers of the Palais Royal:-National Volunteers, numerable by tens of thousands; of one heart and mind. The From earliest light, a sleepless Permanent King's muskets are the Nation's; think, old Committee has heard the old cry, now waxing M. de Sombreuil, how, in this extremity, thou almost frantic, mutinous: Arms! Arms! wilt refuse them! Old M. de Sombreuil would Provost Flesselles, or what traitors there are fain hold parley, send couriers; but it skills13 among you, may think of those Charleville not: the walls are scaled, no Invalide firing a Boxes. A hundred-and-fifty-thousand of us; shot; the gates must be flung open. Patriotism and but the third man furnished with so much rushes in, tumultuous, from grunsel14 up to as a pike! Arms are the one thing needful:ridge-tile, through all rooms and passages; with arms we are an unconquerable man-defy- | rummaging distractedly for arms. What cellar, ing National Guard; without arms, a rabble to be whiffed with grapeshot.

or what cranny can escape it? The arms are found; all safe there; lying packed in straw,apparently with a view to being burnt! More ravenous than famishing lions over dead prey, the multitude, with clangour and vociferation,

Happily the word has arisen, for no secret can be kept, that there lie muskets at the Hôtel des Invalides. Thither will we: King's Procureurs M. Ethys de Corny, and whatsoever pounces on them; struggling, dashing, clutchof authority a Permanent Committee can lend, | shall go with us. Besenval's Camp is there; perhaps he will not fire on us; if he kill us, we shall but die.

Alas, poor Besenval, with his troops melting away in that manner, has not the smallest humour to fire! At five o'clock this morning, as he lay dreaming, oblivious in the Ecole Militaire, a 'figure' stood suddenly at his bedside; 'with face rather handsome; eyes inflamed, speech rapid and curt, air audacious;' such a figure drew Priam's curtains! 10 The message and monition of the figure was, that resistance would be hopeless; that if blood flowed, woe to him who shed it. Thus spoke the figure: and vanished. 'Withal there was a kind of eloquence that struck one.' Besenval admits that he should have arrested him, but did not. Who this figure with inflamed eyes, with speech rapid and curt, might be? Besenval knows, but mentions not. Camille Desmoulins? Pythagorean Marquis Valadi,11 inflamed with 'violent motions all night at the Palais Royal?' Fame names him, 'Young M. Meillar'; then shuts her lips about him forever.

In any case, behold, about nine in the morn

6 "knot," tangle, plot

7 acquit

8 Attorney

9 Military School; by the Champs de Mars.

ing:-to the jamming-up, to the pressure, fracture and probable extinction of the weaker Patriot. And so, with such protracted crash of deafening, most discordant Orchestra-music, the Scene is changed; and eight-and-twenty thousand sufficient firelocks are on the shoulders of as many National Guards, lifted thereby out of darkness into fiery light.

Let Besenval look at the glitter of these it is said, have cannon levelled on him; ready muskets, as they flash by: Gardes Françaises. to open, if need were, from the other side of the River. Motionless sits he; 'astonished,' one may flatter oneself, 'at the proud bearing (fière contenance) of the Parisians.'—And now to the Bastille, ye intrepid Parisians! grapeshot still threatens: thither all men's thoughts and steps are now tending.

There

Old De Launay, as we hinted, withdrew into his interior' soon after midnight of Sunday. He remains there ever since, hampered, as all military gentlemen now are, in the saddest conflict of uncertainties. The Hôtel-de-Ville 'invites' him to admit National Soldiers, which is a soft name for surrendering. On the other hand, His Majesty's orders were precise. His garrison is but eighty-two old Invalides, reinforced by thirty-two young Swiss; his walls

10 Cp. Goldsmith's The Haunch of Venison, 1. 110 indeed are nine feet thick, he has cannon and

and note.

11 Another of the nobles who had joined the peo

ple.

12 A collective term for "the Law."

13 avails

14 groundsill

powder; but, alas, only one day's provision of victuals. The city, too, is French, the poor garrison mostly French. Rigorous old De Launay, think what thou wilt do!

which latter, on walls nine feet thick, cannot do execution. The Outer Drawbridge has been lowered for Thuriot; new deputation of citi zens (it is the third, and noisiest of all) penetrates that way into the Outer Court: soft speeches producing no clearance of these, De Launay gives fire; pulls up his Drawbridge. A slight sputter;-which has kindled the too combustible chaos; made it a roaring fire-chaos! Bursts forth Insurrection, at sight of its own blood (for there were deaths by that sputter of fire), into endless rolling explosion of musketry, distraction, execration;-and over head, from the Fortress, let one great gun, with its grapeshot, go booming, to show what we could do. The Bastille is besieged!

