the garrison. An officer thrust a paper through the wicket, containing an offer to surrender, if a promise were given that the lives of the garrison should be spared. The French Guards immediately gave the required pledge, and the drawbridge was lowered. In poured the crowd with exulting yells, and despite all the efforts of the Guards to protect the prisoners, many were slain, and among the number Delaunay the governor. Search was made through all the dungeons for the numerous captives expected to be found within them, but only seven were discovered, of whom two had been rendered insane by the horrors of confinement.

The Hotel de Ville was still the scene of a terrible commotion. It was filled and surrounded by a furious mob of men and women, clamouring for arms and ammunition. Loud execrations were heaped on the Committee of Electors, and particularly on Flesselles the provost. Whilst in this state of alarm, the committee was relieved by the approach of the conquerors of the Bastille, who came in all the frenzy of successful combat, bearing in triumph a grenadier of the Guards, and rending the air with cries of Victory! Liberty! The nation for ever! One carried the keys of the fortress, another the records, a third part of the governor's peruke. The prisoners who had been saved were escorted by the French Guards; they were assailed with demoniac shouts of 'No quarter! Death to those who have fired on their 'fellow-citizens !' but the electors interceded for them, the Guards vowed to defend them with their lives, and eventually a vote of amnesty was carried by acclamation. The vengeance of the mob, however, must be satiated by some victim. The unfortunate De Flesselles seemed a fit sacrifice; he was charged with having written to Delaunay, exhorting him to resistance, and stating that he would amuse the Parisians with cockades and promises until succours arrived. In vain he attempted to defend himself; he was interrupted by cries of Come to the Palais-Royal to be tried!' He descended from the bench on which he sat, saying, 'Well, gentlemen, let us go to the Palais-Royal;' and advanced into the midst of the crowd, which closed around him and hurried him down the stairs of the hotel. Shortly after crossing the Place de Grêve, he was shot dead by some unknown ruffian. His head was hoisted on the end of a pike, and paraded through the streets side by side with that of the murdered governor of the Bastille.

After the first intoxication of victory, dread of the consequences arose. Marshal de Broglie was rumoured to be in full march on Paris with thirty thousand men and a numerous artillery. The tocsin of alarm was sounded in every district, the citizens assembled in affright, and preparations were hastily made to withstand a siege. Barricades were erected, the pavement of the streets was pulled up, piles of stones were collected on the house-tops to hurl upon the soldiers, deep trenches were dug, and

thousands of pikes manufactured. But these precautions were superfluous. It is asserted by all the writers hostile to the court, that the night of the 14th July was certainly fixed for the dispersion of the Assembly and the storming of Paris, and they quote in corroboration an intercepted despatch from De Breteuil to Delaunay, pressing him to hold out if attacked, as he would be speedily relieved. They assert, moreover, that many thousand copies of the declaration of the 23d June were ready for distribution, and that a hundred millions of bank-notes had been engraved, to be put in circulation. These statements are controverted by the royalist writers, and on which side the truth lies, is of little consequence. It is obvious that the advisers of the king must have had some project in view, but they either faltered when the moment of execution came, or circumstances rendered it impracticable.* Be this as it may, however, the first great phase of the Revolution was accomplished, and its onward march secured. The capture of the Bastille was fatal to the royal authority, not only as a successful act of aggression, but in the prestige arising from the reduction of a fortress whose very name was sufficient to evoke terror, and which the great Condé had besieged in vain for twenty-three days.

CHAPTER II.

VISIT OF LOUIS XVI. TO PARIS-LABOURS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON THE CONSTITUTION-STORMING OF THE PALACE OF VERSAILLES14TH JULY TO 5TH OCTOBER 1789.

Intelligence of the capture of the Bastille reached Versailles late in the evening of the 14th July. The National Assembly was sitting perplexed with alternate hopes and fears. The members were in continual movement, seeking to gather tidings both of events in Paris and of the designs of the court. Of the former, accounts were so far cheering, that it was known the French Guards had joined the people; but the strength of the place seemed to defy the possibility of its reduction by an undisciplined populace of the latter, little was gathered, except that the troops had been visited in their quarters by the princes and courtiers of both sexes, and money and wine freely distributed among them.

