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Taking the Bastile

<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2> STORMING THE BASTILE. Under the burning July sun the crowds awaited, shuddering with fever. Gonchon's men had joined in with Marat's, the suburbs hailing each other as brothers. Gonchon was at the head of his patriots but Marat had disappeared. The scene on the open place was terrifying. On seeing Billet the cheering was tremendous. "He is a brave man," said Billet to Gonchon, "or rather I should say he is stubborn. He will not surrender the Bastile but will sustain the siege." "Do you think he will hold out long?" "To death." "All right, he shall have that." "But how many men will be killed by us?" said the farmer, no doubt fearing that he had not the right usurped by generals, kings and emperors, those who take out licenses to kill and maim. "Rubbish," said Gonchon; "there are too many, since we [Pg 95] have not enough for half the population. Is not that about the size of it, boys?" he asked of the bystanders. "Yes, yes," was the reply in sublime abnegation. "But the moat?" queried Billet. "It need be filled up in only one place," responded the beggar's leader: "and I calculate that we could choke it up altogether, eh, lads?" The friends answered unanimously in the affirmative. "Have it so," said Billet, overpowered. At this moment, Launay appeared on a terrace, followed by Major Losme and two or three other officers. "Commence," shouted Gonchon. The governor turned his back on him. Gonchon might have put up with a threat but he would not bear contempt: he lifted his gun and fired at him. A man near him fell. Instantly a hundred, nay, a thousand gunshots sounded, as if it were awaited as a signal, and the grey towers were striped with white. A few seconds' silence succeeded this discharge, as if the assailants were frightened at what they had done. Then a gush of flame lost in a cloud of smoke crowned the crest of one tower. A detonation thundered. Shrieks of pain were heard in the throngs closely pressed. The first cannonshot had been fired by the royalists, the first blood shed. The battle between people and Bastile was begun. An instant previously menacing, the multitudes felt something like terror. By defending itself with so little of its weapons the Bastile seemed impregnable. In this period of concession the majority had no doubt supposed that they would always have their way. That was a mistake: this cannonshot fired into them gave the measure of the Titanic work they had undertaken. A firing of muskets, well aimed, from the platform, immediately followed. The fresh silence was broken by renewed screams, groans and a few complaints. But nobody thought to flee, and had the thought struck any one, he must have been ashamed seeing the numbers. Indeed all the thoroughfares were streams of human beings: [Pg 96] the square an immense sea, with each billow a human head; the eyes flamed and the mouths hurled curses. In a trice all the windows on the square were filled with sharpshooters who fired, though out of range. If a soldier appeared at a loophole or an embrasure, a hundred barrels were leveled at him, and the hail of bullets chipped away the edge of the stone angle shielding him. But soon they were tired of firing at insensible stone: they wanted the flesh to aim at, and to see the blood spirt. Everybody shouted ideas of an assault. Billet, weary of listening, caught up an ax from a carpenter's hand, and rushed forward, in the midst of a shower of missiles, striking down the men around him like a scythe lays the grain, till he reached a small guardhouse before the first drawbridge. While the grapeshot was hurling and whistling about him, he hacked at the chains till down came the bridge. During the quarter of an hour that this insane enterprise went on, the lookers-on held their breath. At each volley they expected to see their champion laid low. Forgetting their own danger, they thought solely of that the audacious worker ran. When the drop came down,they uttered a loud whoop and dashed into the first yard. The rush was so unexpected, rapid and impetuous that no resistance was made. The frenziedly joyful cheers announced the first advantage to Launay. Nobody noticed that a man had been mangled under the bridge. Then, as if at the depth of a cavern, the four guns, pointed out to Billet by the governor, were shot off with a dreadful crash and all the outer yard was swept clear. The iron hurricane cleft a long swath of blood through the mass; on the path lay ten or twelve dead and double as many wounded. Billet had stood on the guardhouse roof to reach the chain well up; he slid down where he found Pitou, who had reached the spot he knew not how. The young man had a quick eye, a poacher's habit. He had seen the gunners step up to the touchhole with the lighted matches, and seizing his patron by the coat, he had pulled him back behind a corner of the wall which sheltered both from the cannonade. [Pg 97] From this period