When M. Thuriot de la Rozière left the Bastille with the refusal of the
governor to receive into it a detachment of city guards, the people
drew off from the gate to consult. The answer of De Launay was not of a
nature to satisfy them. But what step it was advisable to take was by
no means clear. During this moment of hesitation a blacksmith, Tournay
by name, leaped from the roof of a perfumer's shop upon the battlement
of the wall surrounding the gardens, and which enclosed the whole area
of the fortress. Thence he descended to the guard-house, and thence
into the first court. He entered the lodge in quest of the keys of the
gate, but they were not there; then he demanded a hatchet.
Aubin Bonnemère, an old soldier, flung him one, and Tournay cut,
hacked, and broke through the chains, and let fall the first
drawbridge. The crowd rushed in and filled the court. The firing began
at once from the towers and the loop-holes below.
Bonnemère heading the people ran to the second drawbridge, hoping
to succeed with it as they had with the first; but a discharge of
musketry drove them back. Some sheltered themselves under the grating,
some in the elm-court, leaving several writhing in the agonies of death
on the pavement.
At the same time, the fire-brigade arrived with their engines, and
began to jerk a stream of water against the towers of the Bastille
with the intention of deluging the cannons and spoiling their priming.
But the jets would not reach so far, and the garrison laughed at the
attempt. The sound of fire-arms had attracted an immense crowd with
incredible rapidity, and along with the people arrived numbers of the
city militia, wearing their old uniform of the French guard. The mob
instantly placed themselves under their orders, elected their officers,
and swore obedience to their commands.
It was at this moment that Élie, an officer belonging to the Queen's
regiment, knowing the importance of an uniform, quickly changed his
private dress for the brilliant livery of his corps, and was at once
elected commander of the French guards. Hullin, a gamekeeper of the
Marquis de Conflans, mistaken for a soldier, because he wore his
master's livery, was elected captain of the workmen.
Several times did the people fling themselves upon the second gate, but
each time the discharge of a rampart-gun loaded with bullets drove them
back with terrible slaughter.
This was the moment when a deputation from the Hôtel de Ville arrived
and sought admission to the fortress. They approached slowly, waving
their white handkerchiefs, but in the fire and smoke they were not
seen, and the defenders of the Bastille continued to pour from the
towers a shower of lead.
The deputies determined to traverse the first court and knock at the
gate; but as they prepared to pass under the vault of the portal from
the Rue S. Antoine, the people beneath it, armed and firing upon the
garrison, signed to them not to approach. The deputies then turned into
the Rue de la Cerisaye, hoping to find admission by that entrance to
the castle. But there the fight was raging with even greater fury. The
besiegers were commanded by La Reynie. The embassy advanced, explained
their mission, and implored the people to suspend hostilities.
Immediately, at La Reynie's command, the firing ceased, and the
deputies renewed their signals and slowly neared the citadel, followed
by the people with their arms reversed.
But scarcely had they approached near the gate, when a volley of
musketry struck down half a dozen men around the messengers, and the
people enraged at this action, which they regarded as perfidy, whereas
in all probability it arose from a mistake, recommenced their firing.
Finding it impossible to execute their mission, the delegates returned
to the town-hall.
In the meantime, reinforcements had arrived. Peillon and the architect,
Palloy, marched to the attack at the head of a company of citizens.
They were followed by the brothers Kabers, chemists, conducting the
corps of their trade; then came Turpin, fusilier of the company of
Brache, and Maillard alone, but huge, with a solemn face and black
dress,--a gloomy giant. From the direction of the arsenal came up
another troop, headed by Geudin, a lad of seventeen. His father was a
workman engaged in the citadel; he wished to save his life at the risk
of his own.
Shortly after, a second deputation from the Hôtel de Ville arrived,
headed by the flag with the city arms, and a drummer. The drum rattled
a recall, and the crowd, believing that the signal announced the
arrival of the troops, fell back. But when they found that it announced
another embassy, they testified their impatience, and assured the
deputies that it was impossible for them to cross the court. The
deputies persisted, and entered the open space strewn with corpses.
The insurgents ceased firing, and the signal of the embassy was
acknowledged from the towers by the hoisting of a white flag. But,
unfortunately, the towers were manned by French soldiers, and the
gates by Swiss; and the latter, unaware of what the invalids had done,
discharged the rampart-gun upon the deputies.
At that moment the rumble of the cannon was heard advancing along the
Port au Blé.
'The cannon, my friends, the cannon!' bellowed Élie, and the
silver-mounted gun from the Garde-Meuble was run into the court and
pointed at the gate.
