Chapter 1.5.VI:
Storm and Victory
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 Saint-Antoine; there are such Forecourts, Cour Avance, Cour
de l'Orme, arched
Gateway (where 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 capacities;
men of all
plans, every man his own engineer: seldom since the
war of Pygmies and
Cranes was there seen so anomalous a thing. Half-pay
Elie is home for a
suit of regimentals; no one would heed him in coloured
clothes: half-pay
Hulin is haranguing Gardes Francaises in the Place de
Greve. Frantic
Patriots pick up the grape-shots; bear them, still hot
(or seemingly so),
to the Hotel-de-Ville:--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 street-barricade, 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 Francaises also will be here, with real
artillery: were not
the walls so thick!--Upwards from the Esplanade, horizontally
from all
neighbouring roofs and windows, flashes one irregular
deluge of musketry,--
without effect. The Invalides lie flat, firing comparatively
at their ease
from behind stone; hardly through portholes, shew the
tip of a nose. We
fall, shot; and make no impression!
Let conflagration rage; of whatsoever is combustible!
Guard-rooms are
burnt, Invalides mess-rooms. A distracted 'Peruke-maker
with two fiery
torches' is for burning 'the saltpetres of the Arsenal;'--had
not a woman
run 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
Bonnemere 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 Reole the 'gigantic haberdasher' another.
Smoke as of Tophet;
confusion as of Babel; noise as of the Crack of Doom!
Blood flows, the aliment of new madness. The wounded
are carried into
houses of the Rue Cerisaie; the dying leave their last
mandate not to yield
till the accursed Stronghold fall. And yet, alas, how
fall? The walls are
so thick! Deputations, three in number, arrive from
the Hotel-de-Ville;
Abbe Fouchet (who was of one) can say, with what almost
superhuman courage
of benevolence. (Fauchet's Narrative (Deux Amis, i.
324.).) These wave
their Town-flag in the arched Gateway; and stand, rolling
their drum; but
to no purpose. In such Crack of Doom, de Launay cannot
hear them, dare not
believe them: they return, with justified rage, the
whew of lead still
singing in their ears. What to do? The Firemen are here,
squirting with
their fire-pumps on the Invalides' cannon, to wet the
touchholes; they
unfortunately cannot squirt so high; but produce only
clouds of spray.
Individuals of classical knowledge propose catapults.
Santerre, the
sonorous Brewer of the Suburb Saint-Antoine, advises
rather that the place
be fired, by a 'mixture of phosphorous and oil-of-turpentine
spouted up
through forcing pumps:' O Spinola-Santerre, hast thou
the mixture ready?
Every man his own engineer! And still the fire-deluge
abates not; even
women are firing, and Turks; at least one woman (with
her sweetheart), and
one Turk. (Deux Amis (i. 319); Dusaulx, &c.) Gardes
Francaises have come:
real cannon, real cannoneers. Usher Maillard is busy;
half-pay Elie, half-pay Hulin rage in the midst of thousands.
How the great Bastille Clock ticks (inaudible) in its
Inner Court there, at
its ease, hour after hour; as if nothing special, for
it or the world, were
passing! It tolled One when the firing began; and is
now pointing towards
Five, and still the firing slakes not.--Far down, in
their vaults, the
seven Prisoners hear muffled din as of earthquakes;
their Turnkeys answer
vaguely.
Wo to thee, de Launay, with thy poor hundred Invalides!
Broglie is
distant, and his ears heavy: Besenval hears, but can
send no help. One
poor troop of Hussars has crept, reconnoitring, cautiously
along the Quais,
as far as the Pont Neuf. "We are come to join you,"
said the Captain; for
the crowd seems shoreless. A large-headed dwarfish individual,
of smoke-bleared aspect, shambles forward, opening his blue lips,
for there is sense
in him; and croaks: "Alight then, and give up your
arms!" the Hussar-Captain is too happy to be escorted to the Barriers,
and dismissed on
parole. Who the squat individual was? Men answer, it
is M. Marat, author
of the excellent pacific Avis au Peuple! Great truly,
O thou remarkable
Dogleech, is this thy day of emergence and new birth:
and yet this same
day come four years--!--But let the curtains of the
future hang.
What shall de Launay do? One thing only de Launay could
have done: what
he said he would do. Fancy him sitting, from the first,
with lighted
taper, within arm's length of the Powder-Magazine; motionless,
like old
Roman Senator, or bronze Lamp-holder; coldly apprising
Thuriot, and all
men, by a slight motion of his eye, what his resolution
was:--Harmless he
sat there, while unharmed; but the King's Fortress,
meanwhile, could,
might, would, or should, in nowise, be surrendered,
save to the King's
Messenger: one old man's life worthless, so it be lost
with honour; but
think, ye brawling canaille, how will it be when a whole
Bastille springs
skyward!--In such statuesque, taper-holding attitude,
one fancies de Launay
might have left Thuriot, the red Clerks of the Bazoche,
Cure of Saint-Stephen and all the tagrag-and-bobtail of the world,
to work their will.
And yet, withal, he could not do
it. Hast thou considered how each man's heart is so
tremulously responsive to the hearts of all men; hast
thou
noted how omnipotent is the very sound of many men?
How their shriek of
indignation palsies the strong soul; their howl of contumely
withers with
unfelt pangs? The Ritter Gluck confessed that the ground-tone
of the
noblest passage, in one of his noblest Operas, was the
voice of the
Populace he had heard at Vienna, crying to their Kaiser:
Bread! Bread!
Great is the combined voice of men; the utterance of
their instincts, which
are truer than their thoughts: it is the greatest a
man encounters, among
the sounds and shadows, which make up this World of
Time. He who can
resist that, has his footing some where beyond Time.
De Launay could not
do it. Distracted, he hovers between the two; hopes
in the middle of
despair; surrenders not his Fortress; declares that
he will blow it up,
seizes torches to blow it up, and does not blow it.
Unhappy old de Launay,
it is the death-agony of thy Bastille and thee! Jail,
Jailoring and
Jailor, all three, such as they may have been, must
finish.
For four hours now has the World-Bedlam roared: call
it the World-
Chimaera, blowing fire! The poor Invalides have sunk
under their
battlements, or rise only with reversed muskets: they
have made a white
flag of napkins; go beating the chamade, or seeming
to beat, for one can
hear nothing. The very Swiss at the Portcullis look
weary of firing;
disheartened in the fire-deluge: a porthole at the drawbridge
is opened,
as by one that would speak. See Huissier Maillard, the
shifty man! On his
plank, swinging over the abyss of that stone-Ditch;
plank resting on
parapet, balanced by weight of Patriots,--he hovers
perilous: such a Dove
towards such an Ark! Deftly, thou shifty Usher: one
man already fell; and
lies smashed, far down there, against the masonry! Usher
Maillard falls
not: deftly, unerring he walks, with outspread palm.
The Swiss holds a
paper through his porthole; the shifty Usher snatches
it, and returns.
Terms of surrender: Pardon, immunity to all! Are they
accepted?--"Foi
d'officier, On the word of an officer," answers
half-pay Hulin,--or half-
pay Elie, for men do not agree on it, "they are!"
Sinks the drawbridge,--
Usher Maillard bolting it when down; rushes-in the living
deluge: the
Bastille is fallen! Victoire! La Bastille est prise!
(Histoire de la
Revolution, par Deux Amis de la Liberte, i. 267-306;
Besenval, iii. 410-
434; Dusaulx, Prise de la Bastille, 291-301. Bailly,
Memoires (Collection
de Berville et Barriere), i. 322 et seqq.)
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