result of the great council, an- | grand and touching, by a certain nounced to him this adjournment, effusion of sentiments and hopes. and showed the confusion which A numerous body of troops, a reigned in people's ideas. Necker sullen silence, distinguished it from was determined not to be present the former ceremony. The deat this session, lest he should sanc-puties of the Commons had resolved tion by his presence projects of to preserve the most profound which he disapproved. Petty means, the usual resource of feeble authority, were employed to prevent the meeting of the 21st; the princes had the tennis-court engaged to play on that day. The assembly went to the church of St. Louis, where it received the majority of the Clergy, at whose head was the Archbishop of Vienne. This junction, carried out with the greatest dignity, excited the most lively joy. The Clergy came to agree, they said, to the verification in common. Next day, the 23d, was that fixed for the royal session. The deputies of the Commons were to enter by a side door, a different one from that reserved for the Nobility and the Clergy. In default of violence, they were not spared humiliations. They waited a long time, exposed to the rain ; the president, obliged to knock at this door, which was not open, knocked several times; the answer was that they were too early. Already the deputies were about to withdraw; Bailly knocked again; at last the door was opened, the deputies entered, and found the two higher Orders in possession of their seats which they had intended to secure by occupying them beforehand. The meeting was not like that of the 5th May, at once silence. The king made a speech, and betrayed his feebleness by employing expressions much too energetic for his character. He was made to utter reproaches and to give commands. He enjoined the separation of the Orders, revoked the preceding decrees of the tiers état, promising to sanction the abdication of the pecuniary privileges when their possessors should have agreed on it. He maintained all the feudal rights, the practical as well as the honorary ones, as inviolable; he did not order the States to meet together for matters of general interest, but he gave ground for hoping in the moderation of the higher Orders. Thus he tried to insist on the obedience of the Commons, and was content with presuming on that of the aristocracy. He left the Nobility and the Clergy judges of what specially concerned them, and finished by saying that, if he met with fresh obstacles, he by himself would work the welfare of his people, and would regard himself as its sole representative. Such a tone and language irritated greatly men's minds, not against the king, who had been feebly putting forth sentiments that were not his own, but against the aristocracy whose tool he was. Immediately after his discourse, | bayonets." M. de Brezé with he orders the assembly to separate on the spot. The Nobility follows him with a part of the Clergy. The greater number of the deputies of the Commons, without moving, preserve a deep silence, Mirabeau, who always put himself forward, rises; "Gentlemen," he says, "I avow that what you have just heard may be the safety of our country, if the gifts of despotism were not always dangerous The display of arms, the violation of the national temple, to command you to be happy! .... Where are the enemies of the nation? Is Catiline at our gates? . . . . I demand that, covering yourselves with your dignity, with your legislative power, you shut yourselves up within the obligation of your oath; it does not permit you to separate before having made the constitution." 66 The Marquis de Brezê, grandmaster of the ceremonies, then enters and addresses himself to Bailly. "You have heard," he says to him, "the orders of the king;" and Bailly replies: "I am going to take those of the assembly." Mirabeau advances: "Yes, sir," he cries, we have heard the intentions which have been suggested to the king; but here you have neither voice nor place nor right to speak. However, to avoid all delay, go and tell your master that we are here by the power of the people, and that we shall only be driven away by the power of draws. Sièyes utters these words : "We are to-day what we were yesterday; let us deliberate." The assembly gathers together to deliberate on the maintenance of its former decrees. "The first of these decrees," says Barnard, "has declared what you are; the second relates to the taxes to which you only have the right to consent the third is the oath to do your duty. None of these measures need the royal sanction. The king cannot prevent that which it is not for him to assent to." ; At this moment some workmen came to take away the seats; armed troops crossed the hall, others surrounded it from without; the body-guards advanced to the door. The assembly, without letting itself be interrupted, remained on its seats, and collected the votes; there is unanimity for maintaining all the previous decrees, This is not all; in the bosom of the royal town, in the midst of the servants of the court, and deprived of that help from the people which afterwards became so formidable, the assembly might be threatened. Mirabeau reappears in the tribune, and proposes to decree the inviolability of every deputy. At once the assembly, opposing to force only a majestic will, declares inviolable each of its members, and declares as a traitor, infamous and guilty of a capital crime, whoever should offer them violence THE TAKING OF THE BASTILLE. (Carlyle's French Revolution.) A.D. 1789. ALL morning, since nine, there has been a cry everywhere; 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 Rosièr 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 - 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 générale: 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 in this moment; prophetic of what other Phantasmagories, and loud-gibbering Spectral Realities, which thou yet beholdest a cannon not, but shalt ! "Que voulezvous?" 