on, the war was real. The tumult was alarming; the onslaught murderous; ten thousand gunshots poured upon the fort at risk of slaying the assaulters with the garrison. To cap all, a field-piece brought up by the French Guardsmen, added its boom to the cracking of small arms. The frightful uproar intoxicated the amateur fighters and began to daunt the besieged who felt that they could never raise a commotion equal to this deafening them. The officers saw that their soldiers were weakening: they had to snatch their muskets from them and fire themselves. At this juncture, amid the roar of great guns and smaller ones, and the shouting, as the mob were rushing forward to carry away the injured and dead on litters, a little body of citizens appeared calm and unarmed at the yard entrance. It was a deputation of electors from the City Hall. They were sacrificing life under protection merely of the white flag before and after them to indicate they came to parley. Wishing to stop the effusion of blood, after hearing that the attack had commenced, they forced Flesselles to renew negotiations with the governor. In the name of the city, they summoned the governor of the citadel to cease firing, and to receive in the place a hundred of the town guards to guarantee his safety, the garrison's and the inhabitants. The deputies called this out as they marched along. Frightened by the magnitude of the task they had set themselves, the people were ready to accept the proposal, seeing, too, the dead and wounded carried by. If Launay accepted the partial defeat they would be content with a half-victory. At sight of them, the inner-yard firing ceased; they were beckoned to approach and they scrambled over the corpses, slipped in gore and held their hands out to the maimed. Under their shelter the others grouped. The injured and lifeless were borne out, streaking the marble flags with broad purple stains. Firing ceasing on the fort side, Billet went out to get his party to refrain. At the doors he met Gonchon, without arms, exposing his naked breast like a man inspired, calm as though invulnerable. [Pg 98] "What has become of the deputation?" he inquired. "It has got in," replied Billet. "Cease firing." "It is useless; he will not give in," said the beggar leader, with the same certainty as if he had been gifted with reading the future. "No matter; respect the usages of war, since we have become soldiers." "I do not mind," said Gonchon; "Elie, Hullin, go," he said to two men who seemed to rule the crowd together with him: "Do not let a shot be fired till I say so." At the voice the two darted away, cleaving the throng, and soon the sound of the musketry dying away, stopped entirely. During the short rest the wounded were attended to; they were upwards of forty. Two o'clock struck: they had been hammering away two hours, from noon. Billet had returned to the front where Gonchon found him. His impatience was visible as he watched the iron grating. "What is wrong?" asked the farmer. "All is lost if the Bastile is not taken in two hours," was the beggar's reply. "How so?" "Because the royal court will learn what we are at. It will send us Bezenval's Switzers and Lambesq's heavies, who will help catch us between three fires." Billet was forced to confess the truth in the prospect. At length the deputies appeared: by their woe-begone aspect it was clear their errand had failed. "What did I tell you?" cried the popular orator, gladly; "What was foretold by Balsamo and Cagliostro will come to pass. The accursed fortress is doomed. To arms, boys, to arms," he yelled without waiting for the deputies to relate their doings, "the commandment refuses." In fact, scarcely had the governor read Flesselles' letter introducing the party than he brightened up in the face and exclaimed, instead of yielding to the proposition: "You Parisian gentlemen wanted the fight and it is too late to draw back." [Pg 99] The citizens had protested and persisted in picturing the horrors which the defense would entail. But he would heed nothing and finishing by saying to them what he had told Billet a couple of hours anteriorly: "Begone or I will have you shot." The citizens were glad to get out of it. Launay took the offensive this time. He was wild with impatience. Before the deputation crossed the threshold, the Sackbut of Marshal Saxe played its tune: three men fell—one dead and two wounded, the latter being a French guardsman and the other one of the flag-of-truce bearers. At sight of this victim, whose errand made him sacred, carried away smothered in blood, the fury of the numbers was exalted once more. Gonchon's aid-de-camps had returned to take their places by his side; but each had run home to change his dress. Elie had been the Marquis Conflans' running-footman and his livery resembled a Hungarian officer's uniform. Elie put on the uniform he had worn when an officer of the Queen's own Regiment, and this gave more confidence to the masses with the thought that the army was on their side. The firing