CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE



CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

On the next day, July 14, Lafayette and his wife were up and about at 6 in the morning. Both felt the day was going to be full of important events as the tension in the city had reached a near explosion point.

Lafayette wanted to see what was the result of the rioters’ invasion of the Invalides. Yesterday night when it became clear that the Invalides buildings contained just weapons but no ammunitions for them the people decided to take the weapons and procure ammunitions later. The taking of the arms turned into a real looting. The rebels laid hands on everything they could use in battle – from knives to cannons. Then there was a call “To the Bastille!” as someone reminded the people that the Bastille was not only a prison but also a huge arsenal. That was where Lafayette decided to go right away in the morning of July 14.

Adrienne immediately said that she was joining him, but he could not admit exposing her to the dangers of being in the midst of rioters. On the other hand to stop her was not a simple task.

“You told me you could not get to the queen yesterday and submit your resignation. And now you want to go to the Bastille.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“You said yesterday you could be called a traitor for sheltering a rioter. But to be amongst rioters is even worse than to shelter a rioter. You’ll take part in the antigovernment actions, not just passively hide someone.”

Adrienne smiled cunningly.

“You want to get rid of me, and you’ve found a pretext not to take me with you.”

“No. Not at all. I mean you should simply submit your resignation first before mingling with the rioters.”

“But to get to Versailles means I will have to pass through the dangerous streets.”

“You see, I am not taking you to the Bastille just because it is dangerous there.”

“Thus the only way out for me is to stay at home like I did for several days already while you witnessed all the important events.”

“Darling, I have a solution for your dilemma. You will go to Versailles in your carriage with my very well armed coachman and Étienne escorting you on horseback. They’ll see to it that you reach Versailles with no incident. In this way we’ll combine safety with usefulness.”

“What usefulness?”

“Yours.”

“Whom will I be useful to?”

“To me.”

“In what way?”

“You know, Adrienne, that I am not a republican. I am against absolutism, against arbitrary rule, but I am not a republican. All I want is to limit monarchy by a constitution so that the aspirations of the people find their way to the legislative process. France needs a constitution and a parliament to implement it and control the monarch. All that means that I am against violent overthrow of the royal power, I am against riots and uprisings. I am for a civilized and peaceful change of the government structure. Unfortunately rank and file people don’t understand it. They have gone too far in struggling against monarchy. They are ruled by their fury, and the events become more and more violent every moment. The royals respond to the violent revolt by their own violence. In this way the situation may get out of hand and develop into a universal bloodshed. That’s what I would like to prevent. If you don’t submit your resignation right away, but stay at the queen’s court for some time you will be able to inform me of the royal reaction to the people’s actions. If you tell me that the royal reaction promises to be violent I will be able to take some steps to pacify hot heads in advance by talking to the crowds, prompting them to channel their ardor to the path of negotiations, to remind them of my American experience and give them examples of the wisdom of George Washington and other American patriots who fought the English, a strong and violent enemy.”

“You want to pacify the people and restore the use of common sense by the government. These are noble intentions.”

“Will you agree to help me?”

“As far as my messages will be received by you only and used for establishing peace, not greater conflicts, and not used to the advantage of one side of current confrontations, so that my actions are not those of a spy — I agree to help you, Gilbert.”

“I was sure you’d understand me.”

“But how can it all be arranged?”

“We will use a messenger between us — Étienne. After you learn of some new activity on the part of the royals, you’ll send Étienne to where I will be at that time (most probably near the Bastille, he will be able to find me because I will be where the greatest concentration of crowds will assemble.) After I decide on a course of action I’ll send Étienne back to you with a report. And so on.”

“All right, my dear. We’ll try that. Hopefully we’ll both survive.”

Next, Lafayette called Étienne and described the assignment he wanted to give him. The faithful Indian agreed, happy that he could help his guardian of whom he always thought as his master.

Adrienne accompanied by Étienne went to Versailles and her husband simultaneously headed for the Bastille.

In contrast to Paris, Versailles looked a peaceful town. No crowds marched in the streets or gathered in town squares. What was unusual the chateau gardens were almost devoid of people. Only in the immediate vicinity of the palace uniformed Swiss guards and other soldiers were more noticeable than regularly.

Both Adrienne and Étienne were quickly admitted to the chateau after they showed their permanent entrance permits at a check point. Étienne went to the king’s part of the palace where he usually stayed in a room for royal court employees. As to Adrienne she got to the queen’s wing of the palace and asked the queen’s personal servant to announce her arrival and ask to be permitted to join other dames d’honneur in the queen’s boudoir. The permission was given immediately.

Marie Antoinette was in a somber mood which of late replaced her normally good spirits. Without her usual amiable smile she gestured to Adrienne inviting her to come up closer.

“I hear about growing disturbances in Paris. I am sure you, my dear, have not taken the risk of witnessing any of them yourself. But you have a husband who is known to be a very brave man and to have taken risks all his life. I am sure he is somewhere observing the rioting mobs. Can you tell me where the Marquis de Lafayette is now.”

“Your Majesty, you are quite right he’s shown great interest in the revolt taking place in Paris now. Although I am not absolutely sure, I believe he is now at the Place of the Bastille.”

“Can you tell me why you think he is there?”

“Well, he told me a huge crowd of people had been moving towards the Bastille since morning. He thought they wanted the ammunition kept at the fortress. He told me he was sure there might be clashes with the government forces protecting the Bastille. So he wanted to see all that.”

“Just to see? Or maybe to participate on the side of the crowds?”

“Your Majesty, the Marquis de Lafayette is not a republican, he is not against the monarchy, he does not support violence and he is not going to help anti-government activities, he is not a rioter, he is an observer.”

“Oh, really? Then perhaps someone else would be interested in hearing out the opinions of an observer of the violence.”

The queen lightly clapped her hands. Her personal maid came up to her, listened to the several words the queen whispered to her ear, and quickly went out.

Adrienne thought: “Who can that ‘someone else’ be? I hope not the police chief. Maybe I should not have disclosed the route Gilbert was going to take?”

At that time Lafayette got to the area near the Bastille. The place was filled with agitated people. Thousands of heads looked like the undulating surface of a sea whose waves beat against the walls of the fortress. The Bastille seemed to be invulnerable to any assault. It was a huge edifice: 220 feet long, 90 feet wide and 80 feet high with eight towers. Like a dark cliff it dominated the faubourg Saint-Antoine and served as a state prison since the time of Louis XIII.

Lafayette dismounted, left his horse in the care of a tavern keeper in one of the side streets and joined the crowd near the Bastille on foot. This way he could mingle with the people and observe everything as one of the throng, especially because he was dressed as a commoner.

At that time, in the queen’s boudoir, Adrienne was expecting the person Marie Antoinette had sent for several minutes ago. She had some gloomy foreboding fearing not for herself, but for her dear Gilbert.

Suddenly the door opened. A servant passed the threshold and announced: “His Majesty the King.”

Louis slowly entered the room, approached the queen and gallantly kissed her hand.

“You wanted to see me, dear?” he said with his charming serene smile.

“Your Majesty, here is one of my ladies-in-waiting – the Marquise de Lafayette.”

The king glanced at Adrienne keeping his smile.

“The Marquise,” continued Marie Antoinette, “is telling me that her husband is now at the Bastille.”

“You say that as if this news were important.”

“It is, my husband.”

“Why?”

“Has your Minister of Interior informed you that several thousand people have been marching towards the Bastille since early morning?”

“No, not at all. How did you find out about it?”

“The Marquise de Lafayette told me so, adding that her husband had gone to the Bastille to observe the actions of the crowds and the troops.”

“What troops? I did not send any troops there.”

“But you should have done it, Sire!” sounded a loud voice of a person who unexpectedly forced his way into the queen’s boudoir outrunning the servant announcing his arrival.

The intruder was the king’s brother Count d’Artois famous for his support of tough measures against the rioters.

“What happened, my brother?” asked the king calmly.

“What happened? This time the mob has started its revolt in earnest! They have looted the armory of the Invalides and now many thousands of rioters are ready to get the ammunition from the Bastille .”

“I know that,” said the king.

“Who has informed you?”

“This brave woman,” said the king extending his hand towards Adrienne.

“My brother, you get information from your wife’s dames d’honneure, but not from your official military sources. That’s unheard of! Can’t you see that we are on the brink of losing everything, you are on the brink of losing your crown? You say you did not send troops to the Bastille. But they should have been sent to occupy the whole city long ago!”

“How did you find out about the crowds moving to the Bastille?” asked the king.

“I heard rumors early in the morning about the disturbances all around the city. I went to the Ministry of war in the hope to learn something definite. But no one could tell me anything intelligible. The minister himself was known to be out of town. The minister of interior was sick. So I decided to go to the only reliable source of information left in Paris.”

“Who is it?” asked the king irritated that he did not know who it might be.

“The Duke d’Orléans.”

“What?! And you went to see that intriguer?! My open enemy?!”

“Your open enemy, Sire, seems to have the backing of the people of Paris, while you, their king, is the target of their sneers.”

Louis knew that his brother had always been unable to fully submit his temperament to the court etiquette and to show the king, his brother, the unconditional respect. But Louis was a kind and forgiving man. That was not just kindness of a Christian it was a deep rooted natural kindness. If he had to choose between kindness and justice he would always discard the latter. It was easier and more satisfying for him to forgive than to punish. Thus he was not a fighter. He did not know how and simply could not defend himself, nor did he know how to attack. In addition to all that he had a streak of apathy in his character.

Thus he decided to stop showing his dissatisfaction with the fact that his brother contacted the Duke d’Orléans and go on to learning what the duke’s advice was.

“I don’t really care what the duke told you, but I would like to make sure that he keeps finding fault with me.”

“He surely does. For example he suspected that you would like to send troops to the Bastille to squash the revolt, and he strongly criticized that. He said that if you sent the troops you would completely lose the people’s support and would finally be defeated.”

“So he said not to send the troops?”

“Yes, definitely.”

“And you agree with him?”

“Of course not! You are right: he is your enemy. It’s he who wants you to be defeated.”

The king thought for a while.

“Well, I must tell you,” he finally said, “I was wrong chiding you for meeting with the duke. You were able to find out his real intentions. You did the right thing. So, I’ve decided: I will send troops to the Bastille, that is contrary to his advice. My dragoons will disperse the mobs in no time. And that will be the beginning of pacifying Paris.”

“Your Majesty, I am greatly contented with this courageous decision. I am sure you will be victorious in your struggle against evil,” said the Count d’Artois.

“By the way, we will have first hand information on the events at the Bastille.”

“Who will be the informer?”

“The Marquis de Lafayette. His wife is here to confirm that.”

“Madame,” said d’Artois turning to Adrienne, ”is that true? Is your husband on our side now?”

“Monsieur le Comte, the Marquis de Lafayette has always supported monarchy.”

“Has he? Why then has he always been at one with the so called National Constituent Assembly which is famous for its rebellious ideas?” asked d’Artois.

“My husband didn’t request me to be his advocate at the royal court, but I can express my own opinion here: he has defended the National Assembly because he is not only a monarchist, but also a patriot.”

“Well said, well said,” chuckled the king, who was glad his impertinent brother was rebuffed.

“Madame,” said d’Artois, “I am not going to analyze the distinction between being a monarchist and a patriot. I am sufficiently satisfied that you confirmed your husband to have promised to be our informer.”

“I never confirmed that,” said Adrienne firmly.

“But His Majesty,“ interfered Marie Antoinette who was d’Artois’ ally in most situations, “he said you did...”

“What I said was simply mentioning that my husband was going to be an observer of the events near the Bastille. Yes, I also said he would be an observer, not a participant, which probably led His Majesty to the idea that the Marquis would inform the court of his observations.”

“Yes, yes, Madame, you are right, ” agreed the king.

“And I would like to add one more detail to this topic: my husband said to me that he would not be a completely passive observer. He would do his best to appease the hotheads in the crowd to prevent violent clashes with the government forces. I pray to God, he said, that the King would not send his dragoons to fight the people at the Bastille. Should it happen, it would be a bloodbath in which the people’s cause would be victorious and the monarchy would be dealt a death blow.”

“On what grounds did he assert that?” asked the king unable to conceal his worry.

“He said the French Guards were going to join the people.”

“The French Guards?! But I was officially informed that they had all deserted.”

“They deserted the king’s service, but they joined the service of the people. That’s what the Marquis de Lafayette, my husband, told me as he assured me that the King of France knew about the desertion of the French Guards and thus would not commit the folly of sending his troops to a disaster.”

“Did he say all that?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Did you know about the French Guards?” the king asked addressing his brother.

“Yes, Sire.”

“And you come here and try to persuade me to commit my troops to a lost cause! Thousands of rioters together with French Guards, that is like regular army troops! Our dragoons are doomed should they just try to touch that rebellious force. They are not toy soldiers, my dear brother. And you’ve already grown past playing soldier... “

D’Artois was silent blushing like a boy.

“All right. I have decided. I will not send any troops to the Bastille,” said the king. “I hope that my good people of Paris would be pacified by such faithful servants of the throne as the Marquis de Lafayette and also by a proclamation of pardon that I will prepare for distribution by tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow may be too late, “ muttered the Count d’Artois.

On Adrienne’s recommendation, Étienne was chosen as a messenger to inform the Marquis de Lafayette of the king’s decision not to send troops to the Bastille.

* * *

Étienne arrived at the Bastille at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon. The crowds had increased in numbers and became even more aggressive than in the morning. The Bastille was defended by only twenty two Swiss guards and eighty two retired soldiers. The people outside did not know that. They believed the fortress had a large garrison guarding hundreds of inmates. Thus the insurgents had a double purpose: to get the ammunition and free the prisoners. Étienne quickly found out that a delegation from the City Hall (or Hôtel de Ville as the French called it) had arrived for talks with the Bastille Governor Marquis de Launay. Now Étienne knew where to look for his master – in the front rows of the people near the entrance to the Bastille waiting for the return of the delegation.

It was not easy to move through the agitated throng. So after at least half hour of elbowing his way Étienne reached the Bastille entrance marked by a draw bridge over the mote. Several people were haranguing the crowd and one of them, sure thing, was Lafayette. Étienne pushed aside several people and at last found himself next to Lafayette.

“Parisians,” cried the marquis, “don’t be provoked by the rumors of approaching government troops! Our numbers here surpass any army. They won’t be able to defeat us.”

“Monsieur le Marquis,“ called Étienne, “I am back from Versailles.”

Because Étienne said that during a short pause Lafayette heard him and right away jumped down from an old barrel he was using as a podium.

“Étienne, any news?” asked he still agitated by his own speech.

“Yes, Monsieur. Very good news!”

“Speak up!”

“The king officially decided not to send any troops to the Bastille.”

“Do you know it for sure?”

“I was entrusted this news personally by the king to be conveyed to you, Monsieur.”

“It’s marvelous, my boy! Marvelous! But will the people believe this news?”

“There is a way to persuade them. The king knows that the French Guards have joined the people. But the government troops will not prevent them to get to the Bastille because the king decided not to use his troops against his own subjects. Thus their arrival will prove the king’s peaceful disposition towards the people.”

“Excellent!” exclaimed Lafayette.

He climbed his barrel and in an enthusiastic speech told the people the good news.

In their heightened spirits the rebels were gullible. They got immediately carried away by the orator’s words.

“Long live the King!” resounded the crowd and suddenly: “Long live Lafayette!”

