Many prisoners became lunatics, others died there whose friends never knew their fate, for a man’s name and individuality were lost when once he passed the gates.
Those who regained their liberty were sworn to secrecy concerning all that they had seen or heard in the Bastille: “Etant en liberté, je promets, conformément aux ordres du Roi, de ne parler à qui que ce soit, d’aucune manière que ce puisse être, des prisonniers ni autre chose concernant le château de la Bastille, qui auraient pu parvenir à ma connaissance.”
As a rule this oath was observed, the dread of another incarceration being sufficient to inculcate the wisdom of silence, the well-known memoirs of Linguet being an exception.
Under Louis XVI., committals were less numerous, and when the Marquis de Launay surrendered the Bastille to the Parisian revolutionaries in July, 1789, only seven prisoners were found in it, although it must be remembered that the governor, recognizing the possibility of an attack, had sent away some of the most important prisoners to Vincennes. If he had had the forethought at the same time to have caused the Bastille to be well supplied with provisions he, with his small garrison of 114 men, might have held out for an almost indefinite period against the attacks of the half-armed, undisciplined Parisian mob.
As it was, the Marquis behaved during a trying time as a brave soldier and a humane gentleman. At length, but only when his scanty provisions were exhausted, he yielded up the castle on condition that the lives of the garrison should be spared. But the inrushing crowd cared nothing for conditions, nor for the rules of civilized warfare, and in a few minutes nearly every man was killed. De Launay himself was aimlessly dragged about for some time, then killed, and his head paraded on a pike round the streets of Paris.
The Bastille itself was demolished by the people, the place where it stood alone preserves its name, and the stones which once formed its melancholy walls are now trodden under foot by the countless myriads who pass over the Pont de la Concorde.