It was now the turn of the unfortunate Flesselles. It is said that a letter found on De Launay proved the treachery of which he was suspected. "I am amusing the Parisians," he wrote, "with cockades and promises. Hold out till the evening, and you shall be reinforced." The mob hurried to his office. The more moderate demanded that he should be arrested and confined in the Châtelet; but others opposed this, saying that he should be conveyed to the Palais-Royal, and there tried. This decision gave general satisfaction. "To the Palais-Royal! To the Palais-Royal!" resounded from every side. "Well—be it so, gentlemen," replied Flesselles, with composure, "let us go to the Palais-Royal." So saying, he descended the steps, passed through the crowd, which opened to make way for him, and which followed without offering him any violence. But at the corner of the Quay Pelletier a stranger rushed forward, and killed him with a pistol- shot.
After these scenes of war, tumult, dispute, and vengeance, the Parisians, fearing, from some intercepted letters, that an attack would be made during the night, prepared to receive the enemy. The whole population joined in the labour of fortifying the town; they formed barricades, opened intrenchments, unpaved streets, forged pikes, and cast bullets. Women carried stones to the tops of the houses to crush the soldiers as they passed. The national guard were distributed in posts; Paris seemed changed into an immense foundry and a vast camp, and the whole night was spent under arms, expecting the conflict.
While the insurrection assumed this violent, permanent, and serious character at Paris, what was doing at Versailles? The court was preparing to realize its designs against the capital and assembly. The night of the 14th was fixed upon for their execution. The baron de Breteuil, who was at the head of the ministry, had promised to restore the royal authority in three days. Marshal de Broglie, commander of the army collected around Paris, had received unlimited powers of all kinds. On the 15th the declaration of the 23rd of June was to be renewed, and the king, after forcing the assembly to adopt it, was to dissolve it. Forty thousand copies of this declaration were in readiness to be circulated throughout the kingdom; and to meet the pressing necessities of the treasury more than a hundred millions of paper money was created. The movement in Paris, so far from thwarting the court, favoured its views. To the last moment it looked upon it as a passing tumult that might easily be suppressed; it believed neither in its perseverance nor in its success, and it did not seem possible to it that a town of citizens could resist an army.
The assembly was apprised of these projects. For two days it had sat without interruption, in a state of great anxiety and alarm. It was ignorant of the greater portion of what was passing in Paris. At one time it was announced that the insurrection was general, and that all Paris was marching on Versailles; then that the troops were advancing on the capital. They fancied they heard cannon, and they placed their ears to the ground to assure themselves. On the evening of the 14th it was announced that the king intended to depart during the night, and that the assembly would be left to the mercy of the foreign regiments. This last alarm was not without foundation. A carriage and horses were kept in readiness, and the body-guard remained booted for several days. Besides, at the Orangery, incidents truly alarming took place; the troops were prepared and stimulated for their expedition by distributions of wine and by encouragements. Everything announced that a decisive moment had arrived.
Despite the approaching and increasing danger, the assembly was unshaken, and persisted in its first resolutions. Mirabeau, who had first required the dismissal of the troops, now arranged another deputation. It was on the point of setting out, when the viscount de Noailles, a deputy, just arrived from Paris, informed the assembly of the progress of the insurrection, the pillage of the Invalides, the arming of the people, and the siege of the Bastille. Wimpfen, another deputy, to this account added that of the personal dangers he had incurred, and assured them that the fury of the populace was increasing with its peril. The assembly proposed the establishment of couriers to bring them intelligence every half hour.