Someone recognized the revolutionary marquis, and the crowd began to chant: “Long live Lafayette! Long live Lafayette!”

“But that’s not all,” continued Lafayette. “The proof that this news is true will soon be evident because the French Guards will shortly arrive to join us here unblocked by the royal troops.”

“Hooray Lafayette!” responded the crowd.

In spite of all that cheering it was obvious that the crowd did not know what to do next.

Then, suddenly the drawbridge was lowered and a solitary horseman on a light chestnut trotter emerged from the quickly opened and then closed gate. He quickly rode along the drawbridge which was immediately raised. The throng rushed towards him and formed an encirclement consisting of furious vociferous rioters. They pushed closer and closer to the rider.

“Kill him! Kill him!” scanned the mob. “He’s one of the fortress defendants. He’s riding to the City Hall for reinforcement!”

“Parisians!” cried the horseman. “I am Thuriot de la Rozière. I am a member of the City Hall delegation negotiating with the Bastille commandant and demanding the surrender of the fortress to the people. I have to report the situation to the City Hall.”

“Don’t believe him. He is lying! Kill him, kill him!” shouted the enraged men stretching their arms to their victim’s legs trying to pull him off his horse.

Suddenly a young voice was heard among the attackers. It was Étienne.

“Let’s ask Lafayette! We don’t want to kill an innocent man. Lafayette knows people from the City Hall! Let’s ask Lafayette!”

“Lafayette! Lafayette! Call Lafayette!” cried the rioters.

Étienne whisked away through the dense throng, quickly found Lafayette, told him about the problem with the horseman mentioning the name the attacked man had given, and in a minute both were at the scene of the dangerous confrontation.

“What’s going on here?” asked Lafayette in a loud stern voice.

"It's Lafayette! Lafayette!" cried some in the crowd.

“We caught a Bastille defender,” answered a tall robust man with an axe behind his belt, probably a carpenter.

Saying that he managed to grab the horseman’s booted leg and yanked him off the saddle. The man fell to the ground on his back and in this pathetic position was at the mercy of the mob.

“Stop that!” yelled Lafayette. “I know this man.”

“You know him?” roared the carpenter. “What’s his name?” He grabbed the axe from under his belt and swung it at the prostrate man.

“Thuriot de la Rozière!” cried Lafayette. “He is a member of the City Hall Delegation.”

The blacksmith slowly lowered his hand and stepped back from the defenseless man.

“So you believe we should let him go,” he said grudgingly.

“If you want the Bastille commandant to surrender the fortress we should allow the negotiations to go on,” answered Lafayette calmly.

The carpenter's reaction was unexpected. He sat down on the ground, laid his axe next to himself, clasped his head and wailed not very loud but grievously: "O, my Lord! I nearly killed an innocent man." He buried his head in his palms, and sat still for a while. People surrounded him curious about his behavior, pushing each other trying to come closer. Then he stood up and was ready to go away when he suddenly stopped stone-still.

"Where is my axe?" he cried. "Where is my axe?" He looked around the spot he had been sitting in. "It was here! On the ground! Who took it?" He began shoving the by-standers, but no one had his axe. Now the carpenter wailed as a ferocious beast, he even ran after someone. But all was in vain. He swore horrifyingly and ran away perhaps after some other suspected thieve.

Seeing that the conflict was ended the people dispersed.

Lafayette helped the dismounted messenger to stand up.

“Thank you, Monsieur le Marquis,” he said flicking away dirt from his clothes.

“What’s going on at the negotiations in the Bastille?” asked Lafayette.

“Monsieur De Launay, the Commandant," said de la Rozière, "received us in a very friendly fashion, and even insisted that we have lunch together with him. But all he could tell us after the lunch was the same phrase he said before it: he could not surrender the ammunition to the people, all the more so surrender the fortress without a direct order of His Majesty the King. So I volunteered to go to the City Hall and try to persuade the city authorities to talk to the king about this matter. The Commandant agreed and as a result here I am dismounted by the mob. If not for you, Monsieur le Marquis, that would be the end of my mission and maybe of me.”

“But your mission should be continued, Monsieur. You are now out of immediate danger. Most of your tormentors have already forgotten about you. Mobs have short memories. Go to the City Hall and try to persuade them to obtain from the king what the Commandant asks for.”

“What if the king refuses?”

“Then you should return here and tell Monsieur de Launay about it after which you won't be answerable for what happens next,” replied Lafayette looking at the unfortunate messenger sadly. “Go ahead, Monsieur. The fate of the French revolution is most probably in your hands.”

Monsieur de la Rozière mounted his light chestnut horse and disappeared in the crowd.

The roaring of the mob suddenly grew to a terrifying pitch. In a moment Lafayette saw an orderly column of soldiers joining the masses of people. But they did not cause any panic. On the contrary there was a noisy jubilation. These were not dragoons, the soldiers were the French Guards. Their column bristled with muskets and several cannon were wheeled to the area not too far from the Bastille. "Hooray!" the people cried and threw flowers.

On seeing this Lafayette had an idea. He decided to increase the pressure on the king: the city hall's petition to surrender the Bastille should be reinforced by trying to persuade Louis with a report from the scene. Étienne was the right person to do it. Lafayette looked around and at first did not see him. "He had been here during the whole confrontation with the carpenter," thought Lafayette. "Where is he?"

"I am here," he heard the familiar voice behind him. "I was hiding for a short while."

"Why did you hide?"

"I stole the axe of that carpenter."

Lafayette was shocked.

"Why did you do it? He could kill you."

"Exactly because such beastly a man should not be trusted to have an axe to carry around."

"Maybe you are right. But where is the axe?

"It's now behind my belt, but not for everyone to see. It is under my surtout."

"Be careful, my boy. Don't be caught by the savage owner of the axe. On the other hand I think it's good for you to have some kind of weapon on such a day as this one... Listen, Étienne. I have another assignment for you. Go to Versailles and try to deliver to the king the following oral message: 'Your Majesty, The French Guards have arrived. The Bastille will surrender either after a huge bloodshed or peaceably. Please prevent the bloodshed by ordering the surrender. Marquis de Lafayette.' Make sure this message gets to the king and not to Marie Antoinette or the Count d'Artois. I still believe that the king is basically a decent man who can resist the cruelty of his wife and junior brother.

"But how will I reach the king and avoid the queen and the count?"

"The surest way is to look for Adrienne, my wife. She will know how to get to the king... Godspeed, my boy."

Étienne dove into the crowd and went to the tavern where he, like his master, had left his horse.

Meanwhile the French Guards began to position their cannons in front of the Bastille façade. Simultaneously some people saw the Bastille guns being withdrawn from their emplacements. "They are preparing to load them!" shouted several voices. The crowd moved closer to the draw bridge and Lafayette was carried there by the pressure of the throng. "Parisians!" shouted Lafayette. "They are withdrawing the guns because they don't want to use them, not to load them." But no one was listening to him. The crowd pushed forward towards the Bastille main gate like a furious herd of wildebeests. The raised drawbridge however was an insurmountable obstacle.

The pressure of the crowd was such that several people were pushed over the edge of the waterless moat and fell to its bottom. The crowd became more and more nervous. As a result shots were fired towards the Bastille. These were absolutely useless. The walls of the monstrous fortress were too thick for bullets. But this new aggressiveness of the people produced an inevitable response. The Bastille defenders began shooting back. They shot from the top of the towers and from embrasures. The people were fully exposed to the fusillade and the crowd was so dense that the shooters did not have to look for targets, they shot just towards the crowd and the bullets always found their victims.

Then the French Guards decided to interfere. With a tremendous crash, one of the big guns fired off and a cannonball struck the top of the fortress. Peppered by grapeshot the Bastille defenders stopped their shooting.

At this moment a cavalcade of some twelve horsemen appeared near the mote. They rode along the moat towards the drawbridge.

Lafayette saw them when they were still far, but he recognized the light chestnut horse belonging to Thuriot de la Rozière, the City Hall messenger. Lafayette elbowed his way through the crowd towards the horsemen and drew up in front de la Rozière.

"Monsieur de la Rozière, was your mission successful?" he asked the messenger with no preliminaries.

"It depends on what you understand as successful."

"It's no time for jokes, Monsieur."

"All right, the City Hall refused to petition the king right now. Instead, they decided to send another delegation which I am appointed to head for talks with the Bastille commandant, le Marquis de Launay, to get an exact definition of terms from the commandant and find out whether his terms can be accepted by us."

"Monsieur," said Lafayette "your mission is too vaguely formulated. What are the criteria by which you would decide if de Lauhay's terms are acceptable? What terms are you ready to present to the obstinate Commandant? Are you contemplating any punishment for his rejection of people's demands?"

"I am not ready to discuss these matters with you now. They will be the subject of the negotiations," objected de la Rozière.

"Yes, I am sure you are not ready, as much as you are not ready for your negotiations. This initiative is going to fail. If I were you I would turn my horse back."

"Thank you," said de la Rozière, chucked his horse and quite impertinently making his horse push Lafayette aside rode forward followed by his cavalcade.

"The Bastille is doomed," thought Lafayette and slowly made his way towards the drawbridge. He was still far when he noticed that the delegation raised a white flag of truce.

As the fusillade had stopped and the guns were silent the draw bridge was quickly lowered, and the horsemen were let enter the fortress.

However the respite did not last long. First some musket shots were heard, then separate salvos changed into a real skirmishing directed by both sides. After about an hour the French Guards' big guns began to fire. The cannonballs bounced off the fortress walls leaving just shallow dents. The Bastille defenders began directing their musket fire against the gun emplacements of the French Guards.

"By concentrating their fire on a limited area they will kill more people than shooting in all possible directions," thought Lafayette. "Besides fearing that cannonballs could get into embrasures they or kill people on top of the bastions, the Bastille gunners may decide to fire on the French Guards cannon."

Lafayette knew what he should do. He began pushing through the crowd towards the French Guards.

The gun emplacements were serviced by quite a few soldiers.

Lafayette went up to the closest gunner and asked patting him on the shoulder:

"My friend, I know your sergeant Villier. Can you tell me where he is."

"If you know him find him yourself. I don't know who you are to show you our commanders."

Understanding that the soldier was right Lafayette went on to other emplacements. After a short search he saw his man. Villier commanded the loading of an artillery piece giving curt orders. It was not easy to recognize him as he was all dirty from the smoke of gun powder.

Lafayette came up to him and grabbed his sleeve from which his hand became black with smoke grime. Villier did not turn back, just tried to free his sleeve.

"Sergeant Villier," said Lafayette, "It's me, Lafayette."

At this moment the gun fired and its deafening roar drowned Lafayette's words. Viller not recognizing Lafayette perceived him as an intruder.

"Get the hell out of here!" he yelled. "We are in a hurry. We have to fire a shot every minute."

"No," said Lafayette. "You don't have to. I won't let you."

The sergeant turned around and looked at the talker now almost as dirty as himself covered with smoke soot from the constant shooting in the area.

"Who are you?"

"I am the Marquis de Lafayette. Your old friend."

"Lafayette? O, Lord! What are you doing here?"

"I want to help the people to obtain what they demand, but I want their struggle not to degenerate into bloodshed."

"It's too late. The blood has already been spilled. How can you stop it now?"

"For example, I can persuade you to stop firing your guns."

"What will it achieve?"

"With your guns silent the fusillade against your artillery position will be stopped. The musket fire will gradually peter out as the people have no ammunition. And the bloodshed will stop."

"Yes, and the Bastille garrison, who have all ammunition they want, will become angels who will stop firing at the people out of brotherly love for fellow Parisians."

"They are not angels, but they are conducting negotiations with the representatives of the Paris City Hall."

"And they will refrain from shooting at us? Rubbish! That's enough Monsieur de Lafayette. You better go. Or some of your angels can pip you by chance."

He turned away from Lafayette and started giving orders to load a new charge.

Lafayette walked away with musket fire all around him. He was returning to the area of the drawbridge.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Lafayette was walking away from the positions of the French Guards' artillery. He felt dejected after his failure to stop the shooting. Now he pinned his hopes on the king ordering the Bastille commandant to stop fighting and issue the ammunition to the people. The written order had to be brought by Étienne. So finding him was the first priority for Lafayette now. He walked through the crowd dodging bullets and watching all youngsters. So far there was no success.

Étienne had returned to the Bastille after his short trip to Versailles while Lafayette was talking to Sergeant Villier. The young Indian was not happy about the result of his mission and wanted to see Lafayette as soon as possible, to tell him everything in detail, but the marquis was hard to find.

Étienne came close to one of the buildings (a perfume shop) adjacent to the Bastille walls and saw a group of young people, about eight of them, practically boys as young as he was. They sat on long wooden stakes heaped up by the wall. This proved to be a quiet corner. The appearance of Étienne alarmed them and the tallest fellow came up to him.

"What do you want?" he asked. "Get out of here."

"I am looking at this building. It abuts on the Bastille wall and is higher than the auxiliary wall around the courtyard."

"So what?"

"If you climb to the roof of this building you can jump down into the courtyard."

"Do you think you are the only one who noticed it? We know the building can be used to penetrate the Bastille, but how to climb to the roof?"

"You don't know?"

"Do you?"

"Yes of course."

The tall fellow took Étienne by the hand and led him to the rest of the boys.

"This braggart says he can climb to the roof of this house," he said with a smirk. "May be he can prove it. Shall we let him climb the house?"

The boys looked at Étienne with mistrust.

"Who is he?" asked one of the boys who was more robust than the others. "Maybe we should beat him up?" The boys stood up from the poles they were sitting on.

Étienne unbuttoned his surtout and everybody saw the axe under his belt.

"I don't recommend anyone to try beating me up," he said gloomily.

The boys glanced at each other and slowly returned to their stakes or poles.

They were surprised by the look of the newcomer: he was swarthy, had pitch black hair, and springy gait. There was something untamed in him.

"Who are you?" asked the tall boy who behaved like the chief of the gang.

Étienne did not answer. He came up to the wall and looked up. The building had two stories. There were no cornices, no ledges, nothing protruding or interrupting the monotonous smoothness of the walls. In each storey there was just one window.

Étienne looked down at the heap of stakes. And he remembered how his guardian Lafayette had saved him from perishing in a swamp in the far away America. Lafayette grabbed the trunk of a thin sapling. It would have been much easier, thought Étienne, if he had found a wooden stake like these here. "Wooden stakes," he whispered.

He came close to the stakes and began examining them. Then he picked up one, weighed it in his hand. Looking around he found a rock and hurled it at the second floor window shattering the glass. Now he planted one end in the ground near the wall, stood the stake upright and leaned its other end against the opening of the second floor window breaking the glass in doing so. He shook the stake and was assured that its upper end was sitting steady in the broken window.

"What are you doing?" asked the boys' chief.

"You will see in a moment."

"You can't climb using a smooth thin stick."

"I practiced it many times."

"Where?"

"In North America. I did it together with other Indians when we attacked the white men's stockades."

"American Indian..." whispered the boys.

Étienne, without paying much attention to the boys, took off his shoes and, barefoot, came up to the upright stake, grabbed it and began to climb using his feet and hands. He did that according to an old Indian method abutting his bare feet against the stack at almost direct angle as if he was squatting. Then he hitched himself up by the force of his hands and moved his feet up. Quite quickly he reached the second floor window, broke off the remnants of the glass and sat inside the window opening. In front of him he saw the top of the wall surrounding the front court of the Bastille. Étienne estimated the distance to the wall. It was quite close and he decided a good jump would take him there. Tensing all his muscles he jumped to the top of the wall.

