On the other hand, who were the people who menaced royalty? Men ignorant of the use of fire-arms, undisciplined, and without leaders, who would retreat at the first cannon-shot, and fly at the first charge.
How could that rabble hold out against practised soldiers, who feared not death, but disgrace?
On mastering the despatch, M. Dampierre told each guest to fill his glass; then, lifting his own, “To the victory of the King, and the extermination of the rebels!” he cried. “Drink with me, gentlemen.”
“To the victory of the King, and the extermination of the rebels!” cried all, with one voice.
But before they had time to put the glasses to their lips, a furious gallop, coming from the direction of Paris, was heard; and, shouting with joy, a horseman, with a tricolor in his hat, shot past like a whirlwind, crying to M. Dampierre and his friends these words—not less terrible than those that Belshazzar read, in letters of fire, on the wall,—“The Bastille is taken! Long live the people!”
The horseman was Jean Baptiste Drouet, who was riding at full speed to announce to his friends at Varennes the news of the victory that the people had obtained over their King.
This news which he proclaimed in every city and in every village that he passed, brightened his route with a flash vivid as lightning.