* Necker thus darkly alludes to the subject in the following passage of his memoirs:-'I could never ascertain certainly what design was contemplated. There were secrets and after-secrets, and I am convinced the king himself was not in all of them. It was intended, perhaps, according to circumstances, to draw the monarch into measures which they did not dare to mention to him beforehand.-Vol. fi. p. 85.

At midnight two deputies entered the hall, and announced, amid an anxious silence, the possession of the Bastille by the victorious citizens of Paris. A deep emotion thrilled through the Assembly, for all the importance of the blow was felt. A member rose to move that a deputation be immediately sent to the king, again insisting upon the removal of the troops. "No!' Clermont-Tonnerre exclaimed; 'let us leave them the night to take counsel; kings, like other men, must buy experience. It was resolved that the deputation should be postponed till the following day.

6

At the palace all was in consternation. The king had retired to rest, as was his custom, at eleven o'clock. The Duke de Liancourt forced his way to the royal chamber and awoke him. He briefly related the startling news. How; it is a rebellion then!' exclaimed the astonished monarch. Say rather a revolution, sire,' replied the duke. A long and anxious conference ensued between the king and this enlightened servant, in which the latter explained to him the true state of affairs, and besought him to yield to a pressure which it was now hopeless to resist. Louis acceded, for the advice coincided with his own impressions. Accordingly, when the Assembly met on the following morning, and the deputation it had nominated was about to set out for the palace, a sudden report came that the king himself was on his way, unattended by guards. Acclamations of joy immediately resounded through the hall, which were checked by Mirabeau. 'Let us wait,' he said, 'until his majesty makes manifest to us the good dispositions we are told he possesses. The blood of our brethren flows in the streets of Paris. Let a sullen respect be the first welcome to the monarch by the representatives of an unfortunate people. The silence of nations is the monitor of kings.' The king entered the hall accompanied only by his two brothers. At his appearance, at sight of his grieved countenance, the injunctions of Mirabeau were forgotten, and he was greeted with bursts of applause. He delivered a short oration, interrupted at every sentence by grateful exclamations. He threw himself wholly upon the Assembly, saying, 'I, who am but one with the nation, trust altogether in you. I ask your assistance at this juncture to secure the safety of the State. Depending upon the love and allegiance of my subjects, I have given orders for the removal of the troops from Paris and Versailles.' The Archbishop of Vienne, president of the Assembly, having replied to this speech, all the members arose in a transport of enthusiasm, crowded around the monarch, and escorted him to the door of the hall. Affected even to tears by these marks of affection, the king resolved to proceed on foot to the palace. The whole Assembly— clergy, nobility, and commons, mingled in a promiscuous crowdfollowed him. The people pressed around and before him; his path was blocked, and he could with difficulty penetrate to the

gates of the palace. The shouts of the multitude had been heard within its recesses; the queen, in alarm, flew to the balcony. Thence, with the dauphin in her arms, she beheld her husband struggling in the midst of the excited and enraptured mass. Her first fears were dispelled, and gave way to a thrill of tenderness and emotion: she descended to meet the king, and embraced him at the threshold. For a moment all was happiness and confidence; but the reconciliation could scarcely be other than transitory and hollow.

