Taking the Bastile (20 page)

‘I did not say,’ rejoined Billot, ‘that the people would demolish the Bastille before taking it. What I said was, that they would demolish it after having taken it.’

‘Let us go upstairs,’ said De Launay; ‘let us go up.’

They went up some thirty steps. The governor stopped.

‘See,’ said he, ‘here is another embrasure, which opens on the passage by which you wish to enter; this is only defended by a rampart gun; but it has already acquired a certain reputation. Let us go up higher,’ and they continued to chmb up the stairs.

They soon reached a platform, on the tower called La Compt6.

‘Ah 1 ah I’ ejaculated Billot. ‘You have not had the cannon dismounted.’

‘I have had them drawn in that’s all.’

‘You know that I shall tell the people that cannon are still here.’

‘Tell them so.’

‘You will not have them dismounted, then?’

‘The king’s cannon are here by the king’s order, sir x.. *.

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they can only be dismounted by an order from the king.’

‘Monsieur de Launay,’ said Billot, feeling the importance of the moment, and raising his mind to the full height of it, with dignified eloquence, replied, ‘ Monsieur de Launay, the real king, whom I counsel you to obey, is yonder.’

And he showed to the governor the gray crowd, some of whom were still covered with blood from the combat of the preceding evening, and whose undulating movements before the ditches made their arms gleam in the sunshine.

‘Sir,’ said De Launay in his turn, throwing his head back with a haughty air, ‘you may perhaps acknowledge two kings; but I, the governor of the Bastille. I know but one, and he is Louis, the Sixteenth of that name, who has affixed his name to a commission by virtue of which I command here, both men and things.’

‘You are not, then, a citizen I’ cried Billot in anger.

‘I am a French gentleman,’ said the governor.

‘Ah I that is true you are a soldier, and you speak as a soldier.’

‘You have said the word, sir,’ said De Lannay, bowing. ‘I am a soldier, and I execute the orders I receive.’

‘And I, sir,’ said Billot, ‘I am a citizen, and my duty as a citizen being in opposition with your orders as a soldier, one of us two will die whether it be the one who obeys his orders, or the one who fulfils his duty.’

‘It is probable, sir.’

‘Then you are determined to fire upon the people?’

‘By no means so long as they do not tire upon me. I have pledged my word to the envoys of Monsieur de Flesselles. You see that the guns have been drawn in, but at the first shot fired from the square upon my castle I will myself wheel one of these to the embrasure, I will point it with my own hands, and I will fare it with the match yon see standing here.’

‘Oh I if I believed that.’ said Billot, ‘before allowing you to commit such a crime ‘

‘I have told you that I am a soldier, sir, and that I know nothing bat my orders.’

‘Well, then, look r said Billot, drawing De Launay towards an embrasure, and pointing out to him alternately two different points, the Faubourg Saint Antoine and the Boulevard, ‘yonder are those from whom in future yen will receive your orders.’

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And he showed De Lannay two dark, dense, and howling masses, who, compelled to take the form of the Boulevards, undulated like an immense serpent, of which the head and the body could be seen, but the last rings of which were lost to sight, from the unevenness of the ground on which it crawled. And all that could be seen of the gigantic reptile was refulgent with luminous scales. It was the double troop, to which Billot had given rendezvous on the square of the Bastille the one led by Marat, and the other by Gonchon. On both sides they advanced, brandishing their arms, and uttering the most terrific cries.

De Launay turned pale at the sight, and raising bis cane, ‘To your guns I’ cried he.

Then, advancing towards Billot with a threatening gesture, ‘And you, wretch I’ he exclaimed, ‘you who have come here under the pretext of parleying with me while the others are advancing to the attack, do you know that you deserve to die?’

And he half drew his sword from the cane which concealed it. Billot saw the movement, and, rapid as the lightning, seized De Launay by the collar and the waist-band.