recommenced more fiercely than before. At this Major Losme approached his superior. He was a brave and honorable soldier, but he had some manhood left him and he saw with pain what had happened and foresaw with more pain what would occur. "You know we have no food," he said. "I know that," answered Launay. "And we have no order to hold out." "I ask your pardon, Military Governor of the Bastile, but I am the governor of it in all respects; my order is to shut the doors and I hold the keys." "My lord, keys are to open locks as well as fasten them. Have a care that you do not get the garrison massacred without saving the castle. That will be two triumphs for the revolters in one day. Look at the men we kill—they spring up again from the pavement. This morning only three thousand were there: three hours ago, there were six. Now they are over sixty thousand and to-morrow they will number a hundred thousand. When our cannon are silenced, and that will be the upshot, [Pg 100] they will be strong enough to pull down the Bastile with their bare hands." "You do not speak like the military governor of the Bastile, Major Losme." "I speak like a Frenchman, my lord. I say that his Majesty having given us no special order—and the Provost of the Traders having made us a very acceptable proposition, to introduce a hundred Civil Guards into the castle—you might avoid the misery I foresee by acceding to Provost Flesselles' proposition." "In your opinion, the City of Paris is a power we ought to obey?" "Yes, in the absence of special royal order." "Then, read, Major Losme," said the prison chief, leading his lieutenant aside into a corner. On the small sheet of paper which he let him read, was written: "Hold out firmly: I will amuse the Parisians with Cockades and promises. Before day is done, Bezenval will send you reinforcements. Flesselles."&emsp;&emsp;  "How did this advice reach you?" inquired the major. "In the letter the deputies carried. They thought they were bearing a desire for the Bastile to be surrendered, and it was the order to defend it that they handed me." The major bent his head. "Go to your post and do not quit it till I command you sir," continued Launay. Losme obeying, he coldly folded up the paper, replaced it in his pocket, and went over to the cannoniers to advise them to aim true and fire low. They obeyed like the major. But the fortalice's fate was settled. No human power could delay the accomplishment. To every cannonshot the reply was "We mean to have the Bastile!" While voices claimed it, arms were not idle. Pitou's and Billet's arms and voices were among those asking most energetically and working most efficaciously. [Pg 101] Each worked according to his character. Courageous and confident as the bulldog, Billet had run at the enemy, heedless of shot and steel. Pitou, prudent and circumspect as the fox, endowed to the highest degree with self-preservation, utilized all his faculties to watch danger and anticipate it. His sight knew the most deadly embrasures, and distinguished the least move of the bronze tube to enter it. He could guess the exact moment when the rampart-gun was about to fire through the portcullis. His eyes having done their office, he made his limbs work for their owner. Down went his shoulders and in went his chest, so that his frame offered no more surface than a board seen edgewise. In these moments, of the filling-out Pitou, thin only in the legs, nothing remained but the geometrical expression of a straight line. He chose a spot where the masonry shaped out cavities and projections so that his head was shielded by a stone, his heart by another and his knees by still another slab. Nowhere could a mortal wound be got in on him. He fired a shot now and then, to relieve his feelings and because Billet told him to "blaze away." But he had nothing but wood and stone before him. For his part he kept begging his friend not to expose himself to the firing. "There goes the Sackbut," or "I hear a hammer coming down." Despite these injunctions the farmer executed prodigies of daring and energy, all in pure waste, till the idea struck him to go along the woodwork of the bridge and chop the chains of the second one, as he had done with the first. Ange howled for him to stay and seeing that howls were useless, he followed him, from cover, saying "Dear Master Billet, your wife will be a widow if you get killed." The Swiss thrust their guns through the loopholes by which the Sackbut was fired to try to pick off the daring fellow who was making the chips fly off their bridge. Billet called on his single gun to answer the Sackbut, but when the latter fired, the other artillerists retreated and the farmer was left alone to serve the cannon. This again drew Pitou out of his refuge. [Pg 102] "Master," he sued, "in the name of Catherine! think if you are done for, that Catherine will be an orphan." Billet yielded to his plea, and because he had a new idea. He ran out on the square, holloaing. "A cart!" "Two carts," added Pitou, "thinking you cannot