A man named Cholat had brought the guns to the assistance of the
besiegers. He had previously visited the powder magazine, and had
provided himself by force with sufficient ammunition. These guns were
followed soon after by the cannon from the Invalides. Georget, a
marine, whose thigh was broken by a ball, seated himself on a heap of
stones and directed some novices in the use of cannon how to load and
to discharge the piece under his charge.
Three cart-loads of straw had been pushed forward against the
imperishable second gate and set on fire. Immediately the rampart-gun,
which had already done such havoc, blew a storm of grape among those
who crept up under cover of the straw, and dispersed them. The flame
and smoke rose high into the air, and concealed the movements of the
garrison; the cannon of the insurgents thundered incessantly, and
volleys of bullets pattered innocuously against the hard walls of the
fortress. One ball from a gun pointed by Élie carried away the cap
of one of the pepper-boxes on the nearest tower, and struck down an
invalid named Fortuné, the first of the garrison who perished in the
action. The crash of the falling roof alarmed the invalids, who fought
without heart and with reluctance.
In the meantime, the guard-houses opening on the court had caught fire,
and were in a blaze. In one of them was a young and beautiful girl, who
had secreted herself in her chamber at the beginning of the fight. The
flames drove her from her shelter, and she fled across the yard with
dishevelled hair and with face pale with fear.
The people, supposing her to be the governor's daughter, uttered loud
cries of 'Seize her! and threaten De Launay with her death, unless he
surrender.'
At these words, a score of men fell upon her. In vain did she assure
them that she was no relation of the governor; the madmen, drunk with
excitement, would have massacred her, had not Aubin Bonnemère forced
his way through them and protected her against their blows, exclaiming,
'Cowards! by striking a woman, you disgrace a sacred cause!'
But he was unable to allay the general intoxication of rage. Another
discharge of grape strewed the ground with corpses.
'We will not kill her,' shouted a demoniac; 'the fire shall devour the
girl. If De Launay will not surrender, he shall see his child expire in
the flames;' and laying hold on the young lady, he flung her on a straw
bed, and set fire to it. The terrified girl uttered a piercing scream
and fainted.
That cry drew M. de Monsigny, commandant of the gunners in the citadel,
to the parapet. He looked through an embrasure, and recognised his
daughter. The assailants saw him lift his hands in the agony of his
fear, and at the same moment a bullet entered his breast, and he fell
back into the arms of the invalids.
But Bonnemère had not abandoned the unfortunate girl; regardless of the
blows showered upon him, and the opposition he met with, the brave man
plunged through the ferocious band that surrounded her, he trod out the
flames, and raising her insensible form in his nervous arms, bore her
away to a house in the Rue S. Antoine, where she could be in safety,
and then returned to his place at the head of the besiegers. Maillard,
Élie, and Hullin, finding that the burning straw obscured the view of
the drawbridge, and prevented them from taking accurate aim, displaced
the carts, and by means of poles strewed the flaming straw about the
yard, where it was stamped out by the militia, who now filled it.
They then advanced to the edge of the moat and shouted to the governor
to lower the bridge. M. de Flue, the officer commanding the Swiss,
replied through the battlements that the garrison would yield if they
were allowed to march forth with all the honours of war.
'No,' was the answer; 'no more arms for those who have butchered the
people.'
To account for this readiness to entertain the idea of capitulation, we
must visit the interior of the citadel.
Upon the death of Monsigny, the invalids had refused to continue the
defence. They could not forget that they were Frenchmen, and that those
whose blood they were shedding were their countrymen.
De Launay, finding it impossible to hold out, when the majority of his
garrison were mutinous, in the insanity of rage and fear, rushed to the
powder magazine with a lighted match to blow up the castle and destroy
with it the assailants and the besieged. A soldier, Ferrand by name,
was sentinel at the door. Divining the purpose of the governor, he
refused to give him admission to the magazine, snatched the match from
his hand, and extinguished it with his foot.
When the terms of surrender proposed by M. de Flue had been refused,
the officer consented to lay down his arms on condition that no harm
should be offered to the garrison. A tumult of contradictory answers
arose. Some promised what was demanded, others required unconditional
surrender. At last, after several minutes of uproar, a scrap of paper
was passed though an embrasure in the wall. A plank was run across
the moat, but, as there was no resting-place for the end on the
farther side, a number of men jumped upon that portion which rested
on the pavement of the yard and sustained the plank in its horizontal
position, whilst one of the crowd ran along it and reached his hand
towards the paper. But whether his situation rendered him giddy, or
whether the counterpoise was not effectually maintained, is uncertain;
he reeled and fell over into the fosse and perished. The huge Maillard
sprang upon the plank in his place, and succeeded in possessing himself
of the note which he remitted to Élie. It contained these words:--
'We have twenty thousand charges of gunpowder. Unless you accept our
terms of capitulation, we will blow up the garrison and the whole
quarter of the town.'
