They knew nothing more on the night of the 13th, nor on the next day.
M. Dampierre ordered that if news came in the day, it was to be delivered to my uncle.
At four o’clock the sport finished, and they returned to the house. A dinner, prepared as usual, awaited them.
The companions remained at table, visibly preoccupied; the conversation was nothing but conjectures. They spoke in strong terms of the National Assembly. They wished to have been in the place of M. Brézé, of M. de Bezenval, of M. de Lambese; they were sure that they could have done better than they did.
The Queen was too good, not to have commanded the Swiss to exterminate the wretches.
At six o’clock, M. Dampierre’s servant brought a despatch. It was dated the morning of the 14th.
On the night of the 13th the people had forced the doors of the Invalides, and had taken thirty thousand muskets. They had also forced the doors of the Arsenal with sledge-hammers, and had taken seven or eight tons of powder. That powder had been distributed under the lamp-lights. Each man bearing a musket received fifty cartridges.
The Court had ordered all the foreign regiments, useful to royalty, to be at hand, if wanted.
M. de Launay, the Governor of the Bastille, who knew his unpopularity, and upon whom they could count, because of that unpopularity, had pledged himself to blow the Bastille into the air, along with half Paris, before he would surrender.
This news the companions thought good, as it promised a desperate resistance.