have too much of a good thing." Ten carts were immediately trundled through the multitude. "Dry hay and straw!" shouted Billet. "Straw and hay," repeated Pitou. Like a flash, two hundred men brought each a truss of straw or half a bale of hay. Others brought dry fodder on litters. They were obliged to call out that they had ten times more than was wanted. In an hour they would have smothered the Bastile. Billet put himself in the rails of a bush-cart, laden with hay, and pushed it before him instead of dragging it. Pitou did the same with another, without knowing why but thinking the farmer's example was worthy of imitation. Elie and Hullin guessed what the farmer proposed; they supplied themselves with carts and pushed them into the prison yard. Scarcely did they enter than small shot and canister received them but the hay and straw deadened the bullets and slugs and only a few rattled on the wheels and shafts. None of the assailants were touched. As soon as this discharge was fired, two or three hundred musketmen dashed on behind the cart-pushers and lodged under the sloping shed of the bridge itself, under cover of the moving breastwork. There Billet pulled out a scrap of paper, and flint and steel; he wrapped up a pinch of gunpowder in the paper, struck a light and ignited it and shoved the flaring piece into the heap of hay. Others took lighted wisps and scattered the flames. It caught the pentroof and the four blazing carts set fire to beams high up and sneaked along the bridge supports. To put out the fire the garrison would have to come out and to show oneself was to court death. [Pg 103] The glad cheer, started in the yard, was caught up on the square where the smoke was seen above the towers. Something fatal to the besieged was surmised to be going on. Indeed the redhot chains drew out and snapped from the ringbolts. The half-broken bridge fell, smoking and sending up sparks. The firemen came up with their engines, but the governor ordered them to be fired upon though the prison might be thus burned over the garrison's heads. The old French soldiers refused. The Swiss were willing, but as they were not artillerists they could not work the carriage-guns. These had to be abandoned. On the other side, seeing that the cannonade ceased, the French Guards resumed their field-piece work and with the third ball sent the portcullis flying. The governor had gone upon the tower to see if the promised succor was arriving when he suddenly found himself enwrapped in smoke. He ran downstairs and ordered the gunners to keep up the firing. The refusal of the French Veterans exasperated him. On hearing the portcullis smashed in, he recognized that all was lost. He was fully aware that he was hated. He guessed that there was no safety for him. During the whole of the action, he had cherished the thought of burying himself under the ruins of his castle. As soon as he acknowledged that all resistance was useless, he snatched a lintstock from an artillerist and precipitated himself towards the powder magazine. "The powder, the powder!" shrieked twenty terrified voices. On seeing the governor with the burning match they divined his intention. Two soldiers crossed their bayonets before his breast at the very instant when he opened the ammunition-storeroom door. "You may kill me," he said, "but you cannot do that so quickly that I shall not have had time to toss this brand into one of the open kegs. Then, all of us, besieged and besiegers, go up!" [Pg 104] The soldiers stopped with the steel at his breast, but he was still their commander and commanded, for he held the lives of all in his hands. His movement rivetted everybody to their place. The assailants perceived that something extraordinary was going on. They peered into the yard and saw the governor threatening and being threatened. "Hark to me," said he, "as true as I have death in my grasp for all of you, I will fire the powder if one of you dare step within this yard." The hearers might fancy the earth quaked beneath their feet. "What do you want?" several voices gasped with the accent of a panic. "An honorable capitulation." As the assailants could not fully comprehend the extent of Launay's despair and did not believe his speech, they began to enter, Billet at the head. But he suddenly turned pale and trembled, for he had thought of Dr. Gilbert. It little mattered to the farmer whether the Bastile was torn down or blown up; but at any price the arch-revolutionist must live, the pupil of Balsamo, his successor, perhaps, at the head of the Invisibles. "Stop," shouted Billet, "for the sake of the prisoners!" Elie and Hullin, and their men, who had not shrank from death on their own behalf, recoiled, white and trembling like he had. "What do you want?" they demanded of the governor, renewing the question his garrison had put to him. "Everybody must retire," replied Count Launay. "I will listen to no proposition while there is an intruder inside the Bastile walls." "But you will take advantage of our withdrawal to