Legends of the Bastille

by Frantz Funck-Brentano

On July 11, Necker was dismissed from the ministry and replaced by Breteuil. At this time Necker was very popular; Breteuil was not, though he ought to have been, particularly in the eyes of supporters of a revolutionary movement. Of all the ministers of the ancien régime, and of all the men of his time, Breteuil was the one who had done most for the suppression of lettres de cachet and of state prisons. It was he who had closed Vincennes and the Châtimoine tower of Caen, who had got the demolition of the Bastille decided on, who had set Latude at liberty, and how many other prisoners! who had drawn up and made respected, even in the remotest parts of the kingdom, those admirable circulars which will immortalize his name, by which he ordered the immediate liberation of all prisoners whose detention was not absolutely justified, and laid down such rigorous formalities for the future, that the arbitrary character of lettres de cachet may be said to have been destroyed by them. Nevertheless the orators of the Palais-Royal succeeded in persuading many people that the advent of Breteuil to the ministry presaged a “St. Bartholomew of patriots.” The agitation became so vehement, the calumnies against the court and the government were repeated with so much violence, that the court, in order to avoid the slightest risk of the outbreak of a “St. Bartholomew,” ordered all the troops to be withdrawn and Paris to be left to itself.

Meanwhile, Camille Desmoulins was continuing to thunder forth: “I have just sounded the people. My rage against the despots was turned to despair. I did not see the crowds, although keenly moved and dismayed, strongly enough disposed to insurrection.... I was rather lifted on to the table than mounted there myself. Scarcely was I there than I saw myself surrounded by an immense throng. Here is my short address, which I shall never forget: ‘Citizens! there is not a moment to lose. I come from Versailles; M. Necker is dismissed; this dismissal is the alarm bell of a St. Bartholomew of patriots; this evening all the Swiss and German battalions will march from the Champ de Mars to cut our throats. Only one resource remains to us: we must fly to arms!’”

The Parisians were in an abject state of fright, but it was not the Swiss and German battalions which terrified them. The author of the Memorable Fortnight, devoted heart and soul as he was to the revolutionary movement, acknowledges that during the days from the 12th to the 14th of July, all respectable people shut themselves up in their houses. And while the troops and decent people were retiring, the dregs were coming to the surface. During the night of July 12, the majority of the toll gates, where the town dues were collected, were broken open, plundered, and set on fire. “Brigands,” armed with pikes and clubs, scoured the streets, threatening the houses in which the trembling and agitated citizens had shut themselves. Next day, July 13, the shops of the bakers and wine merchants were rifled. “Girls snatched the earrings from women who went by; if the ring resisted, the ear was torn in two.” “The house of the lieutenant of police was ransacked, and Thiroux de Crosne had the utmost difficulty in escaping from the bands armed with clubs and torches. Another troop, with murderous cries, arrived at the Force, where prisoners for debt were confined: the prisoners were set free. The Garde-Meuble was ransacked. One gang broke in with their axes the door of the Lazarists, smashed the library, the cupboards, the pictures, the windows, the physical laboratory, dived into the cellar, stove in the wine-casks and got gloriously drunk. Twenty-four hours afterwards some thirty dead and dying were found there, men and women, one of the latter on the point of childbirth. In front of the house the street was full of débris and of brigands, who held in their hands, some eatables, others a pitcher, forcing wayfarers to drink and filling for all and sundry. Wine flowed in torrents.” Some had possessed themselves of ecclesiastical robes, which they put on, and in this attire yelled and gesticulated down the street. In the minute books of the electors we read at this date: “On information given to the committee that the brigands who had been dispersed showed some disposition to reassemble for the purpose of attacking and pillaging the Royal Treasury and the Bank, the committee ordered these two establishments to be guarded.” On the same day, they luckily succeeded in disarming more than a hundred and fifty of these roisterers, who, drunk with wine and brandy, had fallen asleep inside the Hôtel de Ville. Meanwhile the outskirts of Paris were no safer than the city itself, and from the top of the towers of the Bastille they could see the conflagrations which were started in various quarters.

