In his edition of the Memoirs of Barras, M. George Duruy has well explained the transformation of opinion. “In the Memoirs, the capture of the Bastille is merely the object of a brief and casual mention. Barras only retained and transmits to us one single detail. He saw leaving the dungeons the ‘victims of arbitrary power, saved at last from rack and torture and from living tombs.’ Such a dearth of information is the more likely to surprise us in that Barras was not only a spectator of the event, but composed, in that same year 1789, an account of it which has now been discovered. Now his narrative of 1789 is as interesting as the passage in the Memoirs is insignificant. The impression left by these pages, written while the events were vividly pictured in his mind, is, we are bound to say, that the famous capture of the Bastille was after all only a horrible and sanguinary saturnalia. There is no word of heroism in this first narrative: nothing about ‘victims of arbitrary power’ snatched from ‘torture and living tombs’; but on the other hand, veritable deeds of cannibalism perpetrated by the victors. That is what Barras saw, and what he recorded on those pages where, at that period of his life, he noted down day by day the events of which he was a witness. Thirty years slip by. Barras has sat on the benches of the ‘Montagne.’[58] He has remained an inflexible revolutionist. He gathers his notes together in view of Memoirs he intends to publish. At this time, the revolutionist version of the capture of the Bastille is officially established. It is henceforth accepted that the Bastille fell before an impulse of heroism on the part of the people of Paris, and that its fall brought to light horrible mysteries of iniquity. This legend, which has so profoundly distorted the event, was contemporary with the event itself, a spontaneous fruit of the popular imagination. And Barras, having to speak of the capture in his Memoirs, discovers his old narrative among his papers, and reads it, I imagine, with a sort of stupefaction. What! the capture of the Bastille was no more than that!—and he resolutely casts it aside.”
In the provinces, the outbreak had a violent counterpart. “There instantly arose,” writes Victor Fournel, “a strange, extraordinary, grotesque panic, which swept through the greater part of France like a hurricane of madness, and which many of us have heard our grand-fathers tell stories about under the name of the ‘day of the brigands’ or ‘the day of the fear.’ It broke out everywhere in the second fortnight of July, 1789. Suddenly, one knew not whence, an awful rumour burst upon the town or village: the brigands are here, at our very gates: they are advancing in troops of fifteen or twenty thousand, burning the standing crops, ravaging everything! Dust-stained couriers appear, spreading the terrible news. An unknown horseman goes through at the gallop, with haggard cheeks and dishevelled hair: ‘Up, to arms, they are here!’ Some natives rush up: it is only too true: they have seen them, the bandits are no more than a league or two away! The alarm bell booms out, the people fly to arms, line up in battle order, start off to reconnoitre. In the end, nothing happens, but their terrors revive. The brigands have only turned aside: every man must remain under arms.” In the frontier provinces, there were rumours of foreign enemies. The Bretons and Normans shook in fear of an English descent: in Champagne and Lorraine a German invasion was feared.
Along with these scenes of panic must be placed the deeds of violence, the assassinations, plunderings, burnings, which suddenly desolated the whole of France. In a book which sheds a flood of light on these facts, Gustave Bord gives a thrilling picture of them. The châteaux were invaded, and the owner, if they could lay hands on him, was roasted on the soles of his feet. At Versailles the mob threw themselves on the hangman as he was about to execute a parricide, and the criminal was set free: the state of terror in which the town was plunged is depicted in the journals of the municipal assembly. On July 23, the governor of Champagne sends word that the rising is general in his district. At Rennes, at Nantes, at Saint-Malo, at Angers, at Caen, at Bordeaux, at Strasburg, at Metz, the mob engaged in miniature captures of the Bastille more or less accompanied with pillage and assassination. Armed bands went about cutting down the woods, breaking down the dikes, fishing in the ponds.[59] The disorganization was complete.
Nothing could more clearly show the character of the government under the ancien régime: it was wholly dependent on traditions. Nowhere was there a concrete organization to secure the maintenance of order and the enforcement of the king’s decrees. France was a federation of innumerable republics, held together by a single bond, the sentiment of loyalty every citizen felt towards the crown. One puff of wind sent the crown flying, and then disorder and panic bewilderment dominated the whole nation. The door was open to all excesses, and the means of checking them miserably failed. Under the ancien régime, devotion to the king was the whole government, the whole administration, the whole life of the state. And thus arose the necessity for the domination of the Terror, and the legislative work of Napoleon.
THE END.
INDEX
[A], [B], [C], [D], [E], [F], [G], [H], [J], [K], [L], [M], [N], [P], [Q], [R], [S], [T], [V]
ALLÈGRE, Latude’s fellow prisoner, [154], [185-192], [217].
Ameilhon, city librarian, [55].
Argenson, D’, [60], [72], [95], [175], [182].
Arsenal library, [55], [56].
Atrocities of the mob, [258-266].
Avedick, Armenian patriarch, [133].
BARRAS, [272].
