The governor, who was every moment expecting the arrival of troops to disperse the crowd, refused to surrender the fortress, but replied that he was ready to give his oath that he would not fire upon the people, if they did not fire upon him. After a long and exciting interview, Thuriot came forth to those at the Hôtel de Ville who had sent him.
He had hardly emerged from the massive portals, and crossed the draw-bridge of the moat, which was immediately raised behind him, ere the people commenced the attack. A scene of confusion and uproar ensued which can not be described. A hundred thousand men, filling all the streets and alleys which opened upon the Bastille, crowding all the windows and house-tops of the adjacent buildings, kept up an incessant firing, harmlessly flattening their bullets against walls of stone forty feet thick and one hundred feet high.[168]
The French soldiers within the garrison were reluctant to fire upon their relatives and friends. But the Swiss, obedient to authority, opened a deadly fire of bullets and grapeshot upon the crowd. While the battle was raging an intercepted letter was brought to the Hôtel de Ville, in which Bensenval, commandant of the troops in the Field of Mars, exhorted De Launey to remain firm, assuring him that he would soon come with succor.[169] But, fortunately for the people, even these foreign troops refused to march for the protection of the Bastille.
The French Guards now broke from their barracks, and, led by their subaltern officers, came with two pieces of artillery in formidable array to join the people. They were received with thunders of applause which drowned even the roar of the battle. Energetically they opened their batteries upon the fortress, but their balls rebounded harmless from the impregnable rock.
Apparently the whole of Paris, with one united will, was combined against the great bulwark of tyranny.[170] Men, women, and boys were mingled in the fight. Priests, nobles, wealthy citizens, and the ragged and emaciate victims of famine were pressing in the phrensied assault side by side.[171] The French soldiers were now anxious to surrender, but the Swiss, sheltered from all chance of harm, shot down with deliberate and unerring aim whomsoever they would. Four hours of the battle had now passed, and though but one man had been hurt within the fortress, a hundred and seventy-one of the citizens had been either killed or wounded. The French soldiers now raised a flag of truce upon the towers, while the Swiss continued firing below. This movement plunged De Launey into despair. One hundred thousand men were beleaguering his fortress. The king sent no troops to his aid; and three fourths of his garrison had abandoned him and were already opening communications with his assailants. He knew that the people could never pardon him for the blood of their fathers and brothers with which he had crimsoned their streets—that death was his inevitable doom. In a state almost of delirium he seized a match from a cannon and rushed toward the magazine, determined to blow up the citadel. There were a hundred and thirty-five barrels of gunpowder in the vaults. The explosion would have thrown the Bastille into the air, buried one hundred thousand people beneath its ruins, and have demolished one third of Paris.[172] Two subaltern officers crossed their bayonets before him and prevented the accomplishment of this horrible design.
Some wretches seized upon a young lady whom they believed to be the governor's daughter, and wished, by the threat of burning her within view of her father upon the towers, to compel him to surrender. But the citizens promptly rescued her from their hands and conveyed her to a place of safety. It was now five o'clock, and the assault had commenced at twelve o'clock at noon. The French soldiers within made white flags of napkins, attached them to bayonets, and waved them from the walls. Gradually the flags of truce were seen through the smoke; the firing ceased, and the cry resounded through the crowd and was echoed along the streets of Paris, "The Bastille surrenders." This fortress, which Louis XIV. and Turenne had pronounced impregnable, surrendered not to the arms of its assailants, for they had produced no impression upon it. It was conquered by that public opinion which pervaded Paris and which vanquished its garrison.[173]
The massive portals were thrown open, and the vast multitude, a living deluge, plunging headlong, rushed in. They clambered the towers, penetrated the cells, and descended into the dungeons and oubliettes. Appalled they gazed upon the instruments of torture with which former victims of oppression had been torn and broken. Excited as they were by the strife, and exasperated by the shedding of blood, but one man in the fortress, a Swiss soldier, fell a victim to their rage.
The victorious people now set out in a tumultuous procession to convey their prisoners, the governor and the soldiers, to the Hôtel de Ville. Those of the populace whose relatives had perished in the strife were roused to fury, and called loudly for the blood of De Launey. Two very powerful men placed themselves on each side of him for his protection. But the clamor increased, the pressure became more resistless, and just as they were entering the Place de Grève the protectors of the governor were overpowered—he was struck down, his head severed by a sabre stroke, and raised a bloody and ghastly trophy into the air upon a pike.
In the midst of the great commotion two of the Swiss soldiers of the Bastille, whom the populace supposed to have been active in the cannonade, were seized, notwithstanding the most strenuous efforts to save them, and hung to a lamp-post. A rumor passed through the crowd that a letter had been found from the mayor, Flesselles, who was already strongly suspected of treachery, directed to De Launey, in which he said,
"I am amusing the Parisians with cockades and promises. Hold out till the evening and you shall be relieved."[174]