The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1882-08-04
The Bastile.


1t was on the 14th of July, 1889, nine
ty-three years ago, that the Bastile was
captured and destroyed by the people
of Paris. Had the dull, leaden-m minded
King, then sitting uneasily on the
French throne, been able to understand
aud c6nfosu1 to the signs of the times,
or been able to separate himself from the
colntiers who urged him to resist the
rising tide OF popular feeling, the awful
events that followed the capture of the
famous prison might have been averted,
and France and the world spared a
chapter OF history the like of which was
never known before and has never been
known since. But Louis XVI would
not, perhaps could not understand. Even
the taking.of the Bastile was a warning
he failed ID interpret Alright He and
the assembly were at Versailles engaged
in the game OF demands and petitions
on one SIDE and refusals or ihsincere
concessions on the other which had
been prfracted till the country was
weary of It,. 1t was time of painful
sl.s.ss. .s.esGsriiid IN xietY. Ghecourtiers were
endeayAriAg 10 persuade the irresolute
King tofet loose the army on the people.
The assembly were in constant appre-
hension OF being arrested and thrown
behind the grim md pitiless walls of the
frowning fortress Nrison which stood at
the gate of st. AntGne where so MANY
a gallant spirit had been immured be-
fore. There was no adjournment. The
sessions were kept M day and night,
lest, if the assemblN left the hall,
its doors would be- closed and
the body dispersed. An communi-
cation with Paris had been cut of,
and the news Of what was going on there
could not be brought, though The boom
ing of cannon heard through the day told
plainly that work, and warm work too,
was going on, 1t was not till night that
the King and the Assembly learned that
the people of Paris had seized the arms
in the arsenal and storrhed and captured
the Bastile. The King was irritated. 'sIt
is a reyolt.p said he, resentfully. NAY,
sire," replied one of his most frank at
tendants, cit is a revolution. - And so
it was-the beginning of that frightful
reckoning with the eXecrable misrule.
falSehood had rotten pretence which for
hundred years had been heaping up
wrath against the day of wrath till the
angry and menacing structure was top
ping over the head of the King and
court. The impulse which brought the
eXasperated populace of Paris against
the Bastile vas an instinct. As French
historian remarks: 1T was an act of
faith. Thre was no reason in il. The
walls which connected the eight lofty
towers of tie fortress were forty feet
thick at the bottom and ten feet thick
at the top, and nearly hundred feet
high. 1t wS absolutely safe against the
musket balls which flattened themselves
against its Hack and ancient front and
the shots flDm the two light pieces of
cannon whih merely dented the stones
The garrison of eighty-two French and
forty Swiss soldiers had they been dis
posed, mighthqve held it easily against
the assault oil the mob of 100, 600 men
and women awayed round it on that hot
July day. But the infuriated populace
were bent on making a beginning and
they acted more wisely than they Thought
when with one consent they drew UP
before The embrasures of the hated
prison bur hundred years old, fit type of
the dismal and detestible regime they
were determined TO overthrow. The
spirit olrevolutjon had been at work in
the army and the French soldiers of the
garrison sympathized with the people
and refused to fire upon them. They
even went further. After the attack had
lasted for five hours without making an
impression the French soldiers hung
white Aags in token of surrender along
the top of the walls and opened the gates
to the mob. Properly speaking, says
Michelet, .'the Bastile was not taken, it
surrendered. Troubled with bad con-
science, it went mad and lost all pres
ence of mind. The populace were
moderate in the hour of their triumph.
They cut off the head of lie Launey,
governor of the prison, and stuck it on
pike, did the same for Flesselles, the
treacherous Mayor of the city. and
hanged two Swiss soldiers, who had
been active in firing on the people, to
lamp-post. But it was a warning which,
unheeded, was to be followed by the cut
ting off of heads enough to make q
mountain and the shedding of blood
enough to form a river.
Attempt have been made to show that
the Bastile was not the awful abode of
torture. crime and despair the French
people held it to be-that it was very
respectable and properly conducted
prison. Be this as it may, the French
people have never ceased to regard it as
the symbol of the most uncomfortable mis-
government of modern times and to
celebrate its downfall as marking their
deliverance from detested regime. 50.
LOUIS republican.