"I don't see anyone here!" he shouted to the boys. "The drawbridge mechanism is here. Follow me," and he jumped down into the court from the wall which was lower than the second floor of the building from which Étienne had jumped down to the wall top, so he did not hurt himself.

In a minute another boy joined him, and yet another, until all eight of them got into the Bastille front court.

"Well, let's look at the drawbridge control gear," said Étienne. The boys now unanimously recognized him as their chief.

They approached the wooden counterweight to which the huge iron chains holding the bridge were attached.

"Friends," said Étienne, "it looks like we will be able to lower the drawbridge."

"But how?" asked the boys. "The chains are as thick as a man's leg."

"You'll see. And then, if the bridge is down, the people will surely take the Bastille."

"Hurray!" shouted the young revolutionaries.

The drawbridge control consisted of two thick wooden beams to which the bridge chains were attached with massive steel bolts piercing the beam and stopped on the other side by rivet-like heads. The attachment was too solid to tamper with. With the bridge raised the beams were in a vertical position tightening the bridge chains. The bottom parts of the beams were connected by a wooden crossbeam supporting heavy iron bars which constituted the main mass of the counterweight. They were as heavy as the draw bridge itself requiring only a light effort to move the bridge up. As to moving down it was done by the action of the bridge's weight.

Étienne came up to the counterweight and looked at the short chain that connected it with an anchor in the floor via a padlock. The chain was not too thick and was attached to the crossbeam with just one bolt. If you had a key you could open the padlock and the counterweight, unattached to the floor, would not retain the bridge anymore and the bridge would be drawn down by its own weight as it was tilted forward just for this purpose. But how to get rid of the lock or the small chain?

Étienne swayed his axe and dealt a good blow with the axe head on the bolt connecting the chain to the crossbeam . The bolt seemed to be intact. Then Étienne began to chop the wood around the bolt. This work progressed well. In a couple of minutes the bolt became loose and finally jumped out of its hole. The whole counterweight structure shuddered and rose a little from the floor.

"Help!" shouted Étienne.

The boys dashed to where he was and together they began lifting the counterweight. At first it went up slowly with a lot of screeching. But then, by its own weight, the bridge began to smoothly fall down.

As it completely covered the moat the boys ran across the bridge.

Outside there was a pandemonium of jubilation. People were so elated that they did not even pay attention to a poor wretch who was crushed by the unexpected falling of the bridge. A huge mass of people rushed across the bridge to the now open Bastille front courtyard. They danced, embraced each other but also shot in the air and at the inner walls of the Bastille. However soon the exultation disappeared. The crowd occupied just a front yard but the main fortress building was as inaccessible as before. To their dismay they saw another moat and another drawbridge much more solid and sizable than the previous one, and of course it was closed.

Étienne came off the lowered bridge and right away saw Lafayette who was examining the design of the bridge. Étienne ran up to him and Lafayette embraced him.

"What happened in Versailles? Did you see the king?" asked Lafayette in excitement. "It is absolutely important to know the decision of the king. It's the last chance to pacify the crowd."

"Your wife, Monsieur, was able to arrange for me a short interview with the king. After I pronounced your words asking the king to order the Bastille commandant to issue the ammunition to the people and surrender the fortress peacefully, the king said: 'I can't take the responsibility of ordering the governor of the Bastille. It's a mistake to think that a king can order anything he wants. How can I order the person who is in the midst of the events. He knows the situation much better than any king! My only order is for the Marquis de Launay to make decisions according to his own understanding of the situation. I fully rely on him.' Having said that the king left without any further comment."

"That's disastrous!" exclaimed Lafayette. "Now we'll have seas of blood here. The people won't relent. "

As if confirming his words there was a thunderous roar of cannon. The French Guards had moved their guns to the open front courtyard and shot at the closed draw bridge point blank. However that was a test shot. The next one would surely destroy the bridge.

Inside the Bastille there was a feverish discussion between the commandant and his assistants. The Marquis de Launay announced that he would blow up the whole fortress together with its defenders and prisoners. The several officers who heard that were reluctant to carry out this plan and objected to their commander although not in strong language. They did not want to be accused of cowardice. Then something unexpected happened: a dozen of retired soldiers ‒ part of the eighty two fortress defenders (all invalids) ‒ broke into the room. They heard the loud voices discussing the terrible idea of the commandant. Filling the room they, brandished fixed bayonets, and demanded that de Launay sign the order of fortress capitulation. The commandant refused. Then he and his officers were rudely herded into a wall cabinet and locked in it using a padlock. The most senior of the twelve soldiers grabbed a wide piece of paper and in big block letters, using black ink, wrote the word: CAPITULATION.

After a while the people in the front courtyard unexpectedly saw some paper sticking out of an interstice in the drawbridge. Everybody was sure it meant some important message from the inside of the fortress. The people asked the French Guards to delay the fire of their cannon. But there was a problem: how to get the paper. The people were separated from the drawbridge by a wide moat. Several men ran to a carpenter's shop and brought some boards. The sturdiest and longest one was placed across the moat. But even that board did not reach the other side of the moat and swayed dangerously in the air. Someone tried to walk along the board but lost his balance and fell to the bottom of the fosse.

"We need someone very light," people shouted.

"I will go," said Étienne and without waiting for Lafayette's consent ran to the board hanging above the moat.

He stepped onto the board and began walking cautiously, stepping lightly as a cat. After he was halfway the board began to bend and in addition to losing his balance he might also start sliding forward along the board curving down. Hundreds of people watched that playing with death and their hearts beat violently. Several steps more, and the board bent quite dangerously. Étienne lay down on the narrow plank and continued forward creeping like a snake. When he was at the end of the board he tried to reach for the piece of paper with his hand and saw that he was at least a foot away. He crept forward; half of his chest was already beyond the board. The board was swaying perilously. One more shift of the body forward and the boy snatched the paper.

Returning was much quicker and easier. At last Étienne jumped off the board onto the sturdy edge of the moat. At once he held up the paper and everybody saw the long awaited word "CAPITULATION".

The people roared with exultation. Étienne was grabbed by the jubilant onlookers and carried around with happy cries.

"No wonder he got the paper," cried someone in the crowd. "He is an American Indian, a servant of Lafayette.

The jubilation was such that some began shooting in the air. The Bastile troops immediately reacted with musket fire of their own, but they shot down rather than up and several people were killed and wounded.

"We don't like this type of capitulation!" exclaimed Sergeant Villier. He ordered his gunners to shoot at the top of the fortress. "To scare them a little, but the second shot will be at the drawbridge," he shouted to the people around.

One of the guns shot a cannonball at the upper level of the fortress.

Musket fire immediately stopped. There was an unexpected lull. Then suddenly the drawbridge moved down and fell across the moat. The entrance to the Bastille was open.

Like an unruly herd of wild animals the rioters rushed into the open gate. Hundreds upon hundreds swarmed into the conquered fortress.

Lafayette stopped Étienne before he disappeared inside the building.

"I am going away to the National Assembly in Versailles to report the taking of the Bastille by the people. I've seen all I needed to see. You may get inside and witness the triumph of the people. Later in the day you'll tell me all the details."

Thus they parted. Lafayette got back his horse from the tavern and galloped to Versailles, while Étienne joined the victorious crowd. The unbridled throng quickly filled the whole of the building. They got to the arsenal and cleared it of all ammunition they could find. Then they discovered the prison portion of the fortress. It was a long dark corridor with cell doors on each side. Thirty doors all in all.

"If there are three persons per cell there may be about a hundred prisoners here," Étienne, who was in the front row of the people who burst into the jail, said to one of the French Guards.

"But why are they so silent?" asked the soldier.

"They must be terrified by our noise."

"Now they will be glad and loud," said the soldier.

He, Étienne and some ten more men came up to the first cell on their right. They looked through the eyehole but did not see anyone. With a big sledgehammer they knocked off the lock and entered the cell. It was empty.

This operation was repeated several times on each side of the corridor with the same result.

"Were are the prisoners?! Have they all been killed?" cried the luckless liberators.

"Please! Help!" a voice was suddenly heard. It was somewhere in the middle of the row of cells.

Everybody ran to that place, found the cell from which the voice was heard, and in a moment the lock was knocked off. The people rushed through the open door. Inside there was an old man in dirty worn out clothes sitting on a cot. He stood up and then fell down on his knees.

"Please help! I've been here for seven years!"

"Why did they put you here?" asked the French Guards sergeant who has just joined his comrades. Étienne looked at him and recognized Sergeant Villier whom he had seen several times in the company of the Marquis de Lafayette.

"They accused me of embezzling the royal stocks of foodstuffs. But I am a nobleman. How could I abase myself so low?" said the prisoner.

"Thus you think you are innocent?"

"Yes, I am, I am. If I were not why would they keep me in prison without trial?"

"Keep him in jail! He is a nobleman. They are all parasites and should be killed," shouted someone from the crowd. Others joined this call. "Kill him, kill him!"

"Wait a minute," said the sergeant. "What other people would say?"

"Maybe we should release him," someone said hesitantly. "After all he was persecuted by the royal authorities. The enemy of the royals is our friend."

A chaos of voices began: "Kill him!" "Release him!"

"As we have no consensus," said the sergeant, "I'd like to tell you the following:

Most of you know this young man. He risked his life and got the declaration of surrender balancing on a board. But I know more. I know who he is. He is an American Indian in the service of General Lafayette. So I would like to ask him: what would American Indians do about your enemy's prisoners ‒ would they release them or keep in jail?"

"We would release them. And we always did," answered Étienne looking in the eye of the sergeant.

There was silence.

"I think we should not be more savage than American Indians. Release him. All right," said the sergeant, "you are free. Get out of here."

The released prisoner moved towards the sergeant on his knees obviously with an intention to kiss his boots. But the sergeant evaded his slobbery lips by jumping aside. Now the crowd heard voices from several cells. The prisoners must have realized that something unusual was going on.

"There must be many of them here," mumbled the sergeant.

"Must be a hundred or more, if there are several persons per cell," said Étienne.

"What shall we do with them? We can't stay several days in this jail. There are many other things to do in the Bastille."

"We will stay here very long if we investigate each case. Don't we know that these men were imprisoned by royal authorities? They were against the king's rule. So are we. That means they are our comrades in arms. Why investigate them? We must release them all at once whatever their accusations. Let them all go!" Étienne's voice was ringing with excitement.

"Humph... Out of the mouths of babes oftentimes come gems. Yes... Let's do it your way. Is it what the Indians do?"

"Yes. We kill enemies and help friends."

"Well, let's go from cell to cell and let people out one by one."

The crowd liked the idea and they all moved along the corridor knocking off the locks. The next two cells were empty. But in the third one four prisoners were found.

"Don't execute us!" they cried. "We are just counterfeiters, we did not kill anyone!"

"You are not counterfeiters any more. You are free citizens of Paris!" exclaimed Sergeant Villier and nudged them to the open door of the cell.

Next five cells were empty.

"Where are the prisoners?" exclaimed the sergeant.

They went faster.

What they discovered when they opened all the cells was amazing. There weren't hundreds of prisoners in the Bastille... Just seven. Seven pathetic sickly men. One embezzler, four counterfeiters, one crazy oldster, and one petty criminal.

"Just seven prisoners in that huge Bastille. And we used so much energy and effort. We risked our lives for a handful of miserable paupers!" Sergeant Villier broke off into railing.

"It's all right," said Étienne. "You yourself said there are lots of things left to do in the Bastille."

"Yes, yes. We have to find and arrest the commandant and his officers. They must be punished for maintaining this horrible fortress as a tool of suppressing the people."

The sergeant faced the crowd and declared a new call: "Get the Commandant! Get the Marquis de Launay! Find the poisonous snake!"

The crowd supported the call with loud cheers. The people left the jail section and dispersed in different directions inside the Bastille. The Marquis de Launay was their next prey.

In one of the Bastille rooms on the first floor the people heard loud pounding from inside of one of the wall cabinets. The people broke into the cabinet and to everybody's surprise therefrom emerged the commandant and his officers. The first moment of perplexity passed quickly. The rebels quite rudely grabbed Monsieur de Launay by his arms and dragged him to the front yard exit. His officers were manhandled too. Near the exit they were stopped by Sergeant Villier.

"Parisians!" he shouted. "Let's show this criminal commandant and his assistants that we are law abiding citizens. Let's take them to the City Hall which would pass judgment on them. But they must be delivered there safe and sound, not victimized and tortured by the people. Otherwise we would be as cruel as they are accused to be."

The yard resounded with loud cries.

"Finish them off!" "Kill the parasites!" "Tear them to pieces!" "We are the judges!" "Release the officers, kill the commandant!" "Don't touch the crap, don't dirty your hands!"

"People," shouted Villier again. "I see that opinions differ. Let's escort the officers to the City Hall, but we should remember they had to obey orders, not initiate them. So we should treat them humanely. But as to the commandant, let's bring him to justice. I'll escort him to the City Hall myself."

The crowd got silent and the officers were led away by several French Guards. Villier came up to the Commandant, ordered a soldier to bind his hands behind his back and nudged him slightly as a sign of beginning their march. The sergeant walked behind. A large part of the crowd walked with them. When they left the building of the Bastille the crowd grew and the people were not just behind but all around them.

Gradually it became very difficult to walk. Some rioters were pushing them forward, others were barring their way. Villier held the right arm of the commandant trying not to lose him in the crowd. Someone hit de Launay in the face, another kicked him with his heavy boot lined with a steel strap. Someone punched him on the nose and his face was covered with blood. Villier tried to protect his prisoner but was often punched himself.

Nevertheless they crept forward. In the streets leading to the City Hall the crowds were as big. People quickly learned who was escorted to the City Hall and flocked about the commandant and the sergeant. By now de Launay's costume was all besmirched with blood. He could barely walk as his legs were kicked by hundreds of boots.

At last they reached the Place de Grève and were close to the staircase at the entrance to the City Hall building. Here it was found out that three of the Bastille officers had been killed on the way to the City Hall in spite of Villier's pleading with the people to be lenient with them. As the bloodied and wounded de Launay together with Sergeant Villier stopped for a moment near the staircase someone wearing an apron of a cook dashed at the commandant hitting him with his fists.

"Kill me, kill me!" implored de Launay, but the cook punched him again.

Then de Launay hit him in the groin with his knee. The cook shrieked with pain. Then some other rioters stabbed the commandant in the stomach with a bayonet. Villier was thrown away from de Launay and the mob fell upon him like a pack of wolfs. Soon the commandant's body was a squashed bloody heap.

"Cut off his head!" howled the brutes.

Of course this cry was quickly answered. There appeared a man with an axe, and de Launay's head was chopped off. The jubilant conquerors of the Bastille stuck the commandant's head on the end of a pike and paraded this gruesome image of the revolution.

Quite by chance, at this moment, Flesselles, the provost of tradesmen (a post similar to that of mayor), exited from the City Hall. He was immediately seized by the mob. They accused him of refusing to order the Bastille commandant to surrender the fortress. So he suffered the same terrible fate as that of de Launay. His head was severed and stuck on a pike. Thus the revolutionary symbols were doubled by the free people in no time.

Étienne had fallen behind the main crowd that was escorting de Launay. But in the Place de Gréve he caught up with the enraged mob and witnessed all the gory rough justice shown by the people. He left Place de Grève and galloped to Versailles. He had a lot to tell the Marquis de Lafayette.