repair damages," remonstrated Billet. "If the capitulation be refused, you will find things in the same condition; you there, I at this door, on the faith of a nobleman!" Some shook their heads. "Is there any here who doubt a nobleman?" questioned the count. [Pg 105] "No, no, nobody," rejoined five hundred voices. "Bring me pen, ink and paper," continued the governor. "That is well," he went on as his orders were executed. "Now, retire!" he said to the assaulters. Billet, Elie and Hullin set the example, and all followed them. Launay laid the match by his side and began to write the terms of surrender on his knee. The French Veterans and the Swiss, aware that their safety was at stake, silently looked at him in superstitious terror. When he turned, before writing the document out fair, all the yards were clear. In a twinkling all the concourse outside had learnt what was proceeding. As Losme had said, it was the population which issued from beneath the flagstones and pavement. Not only workmen and beggars, the homeless and the imperfectly clad, but citizens of the better classes. Not only men but women and children. Each had a weapon and uttered a war-cry. From spot to spot, amid groups, was seen a woman, disheveled, wringing her hands and waving her arms, howling curses at the giant of stone: it was a mother, a wife or a sweetheart whose dearest one had been incarcerated in its flanks. But since a short space the giant had ceased to vomit flame and scowl in the smoke; the fire was extinct and the whole mute as a tomb. On the blackened walls the bullet grazes stood out white and were above count; everybody had wanted to leave his mark on the granite brow of his personification of tyranny. They could hardly believe that the Bastile was about to be turned over to them; that its governor would surrender. In the midst of this general doubt, as none ventured to congratulate another, and all waited in silence, a letter stuck on a spearpoint was seen thrust through a loophole. Between the despatch and the besiegers was the great moat deep and wide and full of water. Billet called for a plank, but three were too short, and the fourth, while long enough, was ill adjusted. Still he balanced himself as well as he could and unhesitatingly risked himself on the bending bridge. [Pg 106] All in dumbness fixed their eyes on the man who seemed suspended over the stagnant water, while Pitou, quivering, sat on the brink and hid his face. All of a sudden, when Billet was two-thirds over, the plank shifted, and throwing up his arms he fell in the moat where he sank out of sight. Pitou uttered a roar and dived after his master like a Newfoundland dog. A man went right out on the plank, without hesitation, choosing the same road as Billet: it was Stanislas Maillard, the prison clerk. On reaching the point beneath which he saw two men struggling, he looked, but seeing that they could swim ashore, he continued his way. In half a minute he was across and took the letter off the pike. With the same tranquil nerve and steadiness of gait, he passed back over the plank. But at the very second when all crowded round him to read the message, a hail of bullets rained down from the battlements at the same time as a tremendous report was heard. From all breasts a cry arose, one announcing that the people meant to have revenge. "Trust the tyrants again," said Gonchon. Nobody cared any more about capitulations, the powder, the prisoners or himself—nothing was wanted but retaliation and the besiegers strewed into the yards not by hundreds but by thousands. The only thing preventing them entering still faster was not the muskets but the narrowness of the doorways. On hearing the firing, the two soldiers who had not gone away from their commander, jumped at him and a third set his foot on the slow-match, and crushed it out. Launay drew the sword hidden in his cane and tried to stab with it but it was wrenched off from him and broken, while in his grip. He was convinced that he could do no more, and he waited for his doom. The mobs rushing in met the soldiers, holding out their hands to them—and so the Bastile was not taken under a surrender but by assault. [Pg 107] This came from the royal castle having ceased to enclose inert matter: latterly the King had shut up human brain there and the spirit had burst the vessel. The people entered at the breach. As for the treacherous volley fired in the midst of silence during the suspension of hostilities, and unforeseen, impolitic and deadly aggression, it will never be known who gave the order, inspired it and accomplished it. There are moments when the future of a nation is exactly poised in the scales of Fate. One of the plates bears up the other, even while each party thinks his side will make the other kick the beam. An invisible hand has flung into the dish a dagger or a pistol and all changes. The only cry heard is: "Woe to the vanquished!" <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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