The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1882-08-05
The Bastile.

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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-minded
King, then sitting -uneasily on the
French throne, been able to understand
and conform to the signs of the times,
or been able to separate himself from the
courtiers 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 warning
he failed to interpret Alright. He and
the assembly were at Versailles engaged
in the game of demands and petitions
on one side and refusals or insincere
concessions on the other, which had
been protracted till the country was
weary of it. 1t was time of painful
suspense and anxiety. Thecourtiers were
endeavoring to persuade the irresolute
King to let loose the army on the people.
The assembly were in constant appre-
hension of being arrested and thrown
behind the grim and pitiless walls of the
| frowning fortress prison which stood at
the gate of st. Antoine where so many
gallant spirit had been immured be-
fore. There was no adjournment. The
sessions were kept up day and night,
lest, if the assembly left the hall,
I IL
the body dispersed. All commune
cation with Paris had been cut off,
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 stormed and captured
the Bastile. The King was irritated. at
is a revoltn' said he, resentfully. NAY,
SIRE" replied one of his most frank at
PENDANTS, sit is a revolution" And so
it was-the beginning of that frightful
reckoning with the execrable misrule,
falsehood had rotten pretence which for
a 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 was an instinct. As French
historian remarks: at was an act of
faith" There was no reason in it. The
walls which connected the eight lofty
towers of the fortress were forty feet
thick at the bottom and ten feet thick
at the top, and nearly hundred feet
high. 1t was absolutely safe against the
musket balls which fiattened themselves
| against its black and ancient front and
the shots from the two light pieces of
cannon which merely dented the stones.
The garrison of eighty-two French and
forty Swiss soldiers, had they been dis
posed, might have held it easily against
the assault of the mob of 100000 men
and women arrayed round it on that hot
July day. But the Infatuated populace
were bent on making beginning and
they acted more wisely than they thought
when with one consent they drew up
before the embrasures of the hated
prison four hundred years old, fit type of
the dismal and detestible regime they
were determined to overthrow. The
spirit of revolution 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 flags 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 a
lamp-post. But it was a warning which,
unheeded, was to be followed by the cut
ting off of heads enough to make a
mountain and the shedding of blood
enough to form 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 detestedr regime. est.