***

To Versailles the first news of the skirmishes near the Bastille were brought by the Duke de Noaille. But the duke did not stay near the Bastille to the end of the battle. So the inhabitants of Versailles did not know if the fortress finally fell or not. The town and the chateau were full of rumors and speculation. When Étienne arrived at Versailles he rushed to look for Lafayette at the National Assembly, where else could he be? It was easy to find him, he was among the most active speakers alternating with such famous orators as Mirabeau, Duport, Antoine Barnave, Alexandre de Lameth, Jacques Pierre Brissot, Étienne Clavière, Marquis de Condorcet, Jean Baptiste Treilhard, Paul Nicolas, vicomte de Barras, Georges Couthon, and Saint-Just.

Lafayette brought them the news that the Bastille had been taken by the people. According to their response the speakers could be divided into two main categories: those who were ecstatic about this event, and those who were afraid that the rebellion would release the dark and murderous instincts in the crowds.

Brissot, Duport, Barnave, and de Lameth were happy about the people's success, and talked about the brilliant future for France ruled by the free people. But Vicomte de Barras and Marquis de Condorset were very concerned with the violence taking place in Paris.

Lafayette occupied middle ground, and to many deputies' surprise he was supported by Mirabeau.

"How can you talk about a wonderful future awaiting France when barbaric mobs are devastating the civilized way of the French?" Lafayette was saying which words Étienne heard upon his entry to the hall. "No prosperity can be built on the blood of the innocent," continued Lafayette.

"I agree," said Mirabeau shaking his disheveled head and looking at everybody with his bovine eyes. "If there is monarchy, it should not be absolute. If there is a republic, it should not be ruled by the mobs. Thus what we need is constitutional monarchy. We've had enough excess in everything, we need moderation."

Some of the delegates applauded.

At that time Lafayette noticed Étienne who had reached the front rows of the deputies.

"Citizens," said Lafayette, "We are now joined by a young man, one of my devoted assistants, who has just arrived from the battle for the Bastille. I left the Bastille early today because I wanted to bring you the news of its falling as soon as possible, but I asked this young man, whose name is Étienne to stay longer and witness the scenes of the final agony of that terrible place. So here he is and we can ask him to give us the latest news."

Lafayette beckoned Étienne with his hand and the young man quickly climbed the podium where orators were standing.

"Agony? Was it really agony?" asked Mirabeau addressing Étienne .

"Monsieur, I don't want to characterize it in any way. I'll tell you what happened, and you will decide what it was."

"The boy is smart. He doesn't want to give us a preconceived opinion," said Brissot. "Go ahead, tell us what you saw."

"The Bastille commandant, the Marquis de Launay, received a delegation from the City Hall and showed it due respect. That was reported to the people by one of the delegates himself. Later there was a message sent to the people from the fortress declaring its capitulation. Nevertheless the people continued shooting at the building entrance. Then, unexpectedly, the drawbridge was lowered and the entrance to the Bastille was open. Angry crowds filled the building very quickly. In a short while I saw the Commandant, Monsieur de Launay being led out of the fortress by some French Guards. It looked like they wanted to protect de Launay, but the people taunted him, and found ways to strike him in spite of the Guards. Very quickly he was all covered with blood. Near the City Hall he was attacked by a robust man hitting him with his fists. Monsieur de Launay asked for mercy, but someone struck him with the bayonet and then dozens of men fell upon him and his body turned into a bloody heap. Then the robust man who had attacked him with his fists cut off his head. The head was raised on the end of a pike and paraded by the throng."

The honorable assembly gasped with horror.

"Shortly after this killing, the provost of tradesmen, Monsieur Flesselles, came out of the City Hall and the enraged mobs gave him short shrift too. Another head appeared on a pike."

"Horror! Horror!" exclaimed some deputies.

"That's what mob rule does when mobs feel their power!" exclaimed François-René de Chateaubriand.

"These animals should be crushed!" shouted Arnaud de Laporte. "We should send a delegation to the king and ask him to send troops to annihilate the bloody rebels."

"Don't be ruled by your passions!" exclaimed Lafayette. "Passions often turn off the brains. Think, people. You are horrified by the blood. But you invoke more blood. If the unruly crowd killed just several people, imagine how many more could be killed by disciplined troops whose profession is killing."

For a moment silence ensued. Then the booming voice of Mirabeau resounded in the hall:

"What do you suggest?"

"First of all I'd suggest the adoption of the following three principles: discard the idea of repressions (they will backfire at this late stage of the uprising), try to understand the people's grievances (most of them are quite legitimate), lead the people instead of being led by them (direct the people's fury to reaching civilized goals that you would choose for them)."

"How would you change the people's fury to a civilized behavior?" asked Jean Sylvain Bailly.

"By a civilized attitude to people," answered Lafayette.

"So, the criminals should not be punished?" boomed Mirabeau.

"On the contrary. They should be punished severely, but only the criminals. Not all the people. They should be taught by us what justice is."

"But how can we determine who the killers were?" Mirabeau continued challenging Lafayette.

"By going there. By going to the City Hall."

"Who will go?"

"I suggest all of us can and even should. The gravity of the occasion demands that."

The Assembly exploded with hundreds of loud cries. Most of the deputies voiced their support of Lafayette's idea. Finally out of the chorus of voices one call became more and more distinct: "To the city Hall!"

In half an hour a long train of carriages was rumbling on the road to Paris.

The deputies arrived in Paris with no accident. In the city they were met by crowds which towards the evening evidently became tired of endless protesting, celebrating, taunting docile soldiers, and firing their arms in the air. So, the procession of carriages caused mostly curiosity rather than hatred. Thus the deputies easily reached the City Hall.

Inside, the building was not occupied by rebels. The City Hall members were guarded by an ad hoc militia consisting of young and old citizens who thought it necessary to restore at least some semblance of order. Some of them guarded house-wives on their way to shops or home, others decided to protect the City Hall deputies.

The Assemblymen were joyously greeted as soon as they got inside the building. They immediately began asking questions about the recent horrible events. The report made by Étienne was fully confirmed.

"Didn't you have some loyal soldiers who could protect de Launay and Flesselles?" asked Jean Sylvain Bailly who was highly respected by all the deputies.

In response there was a chorus of agitated voices.

"Monsieu, you obviously do not have an idea as to what the situation was here," said a young City Hall deputy. "De Launay was escorted by the sergeant of the French Guards who took upon himself the duty to protect him. And although the French Guards were on the side of the people, and the people hailed them, their hatred of the Bastille commandant was unstoppable. They almost killed the sergeant himself. Flesselles too could not be saved by anyone."

"It sounds as if you have no idea as to how to protect innocent citizens from the murderous mobs," said Bailly.

"You are right," answered the young deputy. "Do you have such an idea?"

"I think I do. I am not a military man, but in my opinion we should elect an experienced military officer who would be sufficiently democratic not to persecute innocent bystanders, but able to control the anger of the unruly barbarians. A military commander from among us, the democrats," said Bailly and looked at Lafayette. And everybody looked at Lafayette.

Then voices resounded: "Lafayette! Lafayette!"

"Yes, who else?" uttered Bailly with a smile.

And the hall reverberated with the cries: "Lafayette! Lafayette!" It was a thunderous chorus.

Lafayette stood in front of the cheering people.

He raised his hand and the noise quieted down as all of them understood that he wanted to speak.

"Dear friends," he said calmly in a strong loud voice, "as you choose to appoint me to the military command by acclaim I would appreciate if my candidature is confirmed by as many people as possible. I want to ask you to let the people from the Place de Grève enter this hall and support or reject my election."

Everybody got silent.

"This is a brave proposal," said Bailly loudly. "And a military commander should be brave. We all, let's be brave too, let's open the doors."

Several deputies cheered him and ran to the guardsmen telling them to open the doors. In a moment a huge crowd of people burst into the reception room. They pushed the deputies aside, they moved to the center of the room, and there they saw the tall figure of Lafayette. He stood with his hand raised above his head in a gesture of saluting the people. And, as if fascinated by this picture of valiance, the people stopped their pushing and shoving and fell silent.

"Parisians!" began Lafayette, "My name is Lafayette."

"We know, we know," sounded from different corners.

"This City Hall offered me to become the general of a new people's army. My duty will be to bring order, respect of individuals, and work for common good. To this end, I will have to create a military force that I will call National Guard, to show everyone that this force defends the whole nation, not just the elite. But I decided I cannot accept this appointment without the approval by the people. That is why I invited you all to this City Hall to either confirm or reject me. What is your decision?"

"We accept you! You are our general! Hurrah Lafayette!" was the deafening answer of the crowd.

On the same day the brave deputy of the National Assembly Jean Sylvain Bailly, a famous astronomer and scientist turned revolutionary, who nominated Lafayette to head the National Guard, was elected Mayor of Paris.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The new military command that Lafayette was appointed to by the people's acclaim demanded constant worries, overwork and resolving one crisis after another. Lafayette could not have a moment of rest. He could not stay at home overnight and slept on a bench in one of the utility rooms in the City Hall on the Place de Grève.

Adrienne did all she could to persuade him to spare his health and stop trying to be everywhere at once. But his feverish activity could be explained not just by zeal but by something more overwhelming . It was something deeper than a zeal, it was enthusiasm. He was happy to perform tasks that he understood as important to the good of the people. The example of Washington was always on his mind when he had to choose between justice and convenience. Even seemingly small things were not small to him if they were part of his duties. For example, with the same enthusiasm that was aroused in him by the everyday necessity to harangue crowds of people he dedicated his efforts to devise military uniforms for the newly organized National Guard and a special uniform for himself, their General, that sported silver epaulettes and a plastron.

Drafting the uniforms took the whole evening of July 15, and, to Adrienne's joy, he spent that night at home. In the evening Lafayette charged Étienne with the task of observing what was going on near the City Hall which of late became the focal point of people's demonstrations, speeches and protests.

For Lafayette, spending time at home was not only good to restore his strength , but gave him a rare chance to be with his family. He had three children: Anastasie, George, and Marie. The girls, 12 and 7 years old in 1789, were closer to their mother, but the 9 year-old George adored his father and tried to imitate him in being attracted to things military, protecting the weak (he practiced this attitude on his younger sister Marie), and supporting a just cause among his peers.

On the next day of Lafayette's stay at home, July 16, early in the morning, the usher announced the arrival of Étienne. The young man came into the entrance hall looking agitated.

"I think you've been running all the way from the Place de Grève," said Lafayette.

"Yes, Monsieur. While you were away the crowds became quite aggressive. They are clamoring for bread, for traitors' heads, for abolition of taxes, for killing the nobles and in general for killing whoever causes their hatred. "

Lafayette looked disturbed.

"Do you think it's time for me to be in the Place de Grève?"

"Absolutely, Monsieur."

"I'll be ready in an hour. You'll come with me."

"That's very good because I wanted to tell you more about the current issues that I have witnessed in Paris since the Bastille was stormed and you Sir stayed at home.

"Very good. We'll talk after we get to the City Hall."

The whole household quickly learned that Lafayette was leaving. Having found out about it Lafayette's son George decided to ask his father several questions. Seeing that his son deserved a talk before a new separation from his father Lafayette found several minutes for him. The main question that tormented George was who should be supported: the king or the protesting people. Lafayette's answer to his son confused the issue even more because he said: "Both."

"I cannot understand, Father. How can they be both right if they are in opposition to each other?"

"But they have something in common too: their final goal which is prosperity of France. In this goal they are both right. But they oppose each other in the ways they want to employ to achieve the goal."

"So whose way is more correct?"

"Neither's"

"Then, what should we do? It looks like we shouldn't support either of them."

"We should change their ways so that they finally converge transforming into something acceptable to us and to a majority of the French."

"Then what is this 'something', Father?"

"This is the most difficult question, my son. There are many small steps that we can take, but there is one step of greatest importance that we should try to instill both into the people and the king."

"What is it?"

"To abandon violence. Even the idea of violence should become abhorrent to both sides. And we should work in this direction."

"Father, I know that very important decisions are made at the City Hall and you spend most of your time there. Can you take me with you to the City Hall now that you are going there?"

"Why?"

"I want to see how the politicians struggle against violence."

"You know, George, it's not that easy to understand what the politicians want and even what they say. The problem with many of them is that they can't focus on a definite problem and keep deviating from what they really think. I don't believe your visit to the City Hall would answer any of your questions. Besides the Place de Grève is nowadays dangerous. Every day there are huge crowds of people there with large numbers of firebrands and outright criminals."

"But you always go there."

"Don't forget, I command the National Guard."

"So, they would protect me too."

"It is wrong to use the National Guard to protect members of my own family as if they are privileged in comparison to other people. It would be a different story if you went there separately from me. Then if something happened to you my National guardsmen would protect you like anybody else. But I can't risk you being subjected to even an attempted violence. So your going to the City Hall is ruled out."

"But my mother thinks differently."

Lafayette looked very surprised.

"What do you mean?"

"I talked to her after breakfast today when you left for your study. I told her I wanted to go to the City Hall to see what was going on in it and near it which they now call 'revolution'. "

"What did your mother answer?"

"She said that it was good I was interested in the life of the grown-ups but I could not go there without your permission. She told me: 'you should talk to your father and ask him to take you with him'."

"I see," said Lafayette, "you obeyed your mother and have talked to me. But I can't take you with me. I explained you why. So you must stay home."

George fell silent and sulked. Tears were welling up in his eyes and he was terrified by the thought that he might burst out crying like a baby. Choking on his tears he went out of the room abruptly.

"Our would-be-politician was on the verge of crying," thought Lafayette smiling, but he felt guilty that he had offended the boy's feelings.

Meanwhile George ran to his mother's boudoir, found her sitting by the mirror, nestled his face against her shoulder and cried bitter tears.

Adrienne immediately guessed that he had been talking to his father.

"Did you ask your father to take you with him to the City Hall?"

"Yes..." sobbed the boy.

"And he refused to take you with him?"

"Yes."

"I understand your wish to sort out present day events. But you should understand your father's wish to protect you from danger. I can give you advice: talk to your tutor Monsieur Frestel. He is a very knowledgeable person and a very good educator. He can explain all the convoluted developments of modern day. I would gladly talk to you about these matters too, but I am not as well qualified politically as Monsieur Frestel and unfortunately have to go to Versailles right now."

Although his mother's words did not solve his problem, George' eyes brightened. He got an idea.

He waited until his mother and father were gone, and went to the second floor to see his tutor.

Monsieur Frestel was preparing that day's reading materials for George. He was a tall lanky man with long face wearing a goatee and thin moustache a la old time musketeers. George apologized for disturbing him before their usual class time started and told him he had a request.

"Go ahead, Monsieur du Motier."

Frestel called George Monsieur du Motier using his family name which was not associated with the title of marquis.

"Monsieur Frestel, I just talked to my father and asked him if he could take me with him to the City Hall. As to my mother she approved my wish to observe the work of the city administration."

"What was your father's answer?"

"He said that he could not take me because he could not use his authority for the wishes of his family members. But he said if I were accompanied by a grown-up person and come to the city hall independently of him he had nothing against it."

"Didn't he fear the unruly crowds gathered in the Place de Grève?"

"O, no. He said his national guardsmen could protect anyone in the square."

"In that case... let's go quickly. I would like to catch up with the Marquis de Lafayette and see his activities in the City Hall, including his speeches and handling the crowds in the square."