‘And you,’ said he, as he raised him from the ground, ‘you deserve that I should hurl you over the ramparts, to break your bones against the sides of the ditch I But God be thanked 1 I shall fight you in another manner I’

At that moment an immense and universal clamour, proceeding from below, and rushing through the air like the wild howlings of the hurricane, reached their ears, and M. de Losme, the major of the Bastille, appeared upon the platform.

‘Sir,’ cried he, addressing himself to Billot, ‘sir, be pleased to show yourself; all those people yonder believe that some misfortune has befallen you, and they are calling for you.’

And in fact the name of Billot, which had been spread among the crowd by Pitou, was heard amidst the clamour. Billot had loosed his hold, and M. de Launay sheathed his sword. Then there was a momentary hesitation between these three men; cries calling for vengeance, and threatening shouts were heard.

‘Show yourself, then, sir,’ said De Launay: ‘not that these clamours intimidate me, but that it may be known that I am a man who loyally keeps his word,’

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Then Billot put his head between the battlements, making a sign with his hand. On seeing this, loud shouts of applause rose from the populace. It was, in a manner, the revolution rising from the forehead of the Bastille in the person of this man of the people, who had been the first to trample on its platform as a conqueror.

“Tis well, sir,’ then said De Launay, ‘all is now terminated between us; you have nothing further to do here. You are called for yonder : go down.’

Billot was sensible of this moderation in a man who had him completely in his power; he went down the same staircase by which he had ascended the ramparts, the governor following him. As to the major, he had remained there; the governor had given him some orders in a whisper. It was evident that M. de Launay had but one desire, and this was that the bearer of the flag of truce should become his enemy, and that as quickly as possible.

Billot walked across the courtyard without uttering a word. He saw the artillerymen standing by their guns. The match was smoking at the end of a lance. Billot stepped before them.

‘My friends,’ said he, ‘remember that I came to request your chief to prevent the spilling of blood, and that he has refused.’

‘In the name of the king, sir,’ cried De Launay, stamping his foot, ‘leave this place I’

‘Beware I’ said Billot; ‘for if you order me out in the name of the king, I shall come in again in the name of the people.’

Then, turning towards the guardhouse, before which the Swiss were standing, ‘Come, now,’ said he, ‘tell me for which side are you ?

The Swiss soldiers remain xl silent. De Launay pointed with his finger to the iron gate. Billot wished to essay a last effort. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘in the name of the nation 1 in the name of your brothers I’

‘Of my brothers 1 You call my brothers those men who are howling ” Down with the Bastille I ” ” Death to its governor P They may be your brothers, iir, but most assuredly they are not mine I

‘In the name of humanity, then.’

‘In the name of humanity, which urges you on to come here, with a hundred thousand men, to cut the throats of ft hundred unfortunate soldiers shut up in these walls.’

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‘And by surrendering the Bastille you would be doing precisely that which would save their Hves.’

‘And sacrifice my honour.’

Billot said no more to him; this logic of the soldier completely overcame him; but turning to the Swiss and Invalides,

‘Surrender, my friends I’ cried he, ‘it is still time. In ten minutes it will be too late.’

‘If you do not instantly withdraw, sir,’ in his turn cried De Launay, ‘on the word of a gentleman I will order you to be shot.’ -

Billot paused a moment, crossed his arms over his chest in token of defiance, exchanged a last threatening glance with De Launay, and passed through the gate.

THB crowd was waiting; scorched by the burning July sun, they were trembling, mad with excitement. Gonchon’s men had just joined those of Marat. The Faubourg Saint Antoine had recognised and saluted its brother, the Faubourg Saint Marceau. Gonchon was at the head of his patriots. As to Marat, he had disappeared. The aspect of the square was frightful. On Billot s appearance the shouts redoubled.

‘Well?’ said Gpnchon, going up to him.

‘Well, this man is a man of courage,’ said Billot.

‘Do you mean that he will not surrender the Bastille?’

‘No

‘And you believe that he will sustain the siege long?’

‘To the very death.’

‘Be it so I Death he shall have I’

‘But what numbers of men we are about to expose to death I’ exclaimed Billot.