On, then, all Frenchmen, that have hearts in your bodies! Roar with all your throats, of cartilage and metal, ye Sons of Liberty; stir spasmodically whatsoever of utmost faculty is in you, soul, body, or spirit; for it is the hour! Smite, thou Louis Tournay, cartwright of the

All morning, since nine, there has been a cry every where: To the Bastille! Repeated 'deputations of citizens' have been here, passionate for arms; whom De Launay has got dismissed by soft speeches through portholes. Towards noon, Elector Thuriot de la Rosière gains admittance; finds De Launay indisposed for surrender; nay, disposed for blowing up the place rather. Thuriot mounts with him to the battlements: heaps of paving-stones, old iron and missiles lie piled; cannon all duly levelled; in every embrasure a cannon,-only drawn back a little! But outwards, behold, O Thuriot, how the multitude flows on, welling through every street; tocsin furiously pealing, all drums beating the générale1: the Suburb Saint-Antoine rolling hitherward wholly, as one man!* Such vision (spectral yet real) thou, O Thuriot, as from thy Mount of Vision, beholdest | Marais,3 old-soldier of the Regiment Dauphiné; in this moment: prophetic of what other Phantasmagories, and loud-gibbering Spectral Realities, which thou yet beholdest not, but shalt! "Que voulez-vous?''2 said De Launay, turning pale at the sight, with an air of reproach, almost of menace. "Monsieur," said Thuriot, rising into the moral sublime, "what mean you? Consider if I could not precipitate both of us from this height," say only a hundred feet, exclusive of the walled ditch! Whereupon De Launay fell silent. Thuriot shows himself from some pinnacle, to comfort the multitude becoming suspicious, fremescent: then descends; departs with protest; with warning addressed also to the Invalides,-on whom however, it produces but a mixed indistinct impression. The old heads are none of the clearest; besides, it is said, De Launay has been profuse of beverages (prodigua des buissons). They think they will not fire, if not fired on, if they can help it; but must, on the whole, be ruled considerably by circumstances.

Wo to thee, De Launay, in such an hour, if thou canst not, taking some one firm decision, rule circumstances! Soft speeches will not serve; hard grapeshot is questionable; but hovering between the two is unquestionable. Ever wilder swells the tide of men; their infinite hum waxing ever louder, into imprecations, perhaps into crackle of stray musketry,

1 The signal for assembling, or of alarm.
2 "What do you want? What do you mean?"
The Faubourg St. Antoine, or east side of Paris,
much like the east side of London, is mainly
a residence of the lower classes.

smite at that Outer Drawbridge chain, though
the fiery hail whistles round thee! Never, over
nave or felloe, did thy axe strike such a stroke.
Down with it, man; down with it to Orcus: +
let the whole accursed Edifice sink thither, and
Tyranny be swallowed up forever! Mounted,
some say, on the roof of the guard-room, some
'on bayonets stuck into joints of the wall,'
Louis Tournay smites, brave Aubin Bonne-
mère (also an old soldier) seconding him; the
chain yields, breaks; the huge drawbridge slams
down, thundering (avec fracas). Glorious: and
yet, alas, it is still but the outworks.
Eight grim Towers, with their Invalide mus-
ketry, their paving stones and cannon-mouths,
still soar aloft intact;-Ditch yawning im-
passable, stone-faced; the inner Drawbridge
with its back towards us: the Bastille is still
to take!

The

To describe this Siege of the Bastille (thought to be one of the most important in History) perhaps transcends the talent of mortals. Could one but, after infinite reading, get to understand so much as the plan of the building! But there is open Esplanade, at the end of the Rue Saint-Antoine; there are such Forecourts, Cour Avancée, Cour de l'Orme, arched Gateway (where Louis Tournay now fights); then new drawbridges, dormant-bridges, rampart-bastions, and the grim Eight Towers; a labyrinthic Mass, high-frowning there, of all ages from twenty years to four hundred and twenty;-beleaguered. in this its last hour, as 3 A manufacturing quarter of Paris. 4 Hades.