Thus in several minutes they boarded a barouche and left the house shortly after the marquis and marquise had gone out on their own business.

* * *

Monsieur Frestel hustled the horse into a canter. He wanted to catch up with General Lafayette in order to see how he handled the crowd in the Place de Grève. Besides his instincts prompted him that he would feel better if he entered the square with the General of the National Guards being around. George did not have any apprehensions. His confidence in his father's omnipotence was limitless.

When the boy and his tutor entered the Place de Grève they had to dismount from their gig as the square was overcrowded and even movement on horseback was almost impossible. People were agitated, shoved each other about, yelled, cursed, moved aimlessly, speechified and behaved as if they were an unruly herd of wild animals.

From afar Frestel and George saw Lafayette. He was close to the City Hall entrance but was surrounded by a dense throng that looked even more turbulent then elsewhere. George and his tutor hurried forward trying to see the General in action before he disappeared into the City Hall. They came close to the City Hall stair case getting into the midst of turbulent mobs and saw Lafayette on the upper steps of the stairs.

At that time he faced a problem that unexpectedly arose minutes before he could be sheltered by the City Hall building. A group of furious men were dragging a clergyman towards the grand staircase of the City Hall. The mob bawled cusswords. The victim was lifted in the air by several strong hands and put up on one of the steps of the grand staircase so that he was above the crowd. Then someone from among his tormentors jumped onto the lower steps of the entrance staircase and shouted:

"We've brought this priestling to the City Hall stairs to put him up for everyone to see. This vermin closed a soup kitchen in his parish saying he had no more food left to be distributed to the people. But he lied. We broke into his storage and saw a sack of wheat flower. He said that wheat was set aside for the sick in the parish hospice. Are we any worse than the sick? We are all sick! This crump is hording food for himself! Look at him and remember the face of an enemy of the people. After you have your fill looking at this crap we'll hang him from a lamp right here in the Place de Grève."

Lafayette looked at the priest in horror. He knew the venerable pastor whose name was the Abbé Cordier de Saint-Firmin and who was famous for his alms-deeds and charity. Lafayette's son George also heard the terrible speech of the mobster and was horrified but not only by the danger threatening the priest but by almost as great a danger that threatened his father. He did not see any National guardsmen around, and he was sure his father would interfere trying to save the Abbé.

He was right. Lafayette cried out with thunderous voice:

"Parisians! Stop this rough justice! If the person is guilty we must arrest him and take him to the City Hall for lawful judgment."

But turning deaf ear to Lafayette's call several robust fellows grabbed the limpen body of the priest who had almost fainted and dragged him to a nearby lamppost.

Overwhelmed with horror and fear George suddenly shouted "Father!" and ran up the stairs towards Lafayette. He immediately saw his son and descended several steps towards him and, with his heart beating furiously, embraced the boy. For a split second he did not know what to do, how to protect someone who was infinitely more important to him than the priest. Then, as if a lightning lit the darkness. He turned George towards the crowd and, holding him by his hand, shouted:

"Messieurs, I have the honor to present to you my son."

As if a thunder bolt struck the square. The crowd hushed with all heads turned to General Lafayette. Then everybody burst out cheering. Several National guardsmen appearing as if from nowhere quickly led the Abbé away unnoticed by anybody and thus saving him from the wrath of the mob.

Lafayette put his arm around George's shoulders and, together with him, entered the City Hall. And in the square the crowd kept chanting "Long Live Lafayette! Long Live Lafayette!"

* * *

When Lafayette and George entered the City Hall Étienne went in with them while the tutor Frestel was asked by Lafayette to stay outside and wait for George to return to the square.

Inside, the City Hall was like a stirred up nest of hornets. Some people were sitting in the assembly hall, but a majority were milling about talking loudly with each other, trying to outcry their neighbors, and paying no attention to a small man who stood on the podium and tried to deliver a speech although no one was listening to him.

The hubbub was such that at first nobody noticed the arrival of Lafayette. He used this circumstance to watch the proceedings without anyone's interference and stood behind a column together with Étienne.

"Who is that unfortunate orator?" Lafayette asked Étienne.

"This is the person I wanted to tell you about when I said there were new issues agitating Paris these days. This is a certain Pierre-François Palloy or as they call him sometimes "Patriote Palloy".

"What is so patriotic about him?"

"He had suggested that the Bastille should be demolished."

"Demolished? This huge building demolished?"

"Yes, and he had already started."

"What? Without the City Hall's consent?"

"They at first did not pay attention to his doings. He began on the same day the Bastille was stormed by the people. But yesterday the City Hall was informed of his activities. That caused an explosion of feelings and today Palloy was summoned to the City Hall session."

"Who informed them?" asked Lafayette who was more and more interested in this story.

"I did."

"You did? How? Why?"

"In the morning of July 15, I returned to the Bastille. I was curious to see what was going on in the fortress after the people had taken it. The crowds were even larger than the previous day. The pillaging continued. People emerged from the building burdened with loot of all possible types: tables, chairs , lamps, planks, boards, paintings, pots and pans, mattresses and even curtains. By the evening I was approached by a short man. He said he noticed I was not stealing anything and thus was a decent person. He said he could offer me a good pay for an honest job. When I asked what kind of job he answered that he was hiring a team of workers to demolish the Bastille. I was perplexed. I told him it was like looting the whole building and he, with his workers, could be punished for that by the authorities. He said I could go to the City Hall and inform them of his plans. He wanted his work to be legitimate and was sure that the people would support him. He then reached into a leather pouch and told me there was gold there he had earned by selling Bastille artifacts. 'One thousand four hundred and seventy two franks,' he said. 'If you want you can count the money here and now'. I refused telling him that his activity could result in protests by some people and even new bloodshed. He did not take it seriously.

"How did this idea of getting a City Hall permit come to your mind?" asked Lafayette

"I remembered the Great Law of Peace or as the Iroquois call it the Kainerekowa, which forbids the Iroquois, members of one and the same tribe, to kill each other. I thought that the French were like one tribe and that they too should avoid violence. So, on the same day, I went to the City Hall and informed them of Monsieur Palloy's idea. At first they took it as a joke but later began arguing between each other and finally decided to summon the would-be demolisher to a City hall session. So, here he is trying to be heard by the city fathers."

"Thank you, Étienne. You did the right thing," said Lafayette.

He stepped forward from behind the column (with Étienne following him) and went towards the podium.

Now everybody saw him.

"Lafayette! Lafayette is here!" voices sounded immediately as he approached the orator.

"Monsieur de Lafayette," exclaimed Palloy, "please tell everybody of your opinion about my suggestion."

The auditorium hushed right away.

"In spite of the noise in this hall I think I understood your suggestion. But before announcing what I think of it I'd like to hear those who agree with you and those who disagree without the deafening noise all around. For example, maybe we could ask our Mayor, Monsieur Bailly to say what his opinion is."

Mayor Bailly was a modest man who did not like public speaking. Thus he spoke only on serious topics in serious circumstances. When he first heard about demolishing the Bastille he did not take it seriously at all, and quickly formulated his answer if he were asked about his attitude to the suggestion. But no one asked him until Lafayette addressed him with his question directly. Bailly sincerely respected Lafayette and could not ignore his question.

“Monsieur de Lafayette, I don’t believe this government body should be distracted from its serious business by frivolous and impractical ideas. I’d like to remind this assembly that His Majesty King Louis XVI several years ago planned to have the Bastille demolished as too old a structure built using obsolete fortifications principles, but had to abandon this idea because of its tremendous cost and complexity. And that was at the time of calm and peace in the country. How can we even propose such expenses now at the time of fiscal and material bankruptcy, at the time of civil disobedience and rebellion?"

"The cost will be very small," said Palloy, the would-be demolisher. "This time the expense will be incomparably less than the sums discussed by the king's advisors."

"How is that possible?" asked Lafayette. "Mayor Bailly's objections are quite valid. Financial disarray precludes any expensive projects."

"Messieurs, I fully agree with you," said Palloy. "We cannot expend even one hundredth of the funds that were proposed several years ago. But we won't have to! The Bastille will feed its own demolition!"

A chaotic noise filled the hall. Again the City Hall functionaries screamed and shouted. Some even jumped on their chairs to hear and be heard better. Some flourished their arms.

"Messieurs," interfered Lafayette, "let's listen to what Monsieur Palloy has to say. How he proposes to subsidize the demolition?"

The noise gradually subsisted.

"All I will have to do will be to engage in commerce. As the building will be torn down there will appear more and more interesting artifacts hunted for by curiosity seekers."

"Do you mean you can sell them?" asked Lafayette in surprise.

"And why not? I don't see any moral problem here. The fortress has been used as a prison for hundreds of years to oppress the people. Now we have it in our possession. It would only be just to make it support its own demolition."

"But why are you sure the people would buy your artifacts?" asked Mayor Bailly. He'd been listening to the exchange of arguments with greater and greater interest.

"From the first day of its fall the Bastille has attracted Parisians like a magnet attracts metal sawdust. I carried out an experiment and sold several wooden ornaments from the fortress mess hall where the guards used to dine. They were sold out in half an hour, and people demanded more. I did not have any ornaments more, so I began to offer chairs, sculptured doors and even prison cell bars. Several hours of this trade brought me about a thousand franks. I thought: this is how the demolition should proceed, organized and gainful undertaking that pays for itself."

"How can it pay for itself if you've appropriated all the profits?" said Lafayette still not quite convinced of the usefulness of Palloy's scheme.

"Well, Messieurs," answered the latter, "I foresaw this type of objections, and I have brought here the total sum of what I earned today : 1472 franks. Here is the money." He opened a leather pouch and poured the coins onto the table.

The councilmen were amazed by this action. Many of them ganged around the table.

"Monsieur Mayor," said Lafayette loudly, "will you please ask the City Hall treasurer to count the amount of money on this table?"

The Mayor immediately assigned a functionary to carry out this task.

"Monsieur Palloy," said the Mayor, "It looks like a considerable sum received for just odds and ends from the former fortress. But how can we know which part of the whole gain you left for yourself without adding it to the displayed coins?"

Mayor Bailly was a kindly and conscientious man. His first impulse in dealing with people was to believe them. But many years of constant competition in the scientific world and especially among the passionate revolutionaries taught him to be cautious with people and even to disbelieve them.

"Your Excellency," said Palloy, "I am not insulted by your words. I understand that in present day welter of confused ideas we cannot trust anyone. But I have a sure way of proving that this money is the sum total of one day's gain."

Everybody held their breath.

"May I call to the podium a young man whose name is Étienne? He must be here. I saw him when he entered the hall together with the Marquis de Lafayette."

Étienne glanced at Lafayette and, after his barely noticeable nod, went to the podium, climbed it and stood next to Monsieur Palloy.

"I met this young man," said Palloy, "near the Bastille and wanted to hire him to work in my demolition team. I told him that my team had just finished the day's work and I invited him to report for work on the next morning. But he refused. I wanted to attract the strong young fellow somehow, I showed him the money - 1472 franks - saying it was one day's revenue to be distributed to my workers tomorrow and offered him to count it to prove that my offer did create real income. But he refused again. So he can testify that I mentioned exactly the same figure 1472 franks as the one that I told you about today. I could not have any idea that I would meet him again, so this coincidence of figures mentioned by me and by him shows their authenticity. To check this I can ask him: is the sum I mentioned in our conversation near the Bastille the same as the one I declared here?"

"Yes," answered Étienne.

The audience was again agitated.

"Why did you not accept this man's invitation?" asked Mayor Bailly.

"I was not sure this work was legitimate. You remember I came here yesterday and announced that the Bastille demolition had already begun."

"Yes, yes, and this again proves that your words are trustworthy."

After a short pause the Mayor continued.

"This also shows that Monsieur Palloy is an honest citizen who does not conceal his activities from the City Hall. I think that this fact speaks in favor of his proposal. Besides, the universal hatred of this terrible prison is sufficient grounds for its demolition. Thus it is now a good time to put this issue to the vote."

"Just a moment, Your Excellency," everybody heard a loud voice. It was Lafayette. "Monsieur Palloy spoke here about artifacts that could be sold to the people. This is a serious matter. Who would set the prices, who would determine the importance of possible pieces of art and decide whether they belonged in a museum rather than in private hands. I think the City Hall should appoint a representative with artistic background who would be present at the demolition and set aside valuable artistic creations not to be sold. It's a pity Monsieur Palloy did not bring to this assembly any example, of small size of course, of an interesting artifact found at the Bastille. We would then have a better idea what could be found at the fortress."

"It's not so, Monsieur de Lafayette," exclaimed Palloy. "I brought an interesting sculpture, a model of the fortress made of the same type of stone that was used for the actual building of the Bastille."

"Wonderful," said Lafayette. "Show it to us. Is it very heavy?

"Not at all. It's just a model, one foot long."

Palloy looked down.

"But where is it? I put it under the rostrum…"

Lafayette and Bailly came up to the rostrum and looked under it together with Palloy. Nothing.

Again the hall reverberated with loud voices.

The mayor wanted to call the audience to order but he could not find the gavel.

"Where is the gavel?" he hissed at Palloy.

"Perhaps I dropped it. I never used it before. It hit my foot."

They both crouched to look bellow the rostrum.

"Nothing!" again hissed the Mayor.

At that moment there was a loud shriek in the far end of the podium.

A boy was screaming: "Give it to me! You, savage!" accompanied by bear-play like sounds.

Lafayette, Bailly and Palloy ran to the left hand corner on the podium. There was a fight there. A little boy with his fists was hitting a young man who, holding a model of the Bastille, tried to wrest it out of the boy's tenacious hands.

Lafayette first reached the fighters.

"Stop it. George, let go the model!" he cried at his nine year old son.

" Étienne wants to steel it from me! He does not let me demolish it!"

"What?!" exclaimed Lafayette.

"I was demolishing it with this hammer," answered George showing the gavel. Having released the model, he was beginning to sob. "You all said here that the Bastille should be demolished."

"We spoke of the real Bastille. But this is a model."

"So what. If I can demolish the little one, a great number of people could do the same to the big one."

Lafayette took him by the hand and kept him near. Then he came up to Étienne.

"How did you find him?" he asked his ward. "It's real dark in that corner to which he had dragged the model."

"I used my old tracking skills. Besides I heard hammer hits, George already had begun his 'demolition'."

Lafayette asked Étienne to bring Monsieur Frestel, the tutor, from the square and after he appeared in the hall charged him with taking his son home. After the hapless demolisher was forced to clear off, and the sniggering of the amused city hall subsided Lafayette stepped up onto the podium.

"After what has happened we can see that even little children may be interested in the artifacts yielded by the Bastille. That proves Monsieur Palloy's assertion that the Bastille can sustain its own demolition. His honesty has also been evidenced by his report of the demolition revenue. So we have a good reason to appoint him 'The Bastille demolisher' and let him supervise the financial aspect of this enterprise. If we vote for it positively we will then appoint an art expert to survey the demolition."

The City Hall unanimously carried the vote right away.

Fortunately the Bastille model was not damaged because the gavel was too light and George's hands were not strong enough.

* * *

The news of City Hall's resolution on demolishing the Bastille quickly went the round of Paris. It reached Versailles in just two hours. As always in the morning the king was hunting. So far the revolution had not shaken his favorite occupation. In the absence of the king the news was passed on to Marie Antoinette. This decision of the rebellious City Hall was so outrageous that the queen almost fainted from indignation. She fell into an armchair in her boudoir with her face pale as death.

