of the secrets of the court were betrayed to them; but Mirabeau saw in the arrival of the soldiers a fresh opportunity of making the king feel the folly of the minister in rejecting his advances; and in a speech of unusual power he thundered against those who had advised the bringing-up of troops, as he declared, to overawe the Assembly; though, in fact, nothing but their presence and active exertions could prevent the Assembly from being overawed by the mob. But, undoubtedly, at this time his own first object was to use the populace of Paris to terrify the members into obedience to himself. In one of his ends he succeeded; he drove Necker from office. He carried the address which he proposed, to entreat the king to withdraw the troops; but Louis had for the moment resolved on adopting bolder counsels than those of Necker. He declined to comply with the petition, declaring that it was his duty to keep in Paris a force sufficient to preserve the public tranquillity, though, if the Assembly were disquieted by their neighborhood, he expressed his unwillingness to remove their session to some more distant town. And at the same time he dismissed Necker from office, banishing him from France, but ordering him to keep his departure secret.
The queen had evidently had great influence in bringing him to this decision; but how cordially she approved of all the concessions which the king had already made, and how clearly she saw that more still remained to be done before the necessary reformation could be pronounced complete, the letter which on the evening of Necker's dismissal she wrote to Madame de Polignac convincingly proves. She had high ideas of the authority which a king was legitimately entitled to exercise; and to what she regarded as undue restrictions on it, injurious to his dignity, she would never consent. She probably regarded them as abstract questions which had but little bearing on the substantial welfare of the people in general; but of all measures to increase the happiness of all classes, even of the very lowest, she was throughout the warmest advocate.
'July 11th, 1789.
'I can not sleep, my dear heart, without letting you know that M. Necker is gone. MM. de Breteuil and de la Vauguyon will be summoned to the council to-morrow. God grant that we may at last be able to do all the good with which we are wholly occupied. The moment will be terrible; but I have courage, and, provided that the honest folks support us without exposing themselves needlessly, I think that I have vigor enough in myself to impart some to others. But it is more than ever necessary to bear in mind that all classes of men, so long as they are honest, are equally our subjects, and to know how to distinguish those who are right-thinking in every district and in every rank. My God! if people could only believe that these are my real thoughts, perhaps they would love me a little. But I must not think of myself. The glory of the king, that of his son, and the happiness of this ungrateful nation, are all that I can, all that I ought to, wish for; for as for your friendship, my dear heart, I reckon on that always...'
Such language and sentiments were worthy of a sovereign. That the feelings here expressed were genuine and sincere, the whole life of the writer is a standing proof; and yet already fierce, wicked spirits, even of women (for never was it more clearly seen than in France at this time how far, when women are cruel, they exceed the worst of men in ferocity), were thirsting for her blood. Already a woman in education and ability far above the lowest class, one whose energy afterward raised her to be, if not the avowed head, at least the moving spirit, of a numerous party (Madame Roland), was urging the public prosecution, or, if the nation were not ripe for such a formal outrage, the secret assassination, of both king and queen.[1] But, however benevolent and patriotic were the queen's intentions, it became instantly evident that those who had counseled the dismissal of Necker had given their advice in entire ignorance of the hold which he had established on the affections of the Parisians; while the new prime minister, the Baron de Breteuil, whose previous office had connected him with the police, was, on that account, very unpopular with a class which is very numerous in all large cities. The populace of Paris broke out at once in riots which amounted to insurrection. Thousands of citizens, not all of the lowest class, decorated with green cockades, the color of Necker's livery, and armed with every variety of weapon, paraded the streets, bearing aloft busts of Necker and the Duc d'Orleans, without stopping, in their madness, to consider how incongruous a combination they were presenting. The most ridiculous stories were circulated about the queen: it was affirmed that she had caused the Hall of the Assembly to be undermined, that she might blow it up with gunpowder;[2] and, by way of averting or avenging so atrocious an act, the mob began to set fire to houses in different quarters of the city. Growing bolder at the sight of their own violence, they broke open the prisons, and thus obtained a re- enforcement of hundreds of desperadoes, ripe for any wickedness. The troops were paralyzed by Louis's imbecile order to avoid bloodshed, and in the same proportion the rioters were encouraged by