The organization of the citizen militia against these disorders was becoming urgent. When evening came, the majority of the districts set actively to work. Twelve hundred good citizens mustered in the Petit Saint-Antoine district. It was a motley crew: tradesmen and artisans, magistrates and doctors, writers and scholars, cheek by jowl with navvies and carpenters. The future minister of Louis XVI., Champion de Villeneuve, filled the post of secretary. The twelve hundred citizens, as we read in the minutes, “compelled to unite by the too well founded alarm inspired in all the citizens by the danger which seems to threaten them each individually, and by the imminent necessity of taking prompt measures to avert its effects, considering that a number of individuals, terrified perhaps by the rumours which doubtless evil-disposed persons have disseminated, are traversing, armed and in disorder, all the streets of the capital, and that the ordinary town guard either mingles with them or remains a passive spectator of the disorder it cannot arrest; considering also that the prison of the Force has been burst into and opened for the prisoners, and that it is threatened to force open in the same way the prisons which confine vagabonds, vagrants, and convicts ... in consequence, the assembled citizens decide to organize themselves into a citizen militia. Every man will carry while on duty whatever arms he can procure, save and except pistols, which are forbidden as dangerous weapons.... There will always be two patrols on duty at a time, and two others will remain at the place fixed for headquarters.” Most of the other districts imitated the proceedings of the Petit-Saint-Antoine. They sent delegates to the Hôtel des Invalides to ask for arms. The delegates were received by Besenval, who would have been glad to grant them what they requested; but he must have proper instructions. He writes in his Memoirs that the delegates were in a great state of fright, saying that the “brigands” were threatening to burn and pillage their houses. The author of the Memorable Fortnight dwells on the point that the militia of Paris was formed in self-defence against the excesses of the brigands. Speaking of the minute book of the Petit-Saint-Antoine district, an excellent authority, M. Charavay, writes: “The burgesses of Paris, less alarmed at the plans of the court than at the men to whom the name of brigands had already been given, organized themselves into a militia to resist them: that was their only aim. The movement which on the next day swept away the Bastille might perhaps have been repressed by the National Guard if its organization had had greater stability.” The fact could not have been better put.

The Hôtel de Ville was attacked, and one of the electors, Legrand, only cleared it of the hordes who were filling it with their infernal uproar by ordering six barrels of powder to be brought up, and threatening to blow the place up if they did not retire.

During the night of July 13, the shops of the bakers and wine-sellers were pillaged. The excellent Abbé Morellet, one of the Encyclopædists, who, as we have seen, was locked up in the Bastille under Louis XV., writes: “I spent a great part of the night of the 13th at my windows, watching the scum of the population armed with muskets, pikes, and skewers, as they forced open the doors of the houses and got themselves food and drink, money and arms.” Mathieu Dumas also describes in his Souvenirs these ragged vagabonds, several almost naked, and with horrible faces. During these two days and nights, writes Bailly, Paris ran great risk of pillage, and was only saved by the National Guard.

The proceedings of these bandits and the work of the National Guard are described in a curious letter from an English doctor, named Rigby, to his wife. “It was necessary not only to give arms to those one could rely on, but to disarm those of whom little protection could be expected and who might become a cause of disorder and harm. This required a good deal of skill. Early in the afternoon we began to catch a glimpse here and there among the swarms of people, where we saw signs of an irritation which might soon develop into excesses, of a man of decent appearance, carrying a musket with a soldierly air. These slowly but surely increased in number; their intention was evidently to pacify and at the same time to disarm the irregular bands. They had for the most part accomplished their task before nightfall. Then the citizens who had been officially armed occupied the streets almost exclusively: they were divided into several sections, some mounting guard at certain points, others patrolling the streets, all under the leadership of captains. When night came, only very few of those who had armed themselves the evening before could be seen. Some, however, had refused to give up their arms, and during the night it was seen how well founded had been the fears they had inspired, for they started to pillage. But it was too late to do so with impunity. The looters were discovered and seized, and we learnt next morning that several of these wretches, taken redhanded, had been executed.” Indeed, the repressive measures of the citizens were not wanting in energy. Here and there brigands were strung up to the lamp-posts, and then despatched, as they hung there, with musket shots.

The author of the Authentic History, who left the best of the contemporary accounts of the taking of the Bastille which we possess, says rightly enough: “The riot began on the evening of July 12.” There was thus a combination of disorders and “brigandage” in which the capture of the Bastille, though it stands out more prominently than the other events, was only a part, and cannot be considered by itself.

The morning of the Fourteenth dawned bright and sunny. A great part of the population had remained up all night, and daylight found them still harassed with anxiety and alarm. To have arms was the desire of all; the citizens and supporters of order, so as to protect themselves; the brigands, a part of whom had been disarmed, in order to procure or recover the means of assault and pillage. There was a rush to the Invalides, where the magazines of effective arms were. This was the first violent action of the day. The mob carried off 28,000 muskets and twenty-four cannon. And as it was known that other munitions of war were deposited in the Bastille, the cry of “To the Invalides!” was succeeded by the cry “To the Bastille!”

We must carefully distinguish between the two elements of which the throng flocking to the Bastille was composed. On the one hand, a horde of nameless vagabonds, those whom the contemporary documents invariably style the “brigands”; and, on the other hand, the respectable citizens—these certainly formed the minority—who desired arms for the equipment of the civil guard. The sole motive impelling this band to the Bastille was the wish to procure arms. On this point all documents of any value and all the historians who have studied the matter closely are in agreement. There was no question of liberty or of tyranny, of setting free the prisoners or of protesting against the royal authority. The capture of the Bastille was effected amid cries of “Vive le roi!” just as, for several months past in the provinces, the granaries had been plundered.