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 (prodigue 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. Woe to thee, De Launay, in such an hour, if thou canst not, taking some one firm decision, 66 rule circumstances! Soft speeches | strike such a stroke. Down with will not serve; hard grapeshot is it, man; down with it to Orcus; questionable; but hovering be- let the whole accursed Edifice tween the two is unquestionable. sink thither, and Tyranny be Ever wilder swells the tide of | swallowed up for ever! Mounted, men; their infinite hum waxing some say, on the roof of the guardever louder, into imprecations, room, some on bayonets stuck perhaps into crackle of stray mus- into joints of the wall," Louis ketry, which latter, on walls Tournay smites, brave Aubin nine feet thick, cannot do execu- Bonnemère (also an old soldier) tion. The Outer Drawbridge has seconding him: the chain yields, been lowered for Thuriot; new breaks; the huge Drawbridge deputation of citizens (it is the slams down, thundering (avec third, and noisiest of all) penetrates fracas). Glorious: and yet, alas, that way into the Outer Court; soft it is still but the outworks. The speeches producing no clearance of Eight 'grim Towers, with their these, De Launay gives fire; pulls Invalide musketry, their pavingup his Drawbridge. A slight stones and cannon-mouths, still sputter ;-which has kindled the soar aloft intact ;-Ditch yawning too combustible chaos; made it a impassable, stone-faced; the inner roaring fire-chaos! Bursts forth Drawbridge with its back towards Insurrection, at sight of its own us; the Bastille is still to take! blood (for there were deaths by that sputter of fire), into endless rolling explosion of musketry, distraction, execration; and, overhead, from the Fortress, let one great gun, with its grapeshot, go booming, to show what we could do. The Bastille is besieged! 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 SaintAntoine; there are such Forecourts, Cour Avance, Cour de 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 what-l'Orme, arched Gateway (where soever of utmost faculty is in you, soul, body, or spirit; for it is the hour! Smite, thou Louis Tournay, cartwright of the Marais, old soldier of the Regiment Dauphiné; smite at that Outer Drawbridge chain, though the fiery hail whistles round thee! Never, over nave or felloe, did thy axe 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 we said, by mere Chaos come again! Ordnance of all calibres; throats of all capaci- | here, with real artillery; were not ties; men of all plans, every man the walls so thick!-Upwards his own engineer: seldom since the from the Esplanade, horizontally war of Pygmies and Cranes was from all neighbouring roofs and there seen so anomalous a thing. windows, flashes one irregular deHalf-pay Elie is home for a suit of luge of musketry, without effect. regimentals; no one would heed The Invalides lie flat, firing comhim in coloured clothes: Half-pay paratively at their ease from beHulin is haranguing Gardes Fran- hind stone; hardly through portçaises in the Place de Grève. holes show the tip of a nose. We Frantic Patriots pick up the grape- fall, shot; and make no impresshots; bear them, still hot (or | sion! seemingly so), to the Hôtel-deVille-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 streetbarricade, 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-Mahlstrom which is lashing round the Bastille. And so it lashes and it roars. Cholat, the wine-merchant, has become an impromptu cannoneer. See Georget, of the Marine Service, fresh from Brest, ply the King of Siam's cannon. Singular (if we were not used to the like): Georget lay, last night, taking his ease at his inn; the King of Siam's cannon also lay, knowing nothing of him, for a hundred years. Yet now, at the right instant, they have got together, and discourse eloquent music. For, hearing what was toward, Georget sprang from the Brest Diligence, and ran. Gardes Françaises also will be Let conflagration rage; of whatsoever is combustible ! Guardrooms are burnt, Invalides messrooms. A distracted "Perukemaker, with two fiery torches," is for burning "the saltpetres of the Arsenal ;"-had not a woman ran screaming; had not a Patriot, with some tincture of Natural Philosophy, instantly struck the wind out of him (butt of musket on pit of stomach) overturned barrels, and stayed the devouring element. A young, beautiful lady, seized escaping in these Outer Courts, and thought, falsely, to be De Launay's daughter, shall be burnt in De Launay's sight; she lies swooned on a paillasse : but again a Patriot, it is brave 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! |