'I accept, on the word of honour of an officer,' called Élie; 'lower
the drawbridge.'
But the crowd protested against this capitulation, being exasperated
against the garrison for having thinned their numbers with their
bullets; and running the cannon forward to the brink of the fosse, they
pointed it, and prepared to fire, when a young and beautiful girl,
wearing a peasant's scarlet cap, to which was pinned the national
rosette, and holding a musket in one hand, and a blue cloak over her
other arm, suddenly cast her bonnet upon the touch-hole, and held it
resolutely there.
At the same moment the lesser drawbridge was lowered, and Élie, Hullin,
Maillard, and Cholat leaped upon it and prevented others from crossing
till they had attached it to the ground with cramps and nails; then,
flying to the other side, they let the great bridge fall with a crash.
Immediately the French guard marched across, and with great forethought
ranged themselves on either side of the bridge, to prevent the crowd,
which prepared to rush over it, from forcing one another over the edge
into the moat.
The tunnel that opened before them through the massive walls of the
fortress was illumined by the ruddy glare of the governor's house and
guard-houses, which were in flames, and a streak of fire shone even
into the well-like quadrangle in the centre.
A light dusty rain had been falling, so light as not to wet any one,
but to draw a silvery haze over the scene. As the insurgents rushed
through the portal, the sun pierced this veil and painted upon it a
portion of a rainbow above the huge black towers.
One of the first to enter the court of the Bastille was the girl who
had prevented the gun from being discharged. It was Madeleine.
In the quadrangle were drawn up the garrison, on the right the
invalids, on the left the Swiss.
Some of the people, in their fury, rushed upon them. Élie drew his
sword, and stood before the French veterans.
'I have given my word of honour that they shall be untouched,' he
cried; 'they are our brothers. Respect your victory.'
But the authority which had been acknowledged in battle was little
regarded in the moment of triumph, and the insurgents fell upon the
Swiss, against whom they were especially exasperated.
Hullin and Élie continued to cry, 'Spare them. Respect your victory;
let no blood be shed by us within these accursed walls!' but the rage
of the assailants rendered them deaf to the appeals of their officers.
'Turn their coats!' cried Madeleine.
'Turn their coats; yes, let them be turned,' repeated the brave Élie;
and in an instant the uniform of the Swiss was torn off by ready hands
and reversed.
'Nicholas, help!' called Madeleine, as she rushed upon the corporal,
and rent his uniform from his back.
In the scuffle, one of the guard fled,--the man who stood next to
Deschwanden.
A shout of rage burst from the victors, and they turned in pursuit. The
man ran towards the great entrance, but it was blocked by an advancing
crowd of people; he turned and fled round the quadrangle, with a score
of pursuers at his heels. He tried the chapel door, but it was locked,
then he doubled and fled towards the new buildings. As he ran up the
steps, a dozen hands seized him. With a scream, so piercing that the
walls of the great square echoed it again and again, he went down, and
was literally hacked to pieces. This man was Beckhard, the gunner, who
had produced the greatest havoc among the people by the discharges of
the rampart gun near the gate.
The excitement of the chase and the murder had arrested the attention
of the mob.
Madeleine and Nicholas had taken advantage of the incident to equip the
corporal in the blue cloak and red cap of the girl, and to arm him with
her rifle.
'Join us, quick!' she whispered; then aloud in her shrill tones: 'My
friends! our brothers are languishing in these dungeons. Let our first
act be their release!'
'To the dungeons!' was answered by the people.
'Lead off the prisoners,' ordered Élie; and the Swiss guard, minus
their corporal and their gunner, were marched out of the citadel,
which they had defended with so much gallantry. As they appeared in
the streets, their turned coats saved them from being massacred by
the people, for they were mistaken for prisoners who had just been
liberated.
Floods of excited besiegers continued to pour into the great court, and
the invalids were exposed to imminent danger. Those who had brothers
and fathers killed in the siege demanded their blood. They fell upon
one of them,--the man Ferrand, who had prevented the governor from
blowing up the citadel,--and killed him; then cut off his hands and
carried them about on the end of pikes. The butchery of the rest would
inevitably have followed, had not the Sieur Marqué, sergeant of the
French guard, forced his way, followed by his company, through the mob
into the quadrangle, and surrounded the invalids, shouting: 'Pardon,
pardon for your comrades, your brothers!'