Since the time of the Assembly of Notables she had got used to impertinent statements of the politicians, to calls to arms, to almost open disrespect of the monarchy and even outright rebellion in Paris, but this was the first time that the mobs were allowed by the revolutionary authorities to destroy what had for centuries been a powerful symbol of royal power. It was nauseating, she felt helpless. The king was out. Her only recourse was the Count d'Artois, king's junior brother and her alter ego in politics. She called a servant and told him to find the prince immediately. She did not think of meeting with the Count of Provence, or Monsieur as he was called by the French, the king's second brother and heir apparent before Marie Antoinette had male children. The Count of Provence was very much like his elder brother, the king, indecisive and weak.

But even the royals cannot completely rule over the circumstances. Instead of the Count d'Artois in the queen's boudoir appeared the Count of Provence.

"Where is d'Artois?" he said without greeting the queen who was in his bad books.

"I've sent for him. He should be here any moment," answered the queen making a long face as usual when she saw him.

"I doubt that. I've been looking for him for half an hour."

"Why do you want to see him?"

"I've found out that he had recently acquired a marvelous white trotter. I wanted to ask him if he would sell it to me."

"And that is the only reason you wanted to see him today?"

"Sure. Horses are the main link between us."

"Did you hear of the terrible news that has shaken today the whole of Paris?"

"Terrible news. О my Lord! Paris is full of terrible news every day. I've lost count of terrible events ."

"So, you don't know that today the City Hall has ruled to demolish the Bastille!"

"Oh yes? At last! His Majesty, my dear brother, wanted to have it done long ago. But I don't understand what is so terrible in this news. The king will now be delivered from the necessity of paying for the big job. Let the firebrands shell out!"

"What are you talking about? How can you say that? If we let the people destroy the Bastille, the next thing they'll destroy is the Versailles Chateau!"

"Oh, don't exaggerate. It's not that easy to destroy the Bastille. It will take several years. So our Chateau at Versailles will get a respite."

"I am sure, your junior brother, d'Artois, is more mature in his judgment of the mobs' intentions."

"That's possible. He has always been your ally in your hatreds. I am like His Majesty. I see the positive side in everything."

"But I don't," sounded at the door. It was the Count d'Artois who entered without being announced.

"Brother," said de Provence, "you always disappear and reappear without any warning."

D'Artois, without answering him, went up to Marie Antoinette and gallantly kissed her hand. Then he turned to his brother.

"I don't announce my appearances and disappearances because I am always in a hurry."

"I wonder why?" mumbled de Provence.

"Because I am a man of action. I have no time for words."

"My dear Charles-Phillip, "said Marie Antoinette, "what do you think of today's awful news?"

"The Bastille? It is more than awful, it is catastrophic."

"Yes, I agree. But your brother says we are exaggerating."

"That's the only position he can take in this matter. And you know why? Because if we don't exaggerate he has to act, to do something to counter the threat. But this is exactly what he does not want. To act? О, no, no! It's better to wait until the Bastille is destroyed in about a hundred years."

"You took the words out of my mouth," said de Provence with a grin.

"But I will make you hear the words that will come out of my mouth. The demolition of the Bastille is the first actual step on the part of demolishing the French monarchy including the king, the queen, you and me. Now we are all doomed. Do you know who persuaded the City Hall to accept the idea of the demolition? You don't? It was the Marquis de Lafayette, the hero of the American and now French revolution. The general of the riffraff army called National Guards. Lafayette will not stop, he will destroy us all and will establish a republic. He is our worst enemy."

"What is your advice then, Monsieur Gloomy?"

"I won't advise you to take up arms. You are incapable of that. Nor will I advise you to go docilely to the block. We should flee France. France ceased to be our sweet home."

"How can you say that?!" exclaimed the queen. "How can we leave now? We cannot desert our people, we can't be deserters!"

"Our people have deserted us. They switched to the side of our enemies. I don't want to be a sacrificial lamb on the altar of the revolution. I am leaving."

"When? "asked both de Provence and Marie Antoinette.

"Today. I have come to say good-bye."

"Can't you stay for several days? Can't you wait for the king?" asked Marie Antoinette.

"No. Rumors are moving fast in Versailles. I've already taken a big risk by seeing you before departure. I want to add only one thing. Think of my example. Flee this country both of you and especially the king. Flee before it is too late."

"We are not as sure of the inevitable catastrophe as you are. Your reasoning is based on your prediction. But predictions often prove incorrect," said the queen with the most suave tone of her voice.

"My prediction cannot be incorrect. You don't know one more fact about this Bastille news. The person who offered his services as the main demolisher of the fortress and was acclaimed by the City Hall, a certain Citizen Palloy, is in reality a paid agent of the Duke d'Orléans who charged him with the assignment to demolish the Bastille and who will be the actual supervisor of the demolition which will propel him to the position of the real leader of the revolution. This fact is unknown even by Lafayette. But when he learns of that it will be too late also for him and his romantic revolutionaries."

The Count d'Artois bowed slightly and quickly went out of the room.

On the next day the whole Paris knew that in the night of July 16 the Count d'Artois and his family had left Paris and France.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The propaganda value of the Bastille was quickly seized upon, notably by the showy entrepreneur Pierre-François Palloy, "Patriote Palloy". The fate of the Bastille was uncertain, but Palloy was quick to establish a claim, organising a force of demolition men around the site on the 15th. Over the next few days many notables visited the Bastille and it seemed to be turning into a memorial. But Palloy secured a license for demolition from the Permanent Committee at the Hôtel de Ville and quickly took complete control.

Pierre-François Palloy secured a fair budget and his crew grew in number. He had control over all aspects of the work and the workers, even to the extent of having two hanged for murder. Palloy put much effort into continuing the site as a paying attraction and producing a huge range of souvenirs, including much of the rubble. The actual demolition proceeded apace; by November, 1789, the structure was largely demolished. The cut stones of the fortress were used in the construction of the Pont de la Concorde.

Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette married Marie Adrienne Françoise de Noailles (2 November 1759 – 24 December 1807), the daughter of Jean-Paul-François, 5th duc de Noailles, and Henriette d'Aguesseau. They had four children: Henriette (1776–1778), Anastasie Louise Pauline du Motier (1777–1863), Georges Washington Louis Gilbert du Motier, (1779–1849), and Marie Antoinette Virginie du Motier (1782–1849).

Georges Washington de La Fayette (1779–1849) was the son of Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, the French officer and hero of the American Revolution, and Adrienne de La Fayette. Lafayette named his son in the honour of George Washington, with whom he fought in the Revolutionary War.

1. Lafayette saves Abbé Cordier de Saint-Firmin deflecting the mob's attention by showing them Lafayette's son George.

2. Saving other victims.

3. King comes to Paris met by Lafayette (all important new function). Mobs escort King.

4. Curious crowds, on roofs, balconies, windows.

5. Mayor Bailly meets King and gives him cockade of blue and red ribbons. First time: Vive le Roi!

6. Outside City Hall King tells Lafayette he confirms his appointment as general of Parisian Guard.

7. July 22. Upsurge of mad and drunken mobs egged on by Duke d'Orléans, new roistering in Paris. Foullon is accused of embezzling, preventing shipment of flower and saying "if the people were hungry they could eat hay." Lafayette protects Foullon, but the mob snatches him, takes to Place de Grève, hangs him from a street lamp, and cuts off his head. Berthier de Sauvigny, Foullon's son-in-law had been arrested and was being brought to the city. The mob stopped his carriage, thrust his father's head into the window, then the City Hall sent him to the Conciergerie, but on the way someone shot him. The human beasts cut out his heart and marched the remains of the two victims to the Paslais Royal.

8. Lafayette is tormented by the People's atrocities. Submits his resignation. Talking to Bailly about his frustration. The entire Assembly comes and implores him to reconsider. But they fail. Deputies plead, weap, one of them knelt before him. Lafayette relents, withdraws his resignation. He suggests two representatives from each Paris district to convene and determine his duties and rights. They convene, elect him again General of National Guard of Paris and Bailly its Mayor. Then everybody swear their oaths of allegiance to Lafayette. Bailly suggests he and Lafayette swear of eternal love between them.

9. Helped by his old comrades Matthieu Dumas, Gouvion, La Colombe and Poirey he organizes National Guard. New uniform, new cockade (tricolor - white is added). August 9 he appears in new uniform and cockade at the church Saint-Nicolas-des Champs for the benediction of the flags. He and Adrienne went together to different celebrations dedicated to the National Guard. The French Guards were gratified with certificates of esteem and gratitude, a medal was struck and distributed among them.

10. Every day at the City Hall, receiving deputations, complaints: strike by tailors of the new uniforms (near the Louver) - he talks them back to work; strike by unemployed laborers who cut a butte at Montmartre; constant disturbance in faubourg Saint-Antoine; a barge bringing poudre de traite along the Seine was a scene of a riot: the workmen thought that traite meant traitre (traitor), so they marched to Hotel de Ville to hang the traitor. Lafayette harangued the crowd and the Marquis de La Salle escaped as the mob was distracted by Lafayette's speech (which they did not understand).

11. August 4, National Assembly abolishes all the old feudal privileges (on the proposal by Noailles).

12. August 25 - fete of Saint Louis. A visit to Versailles, together with Bailly, to pay his duties to the king. Benevolent reception by the king and even queen. National Guard of Versailles offers to switch under his command. Lafayette declines. Bouquet to the king.

13. City Hall votes him a 120000 livres salary and 100000 livres for entertainment. He declines. Next day, they refused a salary to Bailly, only 50000 for office expenses.

14. On 16 July, the comte d’Artois left France with his wife and children, along with many other courtiers.[44] Artois and his family took up residence in Turin, the capital city of his father-in-law’s Kingdom of Sardinia, with the Condé family.[45] Shortly after him went Condé, Conti, Lambesc, Vaudemont.

The comte de Provence and his wife fled to the Austrian Netherlands in conjunction with the royal family’s failed Flight to Varennes in June 1791.

Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette married Marie Adrienne Françoise de Noailles (2 November 1759 – 24 December 1807), the daughter of Jean-Paul-François, 5th duc de Noailles, and Henriette d'Aguesseau. They had four children: Henriette (1776–1778), Anastasie Louise Pauline du Motier (1777–1863), Georges Washington Louis Gilbert du Motier, (1779–1849), and Marie Antoinette Virginie du Motier (1782–1849).

Georges Washington de La Fayette (1779–1849) was the son of Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, the French officer and hero of the American Revolution, and Adrienne de La Fayette. Lafayette named his son in the honour of George Washington, with whom he fought in the Revolutionary War.[2]

|Contents |

|[hide] |

|1 Life |

|2 Reign of Terror |

|3 Army service |

|4 Restoration |

|5 Lafayette's visit to America |

|6 Family |

|7 Legacy |

|8 See also |

|9 Notes |

[edit] Life

From 1783, La Fayette grew up in the Hôtel de La Fayette, at 183 rue de Bourbon, Paris. Their home was the headquarters of Americans in Paris, such as Benjamin Franklin, Mr. and Mrs. John Jay, and Mr. and Mrs. John Adams[3] who met every Monday, and dined in company with family, and the liberal nobility, such as Clermont-Tonnerre, Madame de Staël, Morellet, and Marmontel.

[edit] Reign of Terror

La Fayette went into hiding, after 10 September 1792, with his tutor Felix Frestrel, while his mother was under house arrest and then in prison. His great-grandmother, Catherine de Cossé-Brissac duchesse de Noailles, his grand-mother, Henriette-Anne-Louise d'Aguesseau, duchesse d'Ayen, and aunt, Anne Jeanne Baptiste Louise vicomtesse d'Ayen, were guillotined, on 22 July 1794.[4]

In April 1795, Georges was sent to America with Frestrel,[5] and studied at Harvard. Following that, he was a houseguest of George Washington at the presidential mansion in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and at Mount Vernon, Virginia.

On 15 October 1795, his mother joined Marquis de Lafayette, along with his sisters Anastasie, and Virginie, in the prison fortress of Olmütz. All of their money and baggage were confiscated.[6] On 18 September 1797, the family was released, under the terms of the treaty of Campo-Formio (18 October 1797).

They recuperated at Lhemkuln, Holstein near his aunt Madame de Montagu, and great-aunt Madame de Tessé. In 1798, Georges returned from America. In 1799, they moved to Vianen, near Utrecht.[7] Georges was turned back at the French border as an exile, and he stayed with his father, while his mother Adrienne returned to France. After Napoleon's plebiscite, on 1 March 1800, he restored Lafayette's citizenship, and removed their names from the émigrés list.

[edit] Army service

Georges entered the army, was wounded at the battle of Mincio, in 1800, and later was aide-de-camp to General Grouchy, and was with him at the Battle of Eylau, 1807, where he gave up his horse, after Grouchy's had been killed, at the risk of his own life.[8] Napoleon's distrust of his father's independence rendered promotion improbable, and Georges de La Fayette retired into private life in 1807.

[edit] Restoration

He entered the Chamber of Deputies and voted consistently on the Liberal side. He was away from Paris during the revolution of July 1830, but he took an active part in the Campagne des banquets, which led up to the French Revolution of 1848.[9]

[edit] Lafayette's visit to America

He accompanied his father on his triumphant visit to America in 1824 and 1825. They observed a volunteer fire company turnout in New York City.[10] He met George Washington Parke Custis at Arlington House, visited Mount Vernon.[11] He met Thomas Jefferson, at Monticello.[12]

[edit] Family

Further information: La Fayette family

In 1802, Georges de Lafayette married Emilie de Tracy, daughter of the Comte de Tracy.[13] They had three daughters and two sons: Natalie, who married Adolphe Perrier; Malthilde, who married Maurice de Pusy (1799–1864, son of Jean-Xavier Bureau de Pusy); Clémentine, who married "Gustave" Auguste Bonnin de La Bonninière de Beaumont; Oscar Thomas Gilbert, marquis de La Fayette (1815–1881), liberal politician; and Edmond.[14]

Oscar Thomas Gilbert Motier de La Fayette (1815–1881), was educated at the École Polytechnique, and served as an artillery officer in Algeria. He entered the Chamber of Representatives in 1846 and voted, like his father, with the extreme Left. After the revolution of 1848 he received a post in the provisional government, and as a member of the Constituent Assembly he became secretary of the war committee. After the dissolution of the Legislative Assembly in 1851, he retired from public life, but emerged on the establishment of the third republic, becoming a life senator in 1875. His brother Edmond Motier de La Fayette (1818–1890) shared his political opinions. He was one of the secretaries of the Constituent Assembly, and a member of the senate from 1876 to 1888.[9]

[edit] Legacy

The appearance of the young Georges Washington is known from a painting, The oath of La Fayette at the Fête de la Fédération, 14 July 1790, in which he is standing on the right alongside his father.[1] The painting is visible at the Musée Carnavalet.

[edit] See also

• Franco-American alliance

• La Fayette family

• President's House (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) — Third Presidential Mansion.

Lafayette's family

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Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette married Marie Adrienne Françoise de Noailles (2 November 1759 – 24 December 1807), the daughter of Jean-Paul-François, 5th duc de Noailles, and Henriette d'Aguesseau. They had four children: Henriette (1776–1778), Anastasie Louise Pauline du Motier (1777–1863), Georges Washington Louis Gilbert du Motier, (1779–1849), and Marie Antoinette Virginie du Motier (1782–1849).