their inaction and evident helplessness. They attacked the great armory, and equipped themselves with its contents, applying to the basest uses time-honored weapons, monuments of ancient valor and patriotism. The spear with which Dunois had cleared his country of the British invaders; the sword with which the first Bourbon king had routed Egmont's cavalry at Ivry, were torn down from the walls to arm the vilest of mankind for rapine and slaughter. They stormed the Hotel de Ville, and got possession of the municipal chest, containing three millions of francs; and now, more and more intoxicated with their triumph, and with the evidence which all these exploits afforded that the whole city was at their mercy, they proceeded to give their riot a regular organization, by establishing a committee to sit in the Guildhall and direct their future proceedings. Lawless and ferocious as was the main body of the rioters, there were shrewd heads to guide their fury; and the very first order issued by this committee was marked by such acute foresight, and such a skillful adaptation to the requirements of the moment and the humor of the people, that it remains in force to this day. It was hardly strange that men in open insurrection against the king's authority should turn their wrath against one of its conspicuous emblems, consecrated though it was by usage of immemorial antiquity and by many a heroic achievement-the snow-white banner bearing the golden lilies. But that glorious ensign could not be laid aside till another was substituted for it; and the colors of the city, red and blue, and white, the color of the army, were now blended together to form the tricolor flag which has since won for itself a wider renown than even the deeds of Bayard or Turenne had shed upon the lilies, and with which, under every form of government, the nation has permanently identified itself.
They demanded more men, and a committee with three millions of francs could easily command recruits. They stormed the Hotel des Invalides, where thousands of muskets were kept fit for instant use; one division of regular troops, whose commander, the Baron de Besenval, was a resolute man, determined to do his duty, mutinying against his orders, and refusing to fire on the mob. They took possession of the city gates, and, thinking themselves now strong enough for any exploit, on the third day of the insurrection, the 14th of July, they marched in overpowering force to attack the Bastile.
In former times the Bastile had been the great fortress of the city; and, as such, it had been fortified with all the resources of the engineer's art. Massive well-armed towers rose at numerous points above walls of great height and solidity. A deep fosse surrounded it, and, when well supplied and garrisoned, it had been regarded with pride by the citizens, as a bulwark capable of defying the utmost efforts of a foreign enemy, and not the less to be admired because they never expected it to be exposed to such a test; but as a warlike fortress it had long been disused. In recent times it had only been known as the State-prison, identified more than any other with the worst acts of despotism and barbarity. As such it was now as much detested as it had formerly been respected; and it had nothing but the outward appearance of strength to resist an attack. Evidently the military authorities had never anticipated the possibility that the mob would rise to such a height of audacity. But the rioters were now encouraged by two days of unbroken success, and those who spurred them on were well-informed as well as fearless. They knew that the castle was in such a state that its apparent strength was its real weakness; that its entire garrison consisted of little more than a hundred soldiers, most of whom were superannuated veterans, a force inadequate to man one-tenth of the defenses; and that the governor, De Launay, though personally brave, was a man devoid of presence of mind, and nervous under responsibility.
Led by a brewer, named Santerre, who for the next three years bore a conspicuous part in all the worst deeds of ferocity and horror, they assailed the gates in vast numbers. While the attention of the scanty garrison was fully occupied by this assault, another party scaled the walls at a point where there was not even a sentinel to give the alarm, and let down one draw-bridge across the fosse, while another was loosened, as is believed, by traitors in the garrison itself. Swarming across the passage thus opened to them, thousands of the assailants rushed in; murdered the governor, officers, and almost every one of the garrison; and with a savage ferocity, as yet unexampled, though but a faint omen of their future crimes, they cut off the head and hands of De Launay and several of their chief victims, and, sticking them on pikes, bore them as trophies of their victory through the streets of the city.
The news of what had been done came swiftly to Versailles, where it excited feelings in the Assembly which, had the king or his advisers been capable of availing themselves of it with skill and firmness, might have led to a salutary change in the policy of that body; for the greater part of the deputies were thoroughly alarmed at the violence of Santerre and his companions, and would in all probability have supported the king in taking strong