Bastille, its situation, [47];
appearance, [48];
repute, [49], [50];
archives, [50-56];
origin, [57];
site, [58];
construction, [59], [60];
additions to, [61];
appearance in later days, [61], [62];
early uses, [63];
becomes state prison, [63], [64];
prisoners, [65];
its administration, [66];
gradual transformation, [67];
character of prisoners, [68], [69];
secretary, [70];
office of lieutenant of police, [71];
his duties, [71], [72];
becomes like modern prisons, [77], [78];
abolition of torture, [78];
duration of prisoners’ detention, [80];
expenses, [81];
plans for altering, [81-83];
a prison de luxe, [85];
treatment of prisoners, [86];
the rooms, [87];
manner of prisoners’ entrance, [88], [89];
cells, [92], [93];
tower rooms, [93], [94];
furniture, [95], [96];
examination of prisoners, [96], [97];
indemnified if innocent, [98], [99];
allowed companions, [100], [101];
prison fare, [102-107];
clothes, [107], [108];
books, [108], [109];
exercise, [109];
diversions, [109], [110];
funerals, [110], [111];
liberation, [111], [112];
the Iron Mask, [114-146];
men of letters, [147-165];
capture, [238-272].
Berryer, [175], [176], [178], [184], [188], [189], [193].
Besmaus, de, [70].
Binguet, [171], [179].
Bread riots, [242], [243].
Breteuil, [78], [248].
Brigands, [241], [245], [250].
Burgaud, [135].
CAMPAN, Madame de, [144], [145].
Carutti’s theory of Iron Mask, [134].
Cellamare conspiracy, [72], [73].
Character of French government and society, [239-241].
Chevalier, major, [49], [51], [120], [121], [187], [189], [194].
Citizen militia, [251-253].
Clothes of prisoners, [107], [108].
Crosne, de, lieutenant of police, [244-246].
D’AUBRESPY, Jeanneton, [169], [201].
Dauger suggested as Iron Mask, [135].
Desmoulins, [247], [249].
Diderot, [165].
Diversions of prisoners, [109], [110].
Du Junca’s journal, [69], [89], [90], [114-116], [122].
Dusaulx, [51].
ENCYCLOPÆDIA, [80].
Estrades, Abbé d’, [138-142].
FOOD of prisoners, [102-107].
Funerals, [110].
GAMES of prisoners, [101], [102].
Gleichen, baron, [130].
Griffet, Father, [120].
HEISS, Baron, first to suggest true solution of Iron Mask, [136].
Henriot, [245].
Houdon, sculptor, [82].
JULY 14th, [255-276].
Jung’s theory of Iron Mask, [134].
KINGSTON, Duchess of, [225], [227].
LA BEAUMELLE, [152-155].
Lagrange-Chancel, [132].
La Reynie, [71].
Latude, [168-237].
Launay, Mdlle. de, see Staal, Madame de.
Launey, de, governor, [256], [258], [260].
Lauzun, [91].
Legros, Madame de, [223-226], [232], [233].
Lenoir, lieutenant of police, [186].
Lettres de cachet, [240].
Lieutenancy of police created, [97].
Linguet, [163-165].
Loiseleur’s theory of Iron Mask, [134].
Loquin’s theory of Iron Mask, [133].
Losme, de, [261].
Louis XIV. and Iron Mask, [137-140].
Louis XV. and Iron Mask, [144].
Louis XVI. and Iron Mask, [144].
Louvois, [70], [141].
MAISONROUGE, king’s lieutenant, [73-76].
Malesherbes, [78], [156], [216].
Man in the Iron Mask, documents, [114-125];
legends, [125-136];
true solution, [136-146].
Marmontel, [158-163].
Mattioli, the Iron Mask, [136-146].
Maurepas, [144], [173-175].
Mirabeau, [166], [167].
Morellet, [155-158], [253].
Moyria, de, [218-220].
NECKER, [248].
PALATINE, Madame, [125].
Palteau, M. de, [118], [119].
Papon’s theory of Iron Mask, [127].
Parlement, [76], [77].
Pensions to prisoners, [98], [99].
Pompadour, Madame de, [173], [206].
Pontchartrain, [69].
Puget, king’s lieutenant, [83].
QUESNAY, Dr., [175], [177], [178].
RAVAISSON, librarian, [54], [55], [134].
Register of St. Paul’s church, [117], [142], [143].
Regnier’s lines, [59].
Renneville’s meals, [103], [104].
Réveillon, [245], [246].
Ricarville, companion of the Iron Mask, [123], [124].
Richelieu, Cardinal, [63-66].
Richelieu, Duke de, [76], [129], [130].
Rigby, Dr., [253], [254].
Risings in the provinces, [273].
Rochebrune, commissary, [195].
Rohan, Cardinal de, [222].
SADE, Marquis de, [95].
Saint-Mars, governor, [87], [115-119], [127], [142].
Saint-Marc, detective, [169], [176], [180], [183], [192].
Sartine, de, [49], [202], [203], [207], [210], [215].
Sauvé, Madame de, her dress, [108].
Solages, de, [84].
Staal, Madame de, [73-76], [94], [95], [102].
TAULÈS, de, [132].
Tavernier, [106].
Theories on Iron Mask, [125-136].
Thuriot de la Rosière, [256].
Tirmont, companion of Iron Mask, [123], [124].
VIEUX-MAISONS, Madame de, [128].
Villette, Marquis de, [224].
Vinache’s library, [109].
Vincennes, [165-167], [180].
Voltaire, [99], [126], [128], [129], [148-152].