M. M. Ganilh and Bancal-des-Issarts, despatched by the committee at the Hôtel de Ville as a deputation to the assembly, confirmed all they had just heard. They informed them of the measures taken by the electors to secure order and the defence of the capital; the disasters that had happened before the Bastille; the inutility of the deputations sent to the governor, and told them that the fire of the garrison had surrounded the fortress with the slain. A cry of indignation arose in the assembly at this intelligence, and a second deputation was instantly despatched to communicate these distressing tidings to the king. The first returned with an unsatisfactory answer; it was now ten at night. The king, on learning these disastrous events, which seemed to presage others still greater, appeared affected. Struggling against the part he had been induced to adopt, he said to the deputies,—"You rend my heart more and more by the dreadful news you bring of the misfortunes of Paris. It is impossible to suppose that the orders given to the troops are the cause of these disasters. You are acquainted with the answer I returned to the first deputation; I have nothing to add to it." This answer consisted of a promise that the troops of the Champ de Mars should be sent away from Paris, and of an order given to general officers to assume the command of the guard of citizens. Such measures were not sufficient to remedy the dangerous situation in which men were placed; and it neither satisfied nor gave confidence to the assembly.
Shortly after this, the deputies d'Ormesson and Duport announced to the assembly the taking of the Bastille, and the deaths of De Launay and Flesselles. It was proposed to send a third deputation to the king, imploring the removal of the troops. "No," said Clermont Tonnerre, "leave them the night to consult in; kings must buy experience as well as other men." In this way the assembly spent the night. On the following morning, another deputation was appointed to represent to the king the misfortunes that would follow a longer refusal. When on the point of starting, Mirabeau stopped it: "Tell him," he exclaimed, "that the hordes of strangers who invest us, received yesterday, visits, caresses, exhortations, and presents from the princes, princesses, and favourites; tell him that, during the night, these foreign satellites, gorged with gold and wine, predicted in their impious songs the subjection of France, and invoked the destruction of the national assembly; tell him, that in his own palace, courtiers danced to the sound of that barbarous music, and that such was the prelude to the massacre of Saint Bartholomew! Tell him that the Henry of his ancestors, whom he wished to take as his model, whose memory is honoured by all nations, sent provisions into a Paris in revolt when besieging the city himself, while the savage advisers of Louis send away the corn which trade brings into Paris loyal and starving."
But at that moment the king entered the assembly. The duke de Liancourt, taking advantage of the access his quality of master of the robes gave him, had informed the king, during the night, of the desertion of the French guard, and of the attack and taking of the Bastille. At this news, of which his councillors had kept him in ignorance, the monarch exclaimed, with surprise, "this is a revolt!" "No sire! it is a revolution." This excellent citizen had represented to him the danger to which the projects of the court exposed him; the fears and exasperations of the people, the disaffection of the troops, and he determined upon presenting himself before the assembly, to satisfy them as to his intentions. The news at first excited transports of joy. Mirabeau represented to his colleagues, that it was not fit to indulge in premature applause. "Let us wait," said he, "till his majesty makes known the good intentions we are led to expect from him. The blood of our brethren flows in Paris. Let a sad respect be the first reception given to the king by the representatives of an unfortunate people: the silence of the people is the lesson of kings."
The assembly resumed the sombre demeanour which had never left it during the three preceding days. The king entered without guards, and only attended by his brothers. He was received, at first, in profound silence; but when he told them he was one with the nation, and that, relying on the love and fidelity of his subjects, he had ordered the troops to leave Paris and Versailles; when he uttered the affecting words—Eh bien, c'est moi qui me fie à vous, general applause ensued. The assembly arose spontaneously, and conducted him back to the château.
This intelligence diffused gladness in Versailles and Paris, where the reassured people passed, by sudden transition, from animosity to gratitude. Louis XVI. thus restored to himself, felt the importance of appeasing the capital in person, of regaining the affection of the people, and of thus conciliating the popular power. He announced to the assembly that he would recall Necker, and repair to Paris the following day. The assembly had already nominated a deputation of a hundred members, which preceded the king to the capital. It was received with enthusiasm. Bailly and Lafayette, who formed part of it, were appointed, the former mayor of Paris, the latter commander-in-chief of the citizen guard. Bailly owed this recompense to his long and difficult presidency of the assembly, and Lafayette to his glorious and patriotic conduct. A friend of Washington, and one of the principal authors of American independence, he had, on his return to his country, first pronounced the name of the states-general, had joined the assembly, with the minority of the nobility, and had since proved himself one of the most zealous partisans of the revolution.