“All morning since nine there has been a cry every where:  To the Bastile!  Repeated ‘deputations of citizens’ have been here, passionate for arms; whom De Launay has got dismissed by soft speeches through port-holes.  Towards noon elector Thuriot de la Rosiere gains admittance; finds De Launay indisposed for surrender; nay, disposed for blowing up the place rather.  Thuriot mounts with him to the battlements:  heaps of paving stones, old iron, and missiles lie piled; cannon all duly levelled; in every embrasure a cannon—­only drawn back a little!  But outwards, behold how the multitude flows on, swelling through every street:  tocsin furiously pealing, all drums beating the generale:  the suburb Saint Antoine rolling hitherward wholly as one man!

“Woe to thee De Launay, in such an hour, if thou canst not, taking some one firm decision, rule circumstances!  Soft speeches will not serve, hard grape-shot is questionable; but hovering between the two is unquestionable.  Ever wilder swells the tide of men; their infinite hum waxing even louder into imprecations, perhaps into crackle of stray musketry—­which latter, on walls nine feet thick, cannot do execution.  The outer drawbridge has been lowered for Thuriot; new deputation of citizens (it is the third and noisiest of all) penetrates that way into the outer court:  soft speeches producing no clearance of these, De Launay gives fire; pulls up his drawbridge; a slight sputter—­which has kindled the too combustible chaos; made it a roaring fire-chaos.  Bursts forth insurrection at sight of its own blood, (for there were deaths by that sputter of fire,) into endless rolling explosion of musketry, distraction, execration.  The Bastile is besieged!

“On, then, all Frenchmen that have hearts in their bodies!  Roar with all your throats, of cartilage and metal, ye sons of liberty; stir spasmodically whatsoever of utmost faculty is in you, soul, body, or spirit; for it is the hour!  Smite thou, Louis Tournay, cart-wright of the Marais, old soldier of the regiment Dauphine:  smite at that outer drawbridge chain, though the fiery hail whistles round thee!  Never, over nave or felloe, did thy axe (q. hammer?) strike such a stroke.  Down with it, man:  down with it to Orcus:  let the whole accursed edifice sink thither, and tyranny be swallowed up for ever!  Mounted, some say, on the roof of the guard-room, some ’on bayonets stuck into the joints of the wall,’ Louis Tournay smites brave Aubin Bonnemere (also an old soldier) seconding him:  the chain yields, breaks; the huge drawbridge slams down thundering, (avec fracas.) Glorious:  and yet, alas, it is still but the outworks!  The eight grim towers, with their Invalides’ musketry, their paving stones and cannon-mouths, still roar aloft intact; ditch yawning impassable, stone-faced; the inner drawbridge with its back towards us; the Bastile is still