“At the bottom of this well, the prisoner, lost amid the abyss of stone, for a moment contemplated its cold nakedness, and soon asked to be allowed to return to his room....
“At the Bastille, all the places were sold to the highest bidder, from that of the governor himself, down to that of the scullion. The governor of the Bastille was a gaoler on a grand scale, an eating-house keeper wearing epaulets, who added to his salary of sixty thousand livres sixty thousand more, which he extorted and plundered....
“M. de Launay, in point of avarice, far surpassed his predecessors. This might, perhaps, have arisen from his having paid more for the place, and having foreseen that he would not remain in it so long as they did.
“He fed his whole house at the expense of his prisoners. He had reduced the quantity of firing, and doubled the hire of furniture in each room.
“He had the right of bringing yearly into Paris a hundred pipes of wine, free of duty. He sold his right to a tavern-keeper, who brought in wines of excellent quality. Then, with a tenth part of this duty, he purchased the vinegar with which he supplied his prisoners.”
The rest of Dumas’ treatment of the fall of the Bastille is of the historical kind. He does not blame De Launay for the fall, but by no means does he make a hero of him.
“A flash of fire, lost in a cloud of smoke, crowned the summit of a tower; a detonation resounded; cries of pain were heard issuing from the closely pressed crowd; the first cannon-shot had been fired from the Bastille; the first blood had been spilled. The battle had commenced....
“On hearing the detonation we have spoken of, the two soldiers who were still watching M. de Launay threw themselves upon him; a third snatched up the match, and then extinguished it by placing his heel upon it.
“De Launay drew the sword which was concealed in his cane, and would have turned it against his own breast, but the soldiers seized it and snapped it in two.
“He then felt that all he could do was to resign himself to the result; he therefore tranquilly awaited it.