The French Revolution of 1789, as Viewed in the Light of Republican Institutions

by John S. C. Abbott

SACKING THE ROYAL ARSENAL.

Crowds were assembled around the Hôtel de Ville, where the electors had met, demanding arms and the immediate establishment of a citizen's guard. But the electors moved with great caution. They did not feel authorized to establish the guard without the approval of the Assembly; and the Assembly had not ventured to adopt the measure without the consent of the king.

The excitement at last became so intense, and the importunity so pressing, that the electors referred the people to the mayor of the city. Flesselles, the mayor, was an officer of the crown, but he immediately obeyed the summons of the people, and came to the Hôtel de Ville. Here he feigned to be entirely on their side, declared that he was their father, and that he would preside over their meetings only by the election of the people. This announcement was received with a burst of enthusiasm. It was immediately decided that a citizen's guard should be established.

Paris then contained nearly a million of inhabitants, and almost every able-bodied man was eager to mount guard for the protection of the city. There was no want of men, but as yet there was no efficient organization, and there were no arms. The electors were very anxious to avoid insurrection, and at first wished only for a guard simply strong enough to protect the city. They therefore decreed that each of the sixty districts should elect and arm two hundred of its most respectable citizens. These twelve thousand men would constitute a very admirable police, but a very poor army. Matters, however, were so rapidly approaching a crisis, and the peril so fast increasing, that on the afternoon of the same day it was decided that this citizen's guard should consist of forty-eight thousand men, and that the colors of the cockade should be blue and red. La Fayette proposed that they should add white, the old color of France, saying, "I thus give you a cockade which will go round the world."

The electors then appointed a committee to watch day and night over the safety of the city. Thus a new and independent government, with its strong army of defense, entirely detached from the throne, was established in a day. It was the sudden growth of uncontrollable events, which no human wisdom had planned. "But to whom," said the mayor, Flesselles, "shall the oath of fidelity be taken?" "To the Assembly of the citizens," an elector promptly replied.

Every thinking man saw clearly that matters were approaching a fearful crisis. Marshal Broglie, proud and self-confident, was at Versailles in constant conference with the court, and having at his command fifty thousand men, abundantly armed and equipped, all of whom could in a few hours be concentrated in the streets of Paris. Bensenval had assembled his force of several thousand Swiss and German troops, cavalry and artillery, in the Field of Mars. The enormous fortress of the Bastille, with its walls forty feet thick at its base and ten at the top, rising with its gloomy towers one hundred and twenty feet in the air, with cannon, charged with grapeshot, already run out at every embrasure to sweep the streets, commanded the city. It was garrisoned by about eighty French soldiers; but, as it was feared that they could not be wholly relied upon, forty Swiss troops were thrown in as a re-enforcement who would be as blindly obedient as the muskets they shouldered. Every moment rumors were reaching the city that Marshal Broglie was approaching with all his troops. Still no arms or ammunition could be obtained.

In this state of things a report was brought that a large quantity of powder had been embarked in a boat from the Hôtel des Invalides, and was floating down the Seine to be conveyed to Versailles. The people immediately ran to the Electors, and obtained an order to have the powder seized and brought to the hotel. It was promptly done. A heroic clergyman, the Abbé Lefebvre, who had great influence over the populace, assumed the perilous task of guarding the powder in one of the lower rooms of the Hôtel de Ville and distributing it among the people. For forty-eight hours this brave man guarded his dangerous treasure in the midst of fire-arms and the surging of the multitude. A drunken man at one time staggered in smoking amid the casks.[163]

Guns only were wanting now. It was well known that there were large stores of them somewhere in the city, but no one knew where to find them.

The mayor, Flesselles, who the people now began to suspect was deluding them merely to gain time for the royal troops to enter the city, being urged to point out the dépôt, said that the manufactory at Charleville had promised to send him thirty thousand guns, and that twelve thousand he was momentarily expecting. Soon a large number of boxes were brought, marked "guns." The mayor ordered them to be stored in the magazine till he should have time to distribute them. But the impatient people so urged the electors that they broke open the boxes and found them filled with rubbish. Was the mayor deceiving them? many anxiously inquired. Flesselles, much embarrassed, sent the people to two monasteries where he said guns were concealed; but the friars promptly threw open the doors, and no arms were to be found.

It soon became evident that Flesselles was trifling with the people, hoping to keep them unarmed until the troops should arrive to crush them mercilessly. He was well known as a dissolute man, hostile to popular liberty, and was undoubtedly a traitor, and a spy at the Hôtel de Ville, acting in communication with the court.[164]