The electors now ordered thirty thousand pikes to be manufactured. Every smith was immediately employed, every forge was glowing, and for thirty-six hours, day and night, without intermission, the anvils rang till the pikes were finished. All this day of Monday the people thought only of defending themselves, but night again came, another night of terror, tumult, and sleeplessness.
The Bastille was the great terror of Paris. While that remained in the hands of their enemies, with its impregnable walls and heavy guns commanding the city, there was no safety. As by an instinct, during the night of the 13th, the Parisians decided that the Bastille must be taken. With that fortress in their hands they could defend themselves and repel their foes. But how could the Bastille be taken? It was apparently as unassailable as Gibraltar's rock. Nothing could be more preposterous than the thought of storming the Bastille. "The idea," says Michelet, "was by no means reasonable. It was an act of faith."
The Bastille stood in the very heart of the Faubourg St. Antoine, enormous, massive, and blackened with age, the gloomy emblem of royal prerogative, exciting by its mysterious power and menace the terror and the execration of every one who passed beneath the shadow of its towers. Even the sports of childhood dare not approach the empoisoned atmosphere with which it seemed to be enveloped.
M. de Launey was governor of the fortress, He was no soldier, but a mean, mercenary man, despised by the Parisians. He contrived to draw from the establishment, by every species of cruelty and extortion, an income of twenty-five thousand dollars a year. He reduced the amount of fire-wood to which the shivering inmates were entitled; made a great profit on the wretched wine which he furnished to those who were able to buy, and even let out the little garden within the inclosure, thus depriving those prisoners who were not in dungeon confinement of the privilege of a walk there, which they had a right to claim. De Launey was not merely detested as Governor of the Bastille, but he was personally execrated as a greedy, sordid, merciless man. Linguet's Memoirs of the Bastille had rendered De Launey's name infamous throughout Europe. Such men are usually cowards. De Launey was both spiritless and imbecile. Had he not been both, the Bastille could not have been taken.[165]
Still the people had no guns. It was ascertained that there was a large supply at the Hôtel des Invalides, but how could they be taken without any weapons of attack? Sombrueil, the governor, was a firm and fearless man, and, in addition to his ordinary force, amply sufficient for defense, he had recently obtained a strong detachment of artillery and several additional cannon, showing that he was ready to do battle. Within fifteen minutes march of the Invalides, Bensenval was encamped with several thousand Swiss and German troops in the highest state of discipline, and provided with all the most formidable implements of war. Every moment rumors passed through the streets that the troops from Versailles were on the march, headed by officers who were breathing threatenings and slaughter.
With electric speed the rumor passed through the streets that there was a large quantity of arms stored in the magazine of the Hôtel of the Invalides. Before nine o'clock in the morning of the 14th, thirty thousand men were before the Invalides; some with pikes, pistols, or muskets, but most of them unarmed. The curate of St. Etienne led his parishioners in this conflict for freedom. As this intrepid man marched at the head of his flock he said to them, "My children, let us not forget that all men are brothers." The bells of alarm ringing from the steeples seemed to invest the movement with a religious character. Those sublime voices, accustomed to summon the multitude to prayer, now with their loudest utterance called them to the defense of their civil and religious rights.[166]
Sombrueil perceived at once that the populace could only be repelled by enormous massacre, and that probably even that, in the phrensied state of the public mind, would be ineffectual. He dared not assume the responsibility of firing without an order from the king, and he could get no answer to the messages he sent to Versailles. Though his cannon charged with grapeshot could have swept down thousands, he did not venture to give the fatal command to fire. The citizens, with a simultaneous rush in all directions, leaped the trenches, clambered over the low wall—for the hotel was not a fortress—and, like a resistless inundation, filled the vast building. They found in the armory thirty thousand muskets. Seizing these and six pieces of cannon they rushed, as by a common instinct, toward the Bastille to assail with these feeble means one of the strongest fortresses in the world—a fortress which an army under the great Condé had in vain besieged for three and twenty days![167]
De Launey, from the summit of his towers, had for many hours heard the roar of the insurgent city. As he now saw the black mass of countless thousands approaching, he turned pale and trembled. All the cannon, loaded with grapeshot, were thrust out of the port-holes, and several cart-loads of paving-stones, cannon-balls, and old iron had been conveyed to the tops of the towers to be thrown down to crush the assailants. Twelve large rampart guns, charged heavily with grape, guarded the only entrance. These were manned by thirty-two Swiss soldiers who would have no scruples in firing upon Frenchmen. The eighty-two French soldiers who composed the remainder of the garrison were placed upon the towers, and at distant posts, where they could act efficiently without being brought so immediately into conflict with the attacking party.
A man of very fearless and determined character, M. Thuriot, was sent by the electors at the Hôtel de Ville to summon the Bastille to surrender. The draw-bridge was lowered, and he was admitted. The governor received him at the head of his staff.
"I summon you," said Thuriot, "in the name of the people, in the name of honor, and of our native land."