we said, by mere Chaos come again! Ordnance out of him (butt of musket on pit of stomach), of all calibres; throats of all capacities; men overturned barrels, and stayed the devouring of all plans, every man his own engineer: sel- element. A young beautiful lady, seized escapdom since the war of Pygmies and Cranesɔ̃ was ing in these Outer Courts, and thought falsely there seen so anomalous a thing. Half-pay to be De Launay's daughter, shall be burnt in Elie is home for a suit of regimentals;* no De Launay's sight; she lies swooned on a one would heed him in coloured clothes: half-paillasse; 11 but again a Patriot, it is brave pay Hulin is haranguing Gardes Françaises in the Place de Grève. Frantic Patriots pick up the grapeshots; bear them, still hot (or seemingly so), to the Hôtel-de-Ville;-Paris, you perceive, is to be burnt! Flesselles is 'pale to the very lips,' for the roar of the multitude grows deep. Paris wholly has got to the acme of its frenzy; whirled, all ways, by panic madness. At every street-barricade, there whirls simmering a minor whirlpool,-strengthening the barricade, since God knows what is coming; and all minor whirlpools play distractedly into that grand Fire-Mahlstrome which is lashing round the Bastille.

Aubin Bonnemère the old soldier, dashes in, and rescues her. Straw is burnt; three cartloads of it, hauled thither, go up in white smoke: almost to the choking of Patriotism itself; so that Elie had, with singed brows, to drag back one cart; and Réole the 'gigantic haberdasher' another. Smoke as of Tophet; confusion as of Babel; noise as of the Crack of Doom!

Blood flows; the aliment of new madness. The wounded are carried into houses of the Rue Cerisaie; the dying leave their last mandate not to yield till the accursed Stronghold fall. And yet, alas, how fall? The walls are so thick! Deputations, three in number, arrive And so it lashes and it roars. Cholat the from the Hôtel-de-Ville; Abbé Fauchat (who wine-merchant has become an impromptu can- was of one) can say, with what almost supernoneer. See Georget, of the Marine Service, human courage of benevolence. These wave fresh from Brest, ply the King of Siam's their Town-flag in the arched Gateway; and cannon. Singular (if we were not used to the stand, rolling their drum; but to no purpose. like): Georget lay, last night, taking his ease In such Crack of Doom, De Launay cannot hear at his inn; the King of Siam's cannon also them, dare not believe them: they return, with lay, knowing nothing of him, for a hundred Į justified rage, the whew of lead still singing in years. Yet now, at the right instant, they have their ears. What to do? The Firemen are got together, and discourse eloquent music. here, squirting with their fire pumps on the For, hearing what was toward, Georget sprang Invalides cannon, to wet the touchholes; they from the Brest Diligence, and ran. Gardes unfortunately cannot squirt so high; but proFrançaises also will be here, with real duce only clouds of spray. Individuals of artillery were not the walls so thick!-Up-classical knowledge propose catapults. Sanwards from the Esplanade, horizontally from terre, the sonorous Brewer of the Suburb Saintall neighbouring roofs and windows, flashes one Antoine, advises rather that the place be fired, irregular deluge of musketry, without effect. by a 'mixture of phosphorus and oil-of-turpenThe Invalides lie flat, firing comparatively at tine spouted up through forcing pumps: 0 their ease from behind stone; hardly through Spinola-Santerre,† hast thou the mixture ready? portholes show the tip of a nose. We fall, Every man his own engineer! And still the shot; and make no impression! fire-deluge abates not: even women are firing, and Turks; at least one woman (with her sweetheart), and one Turk. Gardes Françaises have come: real cannon, real cannoneers. Usher12 Maillard is busy; half-pay Elie, halfpay Hulin rage in the midst of thousands.

Let conflagration rage; of whatsoever is combustible! Guard-rooms are burnt, Invalides mess-rooms. A distracted 'Peruke-maker with two fiery torches' is for burning 'the saltpetres of the Arsenal; '—had not a woman run screaming; had not a Patriot, with some tincture of Natural Philosophy,10 instantly struck the wind

5 An ancient fable; see Iliad, III, 5.

6 maëlstrom, whirlpool

7 The principal naval port of France.

How the great Bastille Clock ticks (inaudible) in its Inner Court there, at its ease, hour after hour; as if nothing special, for it or the world, were passing! It tolled One when the firing began; and is now pointing towards Five,

8 "Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?" 1 and still the firing slakes not.-Far down, in

Henry IV., III, iii, 93.

9 stage-coach

10 some knowledge of physics

Carlyle is here merely reporting a glimpse of
Elie as he gets it from some record. He has
earlier described these two captains, Elie and
Hulin, as "both with an air of half-pay."

their vaults, the seven Prisoners hear muffled

11 straw mattress

12 huissier, constable

General Spinola in 1625 took the fortress of
Breda in Holland.

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