[edit] Descendants of Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, and Adrienne de La Fayette

[pic]

The young Georges Washington de La Fayette at the Fête de la Fédération, 14 July 1790.

Georges de Lafayette married Emilie de Tracy, daughter of the Comte de Tracy, in 1802; they had three daughters and two sons: Natalie, who married Adolphe Perrier; Maltilde, who married Maurice de Pusy (1799–1864, son of Jean-Xavier Bureau de Pusy); Clementine, who married "Gustave" Auguste Bonnin de La Bonninière de Beaumont; Oscar Gilbert Lafayette (1815–1881), liberal politician; and Edmond.[1]

Virginie married Louis de Lasteyrie On 20 April 1803.[2] They had four children: Pauline, who married Charles de Rémusat, Melanine, who married Francisque de Corcelle (a friend of de Tocqueville), in 1831,[3][4] Octavie, and their son, Adrien Jules de Lasteyrie (1810–1883) married Olivia de Rohan-Chabot (1813–1899), the daughter of the émigré Louis de Rohan, Vicomte de Chabot, and Lady Charlotte Fitzgerald, daughter of the second Duke of Leinster.

Melanine and Francisque had a daughter Marie Henriette Hélène Marthe Tircuy de Corcelle (6 June 1832, Paris – 17 November 1902, Paris), who married Charles Adolphe Pineton de Chambrun (10 August 1831, Marjevols – 13 September 1891, New York), a lawyer from New York, at the Église de la Madeleine on 8 June 1859.[5]

Adrien Jules and Olivia had a son, Louis de Lasteyrie who married Olivia Mills Goodlake; they had two children, Gui de Lasteyrie (b. 1878), and Louis de Lasteyrie (1881–1955). Louis married Louise Chodron de Courcel, in 1908.[6]

Juste-Charles de la Tour-Maubourg (Motte-Galaure, Drôme 8 June 1744, 28 May 1831), married Anastasie de Lafayette; they had two children: Célestine Louise Henriette de Fay de La Tour-Maubourg (1799 – 16 July 1893), and Jenny de Fay de La Tour-Maubourg (6 September 1812 – 15 April 1897). He was a French soldier and politician during the French Revolution, and the First French Empire. His father was Faÿ Claude Florimond (1712–1790) and his mother was Marie Françoise Vacheron Bermont (b.1712). His younger brother, Marie Victor de Fay, marquis de Latour-Maubourg, was a Cavalry Corps commander, survived the Russian Campaign and was wounded at the battle of Leipzig.

They had two daughters, Célestine, who married the Baron de Brigode, (who was mayor of Mayor of Annappes from 1814 to 1848),[7] and Jenny, who married the comte Hector Perrone di San-Martino (12 January 1789 – 29 March 1849), on 2 February 1833.[8][9] His father was Carlo Giuseppe Perrone di San Martino, and his mother was Paola d'Argentero-Bersezio.[10] Henry Clay attended the wedding.[11]

Ettore Perrone di San Martino graduated from Saint-Cyr in 1806, was wounded at the Battle of Wagram, and three times at the Battle of Montmirail. He was mortally wounded at the Battle of Novara in the Piedmont, Italy, on 22 March 1849,[12] where he commanded the left division.[13]

Jenny and Ettore had two sons, Paolo Luigi Perrone di San Martino (1834–1897), and Roberto Perrone di San Martino (1836–1900), and a daughter, Luisa Perrone di San Martino (1 October 1838 – 14 November 1880), who married Count Félix Rignon (1829–1914). Luisa and Félix Rignon had two children, Édouard Rignon (1861–1932), and Maria Rignon (15 March 1858 – 27 March 1950).[14]

Édouard Rignon married Marie Nicolis de Robilant (24 March 1870 – 5 October 1960). One of their daughters, Carolina Rignon (17 February 1904 – 20 September 1975) married Charles VII, Prince of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg. They had seven children, among whom: Maria (b. 1935, married to Archduke Joseph Arpád of Austria, with issue),[15] Josephine (b. 1937, married to Prince Alexander of Liechtenstein, with issue), Christiane (b. 1940, married to Archduke Michael of Austria, Joseph Arpád's brother, with issue), Aloys-Konstantin IX, Prince of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg (b. 1941, married to Princess Anastasia of Prussia, daughter of Prince Hubertus of Prussia, with issue),[16] and Lioba (b. 1946, married to Moritz Eugen, Prince of Oettingen-Oettingen and Oettingen-Wallerstein, with issue).[17]

Maria Rignon married Count Augusto Gazelli di Rossana e di Sebastiano. They had a daughter, Luisa Gazelli (19 May 1896 – 27 April 1989),[18] who married Don Fulco Ruffo di Calabria (12 August 1884 – 23 August 1946) in 1919, and were parents to Queen Paola of Belgium.

Count Jean-François Pineton de Chambrun, the third husband of Raine Spencer, Countess Spencer, is also a descendant of Gilbert and Adrienne Motier de La Fayette.[19]

Chateaubriand

Jean Chouan · Grace Elliott · Arnaud de Laporte · Jean-Sifrein Maury ·

July 12. Charles Eugène Prince de Lambesc appears at the Tuil\eries with an armed guard "a soldier and civilian are killed. In the early days of the French Revolution, Charles Eugène's Allemand Dragoons were an important element in the protection of the Louis' Court. On 12 July 1789, Charles Eugène rode at the head of his dragoons across the Place of Louis XV into the Tuileries Gardens, against a mob that had gathered there and forced the group out of the garden. In the course of the attack, many were injured, and Charles Eugène was held popularly responsible, although no charges were filed.[4]

• July 13: National Guard formed in Paris, of middle class men.

• July 14: Storming of the Bastille; de Launay, (the governor), Foulon (the Secretary of State) and de Flesselles (the then equivalent of the mayor of Paris), amongst others, are massacred.

• July 15: Lafayette appointed Commander of the National Guard.

ˇ• July 16: Necker recalled, troops pulled out of Paris

• July 17: The beginning of the Great Fear, the peasantry revolt against feudalism and a number of urban disturbances and revolts. Many members of the aristocracy flee Paris to become émigrés.

• July 18: Publication of Desmoulins' La France libre favouring a republic and arguing that revolutionary violence was justified.

• July 27: Louis XVI accepts the tricolor cockade.

• August 4: Surrender of feudal rights: The August Decrees

• August 27 The Assembly adopts The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

• September 11 The National Assembly grants suspensive veto to Louis XVI; Louis fails to ratify the August acts of the National Assembly.

• October 5-6: Outbreak of the Paris mob; Liberal monarchical constitution; the Women's March on Versailles

• October 6 Louis XVI agrees to ratify the August Decrees, Palace of Versailles stormed.

Louis and the National Assembly move to Paris.

• November 2: Church property nationalised and otherwise expropriated

• November: First publication of Desmoulins' weekly Histoire des Révolutions ...

• December: National Assembly distinguishes between 'active' (monied) and 'passive' (property-less) citizens "only the active could vote

• July 1: Louis recruits more troops, among them many foreign mercenaries

• July 9: National Assembly reconstitutes itself as National Constituent Assembly

• July 11: Necker dismissed by Louis; populace sack the monasteries, ransack aristocrats' homes in search of food and weapons

July 12: Camille Desmoulins announces the dismissal of Necker to the Paris crowd. The sudden dismissal of Jacques Necker by King Louis XVI brought fame to Desmoulins. On July 12, 1789 he leapt on a table outside one of the cafés in the garden of the Palais Royal, and announced to the crowd the dismissal of the reformer. Apparently losing his stammer due to the excitement, he addressed the passions of the public, calling them to "...take up arms and adopt cockades by which we may know each other"[2] and adding: "This dismissal is the tocsin of the St. Bartholomew of the patriots!", claiming that a massacre of the partisans of reform was under preparation).

He adopted green as the color for rallying liberty and the masses followed, for he had become their leader.[2] Finally, after drawing two pistols from under his coat, he declared that he would not fall alive into the hands of the police who were watching his movements. He descended, embraced by the crowd.

Following Desmoulins, riots started throughout Paris. The mob, procuring arms by force on July 13, was partly organized as the Parisian militia, which was afterwards to be the National Guard. On July 14, the storming of the Bastille occurred.

1. Bailly (who he is ) learns that Melanie works for the Duke d'Orléans who is preparing a provocation in connection with the freed mutineers. Bailly invites Lafayette for a talk and asks Lafayette to send Étienne to intercept Melanie and find out what errand the Duke d'Orléans asked her to go on.

Jean-Sylvain Bailly (15 September 1736 Paris – 12 November 1793 Paris) was a French astronomer and orator, one of the leaders of the early part of the French Revolution. He was ultimately guillotined during the Reign of Terror.

Born in Paris, he was originally intended for the profession of a painter, but preferred writing tragedies, until attracted to science by the influence of Nicolas de Lacaille. He calculated an orbit for Halley's Comet when it appeared in 1759, reduced Lacaille's observations of 515 zodiacal stars, and was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1763. His Essai sur la théorie des satellites de Jupiter (Essay on the theory of the satellites of Jupiter, 1766), an expansion of a memoir presented to the Academy in 1763, showed much original power; and it was followed up in 1771 by a noteworthy dissertation Sur les inégalités de la lumière des satellites de Jupiter (On the inequalities of light of the satellites of Jupiter). In 1778, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The Revolution interrupted his studies. Elected deputy from Paris to the Estates-General, he was elected president of the Third Estate (5 May 1789), led the famous proceedings in the Tennis Court (20 June), and - immediately after the storming of the Bastille - became the first mayor of Paris under the newly adopted system of the Commune (15 July 1789 to 16 November 1791). One of his actions in this position was to secure, with others, and in the face of threats and ridicule, the passage of a decree of 27 September 1791 (confirmed on 30 November of the same year), which declared Jews to be French citizens, with all rights and privileges. This decree repealed the special taxes that had been imposed on the Jews, as well as all the ordinances existing against them.

The dispersal by the National Guard, under his orders, of the riotous assembly in the Champ de Mars (17 July 1791) made him unpopular, and he retired to Nantes, where he composed his Mémoires d'un témoin (published in 3 vols. by MM. Berville and Barrière, 1821-1822), an incomplete narrative of the extraordinary events of his public life. Late in 1793, Bailly left Nantes to join his friend Pierre Simon Laplace at Melun, but was there recognised, arrested and brought (10 November) before the Revolutionary Tribunal at Paris. On 12 November he was guillotined amid the insults of a howling mob. In the words of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, "He met his death with patient dignity; having, indeed, disastrously shared the enthusiasms of his age, but taken no share in its crimes."

The lunar crater Bailly was named in his honour.

2. Étienne invents a ruse and makes Melanie tell him about the duke's plan.

3. The duke's plan.

4. The king adds more troops to the contingent already located in Paris in comlyance with the duke's plan.

5. Lafayette uses Étienne to prompt the king to issue and order forbidding the dragoons to use arms.

6. The duke's plan fails. He learnd about Lafayette's role in defeating his plan. The duke swears to take revenge on Lafayette. What kind of revenge it should be.

7. The National Assembly becomes National Constituant Assembly.

8. Necker demands disclosure of the royal finances.

9. Dismissal of Necker.

10. Paris is in tumult.

11. Camille Desmoulins.

12. In search of ammunition.

1. The count d'Artois persuades the king to add more troops to the contingent already located in Paris. D'Artois wants the troops to search the vicinity of the Abbaye prison to find the mutineers who escaped freed by the populace. The king gets persuaded because

|Comte de Puységur - minister of war |30 November 1788 |13 July 1789 |

| | | |

|Louis Pierre de Chastenet, comte de Puységur | | |

The "Great Fear" (French: la Grande Peur) occurred from July 20 to August 5, 1789 in France at the start of the French Revolution. Rural unrest had been present in France since the worsening grain shortage of the spring, and the grain supplies were now guarded by local militias as rumors that bands of armed men were roaming the countryside spread.

In response, fearful peasants armed themselves in self-defense and, in some areas, attacked manor houses. The content of the rumors differed from region to region - in some areas it was believed that a foreign force were burning the crops in the fields while in other areas it was believed that bandits were burning buildings. Fear of the peasant revolt was a deciding factor in the Night of 4 August decision to abolish feudalism.

Royals and Royalists: Charles X of France · Louis XVI · Louis XVII · Louis XVIII · Lois Antoine, Duke of Enghien · Louis Henri, Prince of Condé · Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé

Louis Philippe of France · Marie Antoinette · Princess Marie Louise of Savoy

Madame du Barry · Louis de Breteuil · Loménie de Brienne · Charles Alexandre de Calonne · Chateaubriand

Jean Chouan · Grace Elliott · Arnaud de Laporte · Jean-Sifrein Maury · Mirabeau · Jacques Necker

Feuillants: Antoine Barnave · Alexandre-Théodore-Victor, comte de Lameth · Charles Malo François Lameth · Lafayette

Girondists: Jacques Pierre Brissot · Étienne Clavière · Marquis de Condorcet · Charlotte Corday · Marie Jean Hérault · Roland de La Platière · Madame Roland

Jean Baptiste Treilhard · Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud · Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac · Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve

Montagnards: Paul Nicolas, vicomte de Barras · Georges Couthon · Georges Danton · Jacques Louis David · Camille Desmoulins · Roger Ducos · Jean Marie Collot d'Herbois

Jean-Paul Marat · Prieur de la Côte-d'Or · Prieur de la Marne · Robespierre · Gilbert Romme · Jean Bon Saint-André

Saint-Just · Jean-Lambert Tallien · Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac

Hébertists: Jacques Hébert · Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne · Pierre Gaspard Chaumette · Jacques Roux

Bonapartists: Napoléon Bonaparte · de Cambacérès · Jacques-Louis David · Jean Debry · Joseph Fesch · Charles François Lebrun · Philippe-Antoine Merlin de Douai

Others: Jean-Pierre-André Amar · François-Noël Babeuf · Jean Sylvain Bailly · François-Marie, marquis de Barthélemy · Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne

Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot · André Chénier · Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil · Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville · Olympe de Gouges · Father Henri Grégoire

Philippe-François-Joseph Le Bas · Jacques-Donatien Le Ray · Jean-Baptiste Robert Lindet · Guillaume-Chrétien de Malesherbes · Antoine Christophe Merlin de Thionville

Jean Joseph Mounier · Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours · François de Neufchâteau · Louis Michel le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau · Pierre Louis Prieur · Jean-François Rewbell · Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux · Marquis de Sade · Antoine Christophe Saliceti · Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès

Madame de Staël · Talleyrand · Thérésa Tallien · Gui-Jean-Baptiste Target · Catherine Théot · Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier · Jean-Henri Voulland

1,145 titular deputies (291 deputies of the clergy, 270 of the nobility and 584 of the Third Estate) elected to the Estates-General of 1789, which became the National Assembly on 17 June 1789 and the National Constituent Assembly on 9 July 1789

The marshal Victor François, Duc de Broglie, la Galissonnière, the duke de la Vauguyon, the Baron Louis de Breteuil, and the intendant Foulon, took over the posts of Puységur, Armand Marc, comte de Montmorin, La Luzerne, Saint Priest, and Necker.