‘Pooh 1’ said Gonchon, ‘there are too many in this world, since there is not bread enough for half the population. Is it not so, friends?’

‘Yes, yes 1’ cried the crowd, with a sublims self-abnegation.

‘But the ditch?’ observed Billot inquiringly.

‘It is only necessary that it should be filled up at one particular spot,’ replied Gonchon, ‘ and I have calculated

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that with the half of the bodies we have here we could fin it up completely; is it not so, friends?’

‘Yes, yes 1’ repeated the crowd, with no less enthusiasm than before.

‘Well, then, be it sol’ said Billot, though completely overcome.

At that moment De Launay appeared upon the terrace, followed by Major de Losme and two or three officers,

‘Begin 1’ cried Gonchon to the governor.

The latter turned his back without replying. Gonchon, who would perhaps have endured a threat, could not endure disdain; he quickly raised his carbine to his shoulder, and a man in the governor’s suite fell to the ground. A hundred shots, a thousand musket shots, were fired at the same moment, as if they had only waited for this signal, and marbled with white the gray towers of the Bastille. A silence of some seconds succeeded this discharge, as if the crowd itself had been alarmed at that which it had done. Then 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.

What the crowd experienced, which just before had been so threatening, very much resembled terror. That Bastille, defending itself by this sole act. appeared in all its formidable impregnability. The people had doubtless hoped that in those days, when so many concessions had been made to them, the surrender of the Bastille would be accomplished without the effusion of blood. The people were mistaken. The cannon shot which had been fired upon them gave them the measure of the Titanic work which they had undertaken. A volley of musketry, well directed, and coming from the platform of the Bastille, followed closely on the cannon shot. Then all was again silent for a while, a silence which was interrupted only by a few cries, a few groans, a few complainings uttered here and there, A shuddering anxious movement could then be perceived among the crowd; it was the people who were picking up their killed and wounded. But the people thought not of flying, or if they did think of it, they were ashamed of the leeling when they considered thor treat mnnbcn.

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In an instant all the windows of the neighbourhood were filled with sharpshooters, even those which were out of gun-shot. Whenever a Swiss soldier or an Invalide appeared upon the terraces or hi one of the embrasures, a hundred muskets were at once aimed at him, and a shower of balls splintered the corners of the stones behind which the soldier was sheltered. But they soon got tired of firing at insensible walls. It was against human flesh that their balls were directed.

Numerous opinions were emitted from amid the crowd. A blacksmith proposed to form a catapult, upon the model of the ancient Roman machines, and with it to make a breach in the walls of the Bastille. A brewer, who commanded the Faubourg Saint Antoine, and whose name has since acquired a fatal celebrity, proposed to set fire to the fortress, by throwing into it a quantity of oil, which had been seized the night before, and which they were to ignite with phosphorus. The firemen proposed to inundate with their are-engines the priming of the cannon and the matches of the artillerymen, without reflecting that the most powerful of their engines could not throw water even to two-thirds the height of the walls of the Bastille. Billot listened to all these mad-brained proposals one after the other. On hearing the last, he seized a hatchet from the hands of a carpenter, and advancing amid a storm of bullets, which struck down all around him numbers of men, huddled together as thickly as ears of corn in a field, he reached a small guardhouse, near to the first drawbridge, and although the grape-shot was whizzing and cracking; against the roof, ne ascended it, and by his powerful and well-directed blows, succeeded in breaking the chains, and the drawbridge fell with a tremendous crash.

During the quarter of an hour which this seemingly insensate enterprise had occupied, the crowd were palpitating with excitement. At every report, they expected to see the daring workman fall from the roof. The people forgot the danger to which they were exposed, and thought only of the danger which this brave man was incurring. When the bridge fell, they uttered a loud, joyful cry, and rushed into the first courtyard. Shouts of frantic joy announced this first advantage to M. de Launay. Then the four pieces of artillery which the governor had shown to Billot were simultaneously discharged with a frightful

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explosion, and swept the first courtyard of the fortress.