These words met with an instant response, so versatile is a mob, and
a lane was opened through the crowd to allow the twenty-two invalids,
and eleven little Swiss children belonging to the foreign detachment,
to leave the castle, escorted by the French guard, who continued to cry
out as they advanced, 'The people have pardoned; open your ranks.'
In the meantime, Cholat had hunted out De Launay, who stoutly denied
that he was the governor. But Cholat knew him, and dragging him along,
he called to Hullin and a couple of grenadiers to assist him in
conveying him to the tribunal of the electors, to be by them judged.
As De Launay was brought into the quadrangle, a thousand voices cried
for his blood. He quaked with fear, and drawing a dagger, attempted
to stab himself, but Cholat knocked the weapon from his grasp, not,
however, before De Launay had wounded himself in the hand.
Hullin and Cholat attempted to force their way through the crowd with
their prisoner between them. Hullin, an immense man, covered him with
his person. One of the crowd struck at the governor with a sabre, but
only cut his clothes. His captors, redoubling their efforts, succeeded
in forcing their way through the gates and reaching the street. In
the outer court they were joined by some others, animated by the same
desire of saving the governor from the rabble, and bringing him to
justice.
But the rush of the tide was against them; they were breasting waves of
life rolled towards the Bastille from every quarter of Paris, to which
the news spread like lightning that the citadel had fallen. Cholat was
torn from the side of De Launay. The great Hullin held his prisoner
as long as he could; finding that he could no longer protect him, he
put his own hat on the governor's head, and then the blows aimed at
the latter fell on his shoulders. But he wriggled his way through the
crowd, grasping the prisoner, till he had reached the arcade S. Jean.
There the mass of people swayed like a sea in a storm. Twice Hullin
fell, and twice he regained his feet. Cholat had fallen. He had eaten
nothing all day, and this last desperate effort to save a life had
been too much for him. He fainted, and was well-nigh trodden to death
beneath the feet of the crowd. Arné, who had taken his place beside the
governor, was swallowed up in a whirlpool of people.
In another moment, the head of De Launay was cut off and held up on a
pike, amidst the cheers of a brutal mob.
Madeleine, the corporal, thoroughly disguised, and by all supposed to
be a leader of the insurgents, Nicholas, and Gabrielle, whom Madeleine
had drawn with her, rushed to the steps of the new buildings. They
were splashed with blood, where the gunner had fallen. A man had run a
ladder against the clock-face, adorned with the chained automata, and
was up at it, hacking them and their fetters to pieces.
A tumultuous rabble besieged the door of the new chapel, supposing it
to be an entrance to the prisons, and would have burst it open, when
it was unlocked from within, and the old chaplain appeared, saying,
'The spot is sacred.' The mob fell back out of reverence; but presently
they observed the painting over the altar, which, by a refinement of
cruelty, represented S. Peter in chains between his keepers.
'Look,' roared one of the crowd; 'in the house of God, despotism
preaches to the captives that nothing but a miracle can deliver them
from their bonds.'
'Follow me,' cried another, armed with a hatchet, leaping in. Directly
the sanctuary was invaded, and the objectionable painting was removed;
but no other injury was done.
In the meantime, the corporal, Nicholas, and the two women, followed by
a number of men, armed with guns, hatchets, and pikes, rushed along the
passage in the new buildings. Gabrielle conducted them. They reached
the corridor in the well-court, between the towers Du Pont and De la
Liberté.
'Thirty-five,' said Gabrielle, arresting them at the door where Madame
Berthier was confined.
Hatchets, bars, and hammers were at once applied, and the door was
forced in.
Before them stood the lady, with the yellow cat on her shoulder,
hissing with fright, with erect back and tail.
Gabrielle fell into her arms, without speaking.
'I thought so,' said Madame Plomb; 'we have been expecting the towers
to fall every minute. Now come away from here; they have been tottering
for days--for years, I believe; come quickly away, or they will bury
you under the ruins. I am going, and Gabriel is going, so none of you
remain behind.'
Then striding over the shattered door with her cat still perched beside
her head, holding Gabrielle's arm, she led the way into the corridor.
'Where is the Beast?' she asked suddenly, turning round on her
deliverers. 'Ah! he is hidden. Wait a bit, I must go after him myself.'