The king's eyes might be opened, but the court was still far from being disabused of its illusions, and the Assembly speedily relapsed into its former suspicions. On the sitting being resumed, a motion was made for an address to the king, praying him forthwith to dismiss his present ministers. This was withdrawn on the remark of Clermont-Tonnerre, that his majesty ought to be suffered to relish at least for four-and-twenty hours the joy and happiness of being king of so loyal a nation; and that on so glorious a day it was beneath the dignity of the Assembly to attend to so contemptible a ministry. A deputation was, however, named to proceed to Paris, for the purpose of conveying the gratifying intelligence of the king's declaration, and assisting in the restoration of tranquillity. Bailly, Sieyes, and Lafayette were among its members. The happy tidings preceded them. The exultation of the Parisians was unbounded; a prodigious concourse of people thronged all the avenues, and covered the square of the Place de Grêve. The deputies were ushered into the hall of the Hotel de Ville, where Lafayette read aloud the speech of the king. Lally-Tollendal afterwards addressed the assembled citizens, and was crowned with a wreath of laurel. The city being, by the death of Flesselles, without a chief magistrate, Bailly was proposed to fill the place, and with unanimous acclamations installed as mayor of Paris. The command of the burgher guard was bestowed on Lafayette. At the instance of the Archbishop of Paris, this auspicious day was closed by the celebration of a Te Deum in the cathedral of Notre Dame.

Upon the return of the deputation to the Assembly, Lally-Tollendal, in its name, reported that the universal cry of the Parisians was for the recall of Necker. With that minister the cause of the people was held to be identified. A motion was immediately submitted for an address soliciting his recall, which was rendered unnecessary by a message from the king, announcing the dissolution of the Breteuil ministry, and his intention to reinstate Necker. An address of thanks was accordingly substituted, and a deputation appointed to present it to the king. To this deputation the king intimated that, in compliance with the declared wishes of the citizens of Paris, he purposed paying a visit to the capital, and begged that the Assembly might communicate

his design to the authorities. One hundred members were named to accompany the king on this occasion; but such was the general eagerness, that a much greater number swelled his retinue. It was on the morning of the 17th July that the king left the palace of Versailles to intrust himself amid the insurrectionary population of Paris. The queen and the court viewed his departure with the deepest alarm, scarcely hoping he would be permitted to return alive. Those who had been mainly instrumental in producing the painful exigency, shrank in dismay from the perspective danger, and, obeying the instinct of cowardice, or smitten with the consciousness of the evil-doings they had meditated, fled the kingdom. The Count d'Artois, the Princes of Condé and Conti, the Polignacs,+ and others, were the first who set the example of emigration, and who sought personal safety in an ignominious flight. The king was met at the gates of Paris by Bailly and the municipal body. The mayor presented to him the keys of the city, saying, 'Sire, I bring your majesty the keys of your good city of Paris; they are the same that were presented to Henry IV. He had conquered his people; now it is the people who have reconquered their king.' He passed through the streets, which were lined by a double row of the burgher militia, armed with pikes, swords, and muskets. His reception was unfavourable; cries of Vive la Nation! alone were heard. On arriving at the Place de Grêve, he alighted and entered the Hotel

* Scarcely two months previously, the Count d'Artois, having occasion to write a letter to the president of the order of nobility, had seized the opportunity to make the following absurd boast:-'I pray you, sir, to speak to the Chamber in my name, and give it the formal and certain assurance that the blood of my ancestors has been transmitted to me in all its purity, and that so long as one drop of it remains in my veins, I will not fail to show the world I am worthy of being born a French nobleman.'-Mirabeau's Journal-fifth letter to his constituents.

The Duke and Duchess de Polignac were especial favourites at court, and an account of the income they enjoyed from the public purse is curious, as showing both how natural was their warm attachment to the cause of royalty, and what high prizes were offered to the cupidity of courtiers. The various items of this income were as follow:Francs.

The place of first equerry to the queen, 80,000

with appointments,

The domain of Fenestranges,

The place of gouvernante to the children

of France (the Duchess),

Pension on the royal treasury,

General direction of the stud,

70,000

50,000

80,000
12,000

292,000 francs (£11,700 sterling).

When the Red Book, the register of secret disbursements, was published, it appeared that the domain of Fenestranges had been purchased for M. de Polignac at an expense of 1,200,000 francs. The above figures are taken from a letter written by the duke himself in reply to attacks upon him in the National Assembly.-Weber, vol. ii. p. 23, and Ap. Letter B.

The queen was extremely indignant at this expression. Bailly defends it by alleging the clear meaning to be recovered, and that he used the word reconquered as more expressive. In truth, he perpetrated a very silly figure of rhetoric.