Camille Desmoulins, according to Mignet, successfully rallied the crowd by "mount[ing] a table, pistol in hand, exclaiming: 'Citizens, there is no time to lose; the dismissal of Necker is the knell of a Saint Bartholomew for patriots! This very night all the Swiss and German battalions will leave the Champ de Mars to massacre us all; one resource is left; to take arms!'"

On July 11, 1789, with troops at Versailles, Sèvres, the Champ de Mars, and Saint-Denis, the king, acting under the influence of the conservative nobles of his privy council, banished Necker (who headed for Brussels), and completely reconstructed the ministry.

A growing crowd, brandishing busts of Necker and of the duke of Orleans, passed through the streets to the Place Vendôme, where they put a detachment of the Royal-allemand (the king's German soldiers) to flight by a shower of stones. At the Place Louis XV, the dragoons of the prince de Lambesc shot the bearer of one of the busts; a soldier was also killed. Lambesc and his soldiers ran rampant, attacking not only the demonstrators but anyone in their path.

The regiment of the French guard favourably disposed towards the popular cause had remained confined to its barracks. With Paris becoming a general riot, de Lambesc, not trusting the regiment to obey this order, posted sixty dragoons to station themselves before its dépôt in the Chaussée-d'Antin. 

Once again, a measure intended to restrain only served to provoke. The French regiment routed their guard, killing two, wounding three, and putting the rest to flight. The rebellious citizenry had acquired a trained military contingent; as word of this spread, even the foreign troops refused to fight in what looked to be a civil war with a divided military.

The rebels gathered in and around the Hôtel de Ville and sounded the tocsin. Distrust between the leading citizens gathered within the building and the masses outside was exacerbated by the failure or inability of the former to provide the latter with arms.

The "National Party," at this time still relatively united in support of revolution and democratization, representing mainly the interests of the middle classes, but strongly sympathetic to the broader range of the common people. In this early period, its most notable leaders included Mirabeau, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Jean-Sylvain Bailly (the first two coming from aristocratic backgrounds). Mignet also points to Adrien Duport, Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave, and Alexander Lameth as leaders among the "most extreme of this party" in this period, leaders in taking "a more advanced position than that which the revolution had [at this time] attained." Lameth's brother Charles also belonged to this group.

To this list one must add the Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, foremost in proposing legislation in this period, and the man who, for a time, managed to bridge the differences between those who wanted a constitutional monarchy and those who wished to move in more democratic (or even republican) directions.

On 11 July, after Necker (finance minister)suggested that the royal family live according to a budget to conserve funds, the King fired him, and completely reconstructed the finance ministry at the same time. Many Parisians presumed Louis's actions to be the start of a royal coup by the conservatives and began open rebellion when they heard the news the next day.The Storming of the Bastille followed...

The major principle underlying the 4 August decree found legislative expression in the decree of 19 June 1790, which legally abolished the nobility, all its privileges, and, as the excerpt demonstrates, those aspects that seemed particularly contrary to reason.

Stanislas–Marie–Adélaide de Clermont–Tonnerre - speech on religious tolerance, 21 December 1789

Adrien–Jean–François Duport (1759–98), a deputy of the nobility of Paris, proposed the motion to give equal rights to Jews (1791, September 27).

Simon–Henri Linguet was one of the most active and irascible old regime figures.

FRANÇOIS XII Alexandre Frédéric de la Rochefoucauld, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Duc de Liancourt (11 Jan 1747-27 Mar 1827); m.14 Sep 1764 Félicite Sophie de Lannion (1744/5-2 Mar 1830)

On 12 July, the sabre charge of Charles-Eugène de Lorraine, prince de Lambesc's cavalry regiment, the Royal-Allemand, on a crowd gathered at the Tuileries gardens, sparked the Storming of the Bastille two days later[42][43].

On 16 July, the comte d’Artois left France with his wife and children, along with many other courtiers.[44] Artois and his family took up residence in Turin, the capital city of his father-in-law’s Kingdom of Sardinia, with the Condé family.[45]

The comte de Provence and his wife fled to the Austrian Netherlands in conjunction with the royal family’s failed Flight to Varennes in June 1791

Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès - right-wing politician, député de la noblesse des pays de gaure, Verdun,

Gérard de Lally-Tollendal - Politician

Stanislas Marie Adelaide de Clermont -Tonnere . He was elected president of the National Constituent Assembly on August 17, 1789.

Charles Théveneau de Morande (1741–1805) was a gutter journalist, blackmailer and French spy who lived in London in the 18th century.

Comte d'Artois, 1757-1836.

Duport had formed with Barnave and Alexandre de Lameth a group known as the "triumvirate,"

Luc René Charles Achard de Bonvouloir (16 March 1744 - Passais - 12 February 1827 Le Dézert

Henri-Cardin-Jean-Baptiste d'Aguesseau (1746–1826), grandson of the French chancellor Henri François d'Aguesseau, was advocate-general in the parlement of Paris

Alexandre François Marie de Beauharnais, Vicomte de Beauharnais (28 May 1760 – 23 July 1794) was a French political figure and general during the French Revolution.

Charles Juste de Beauvau (10 September 1720 – 21 May 1793), 2nd Prince of Beauvau (1754), Marshal of France (1783) was a French scholar, nobleman and general.

Louis Hercule Timoléon de Cossé-Brissac, duc de Brissac (4 February 1734, Paris-9 September 1792, Versailles) was a French politician and peer of France. He was grand panetier de France, governor of Paris, capitaine colonel of the cent Suisses of the garde du roi, and a knight in various orders. He was killed in the 9 September massacres.

Napoleon I - military and political leader of France

Jacques Necker & A.R.J. Turgot - People's representatives

Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès - chief theorists of the French Revolution

Sombreuil - Governer of Hôtel des Invalides

Bernard René Jourdan - Governer of the Bastille

Honoré Gabriel Riqueti - A moderate

The Pope Pius VI

Archbishop of Aix

François de Bonal - Bishop of Clemont

Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès - right-wing politician, député de la noblesse des pays de gaure, Verdun,

Jean-Sifrein Maury - Archibishop of Paris

Jean Joseph Mounier - Politician

Gérard de Lally-Tollendal - Politician

Stanislas Marie Adelaide de Clermont -Tonnere - Politician

Paul Barras - Politician

Pierre Victor - Politician

Jean-François Rewbell -

Maximilien Robespierre - The Incorruptible Tyrant

Louis de Saint-Just - Revolutionary, Military leader

Marquis de la Fayette - Leader, National Guard

François Bouillé - Governer of three Bishoprics

Louis XVI - King of France

Louis XVIII - King of France and Navarre after Louis XVI

Marie Antoinette - Archduchess of Austria, Queeen of France & Navarre

Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor - brother of Marie Antoinette

Jacques Pierre Brissot (Warville) - Member of Girondist movement

Jean-François Rewbell - Member of Thermidorian Reaction movement

Georges Danton - President of the Cordeliers club

Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud - Orator

Philippe Égalité - Duke of Charters (father of King Louis Philippe)

Marie-Jeanne Roland - member of Girondin faction

Jean-Paul Marat - political theorist and scientist

Charlotte Corday - The killer angel

Camille Desmoulins - Journalist

Jacques Hébert - Newspaper editor

Jean-Baptiste Carrier - The clergy killer

François-Noël Babeuf - Anarchist (socialist mindset)

Pétion

Brissot

Vergniaud

Roland

Gaudet

Dumouriez

Montagnards

Robespierre

Marat

Danton

StJust

Hébert

Couthon

Billaud-Varenne

Collot d'Herbois

Carnot

Fouquier-Tinville

Terrorists

Fouché - Terrorist, Lyon,

Collot d'Herbois- Terrorist, Lyon,

Carrier - Terrorist, Nantes;

Tallien - Terrorist, Bordeaux;

Le Bon - Terrorist, Arras;

Barras et Fréron - Terrorist, Provence;

1. Two companies of French guards mutiny in the face of public unrest, June 23.

2. They are defeated and arrested, placed in Left Bank Prison.

3. Count d'Artois tries to persuade the king to bring in troops to Paris.

4. Orléans learns about it and organizes an exodus of 48 nobles from the Second Estate, June 24.

5. Lafayette refuses to join the group because he does not want to be associated with d'Orléans and predicts the king's recognition of the National Assembly which happened on June 27.

6. June 30, Parisians, in an uprising, attack the Left Bank Prison and free the mutinous soldiers egged on by the Prince d'Orléans.

• July 1: Louis recruits more troops, among them many foreign mercenaries

• July 9: National Assembly reconstitutes itself as National Constituent Assembly

• July 11: Necker dismissed by Louis; populace sack the monasteries, ransack aristocrats' homes in search of food and weapons

July 12: Camille Desmoulins announces the dismissal of Necker to the Paris crowd. The sudden dismissal of Jacques Necker by King Louis XVI brought fame to Desmoulins. On July 12, 1789 he leapt on a table outside one of the cafés in the garden of the Palais Royal, and announced to the crowd the dismissal of the reformer. Apparently losing his stammer due to the excitement, he addressed the passions of the public, calling them to "...take up arms and adopt cockades by which we may know each other"[2] and adding: "This dismissal is the tocsin of the St. Bartholomew of the patriots!", claiming that a massacre of the partisans of reform was under preparation).

He adopted green as the color for rallying liberty and the masses followed, for he had become their leader.[2] Finally, after drawing two pistols from under his coat, he declared that he would not fall alive into the hands of the police who were watching his movements. He descended, embraced by the crowd.

Following Desmoulins, riots started throughout Paris. The mob, procuring arms by force on July 13, was partly organized as the Parisian militia, which was afterwards to be the National Guard. On July 14, the storming of the Bastille occurred.

1789

• January 24: The Estates-General is convoked for the first time since 1614

• April 27 "The Réveillon Riots in Paris, caused by low wages and food shortages, led to about 25 deaths by troops.

• July 14: Fall of the Bastille

[edit] Estates-General and Constituent Assembly

• May 5: Meeting of the Estates-General "voting to be by Estate, not by head

• May 28: The Third Estate (Tiers Etat) begins to meet on its own, calling themselves "communes" (commons)

• June 10: The Third Estate votes for the common verification of credentials, in opposition to the First Estate (the clergy) and the Second Estate (the nobility)

• June 13: Some priests from the First Estate choose to join the Third Estate

• June 17: The Third Estate (commons) declares itself to be the National Assembly

• June 20: Third Estate/National Assembly are locked out of meeting houses by royal decree; the Third Estate chooses to continue despite decree and decides upon a declarative vow, known as the "serment au Jeu de Paume" (The Tennis Court Oath), not to dissolve until the constitution has been established

• June 22: National Assembly meets in church of St Louis, joined by a majority of clergy

• June 23: Two companies of French guards mutiny in the face of public unrest. Louis XVI holds a Séance Royale, puts forward his 35-point program aimed at allowing the continuation of the three estates.

• June 24: 48 nobles, headed by the Duke of Orléans, side with the Third Estate. A significant number of the clergy follow their example.

• June 27: Louis recognises the validity of the National Assembly, and orders the First and Second Estates to join the Third.

• June 30: Large crowd storms left bank prison and frees mutinous French Guards

• July 1: Louis recruits more troops, among them many foreign mercenaries

• July 9: National Assembly reconstitutes itself as National Constituent Assembly

• July 11: Necker dismissed by Louis; populace sack the monasteries, ransack aristocrats' homes in search of food and weapons

July 12: Camille Desmoulins announces the dismissal of Necker to the Paris crowd. The sudden dismissal of Jacques Necker by King Louis XVI brought fame to Desmoulins. On July 12, 1789 he leapt on a table outside one of the cafés in the garden of the Palais Royal, and announced to the crowd the dismissal of the reformer. Apparently losing his stammer due to the excitement, he addressed the passions of the public, calling them to "...take up arms and adopt cockades by which we may know each other"[2] and adding: "This dismissal is the tocsin of the St. Bartholomew of the patriots!", claiming that a massacre of the partisans of reform was under preparation).

He adopted green as the color for rallying liberty and the masses followed, for he had become their leader.[2] Finally, after drawing two pistols from under his coat, he declared that he would not fall alive into the hands of the police who were watching his movements. He descended, embraced by the crowd.

Following Desmoulins, riots started throughout Paris. The mob, procuring arms by force on July 13, was partly organized as the Parisian militia, which was afterwards to be the National Guard. On July 14, the storming of the Bastille occurred.

The following day, Desmoulins began the most publicised phase of his writing career. In May and June 1789 he had written La France Libre, which his publisher had refused to print. The taking of the Bastille, however, was a sign of changing times, and, on July 18, Desmoulins's work was issued. Considerably in advance of public opinion, it called explicitly for a republic, his sixth issue stating," ... popular and democratic government is the only constitution which suits France, and all those who are worthy of the name of men."[3] "La France Libre" also elaborately examined the rights of king, of nobles, of Roman Catholic clergy and of the people, it became instantly popular, securing Desmoulins a partnership with Honoré Mirabeau. It was immediately followed by a slander campaign from Royalist pamphleteers.

Through his support for a republic, even a democratic one, he was also a member of the Cordeliers Club, who were among the first revolutionaries to advocate republican government.

July 12. Charles Eugène Prince de Lambesc appears at the Tuilleries with an armed guard "a soldier and civilian are killed. In the early days of the French Revolution, Charles Eugène'Ss Allemand Dragoons were an important element in the protection of the Louis' Court. On 12 July 1789, Charles Eugène rode at the head of his dragoons across the Place of Louis XV into the Tuileries Gardens, against a mob that had gathered there and forced the group out of the garden. In the course of the attack, many were injured, and Charles Eugène was held popularly responsible, although no charges were filed.[4]

• July 13: National Guard formed in Paris, of middle class men.

• July 14: Storming of the Bastille; de Launay, (the governor), Foulon (the Secretary of State) and de Flesselles (the then equivalent of the mayor of Paris), amongst others, are massacred.

• July 15: Lafayette appointed Commander of the National Guard.

Demolition

[pic]

[pic]

A miniature of the Bastille made from one of the stones of the fortress (Carnavalet Museum).

[pic]

[pic]

Remaining stones of the Bastille are still visible now on Boulevard Henri IV

The propaganda value of the Bastille was quickly seized upon, notably by the showy entrepreneur Pierre-François Palloy, "Patriote Palloy". The fate of the Bastille was uncertain, but Palloy was quick to establish a claim, organising a force of demolition men around the site on the 15th. Over the next few days many notables visited the Bastille and it seemed to be turning into a memorial. But Palloy secured a license for demolition from the Permanent Committee at the Hôtel de Ville and quickly took complete control.

Pierre-François Palloy secured a fair budget and his crew grew in number. He had control over all aspects of the work and the workers, even to the extent of having two hanged for murder. Palloy put much effort into continuing the site as a paying attraction and producing a huge range of souvenirs, including much of the rubble. The actual demolition proceeded apace; by November, 1789, the structure was largely demolished. The cut stones of the fortress were used in the construction of the Pont de la Concorde.

• July 16: Necker recalled, troops pulled out of Paris

• July 17: The beginning of the Great Fear, the peasantry revolt against feudalism and a number of urban disturbances and revolts. Many members of the aristocracy flee Paris to become émigrés.

• July 18: Publication of Desmoulins' La France libre favouring a republic and arguing that revolutionary violence was justified.

• July 27: Louis XVI accepts the tricolor cockade.

• August 4: Surrender of feudal rights: The August Decrees

• August 27 The Assembly adopts The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

• September 11 The National Assembly grants suspensive veto to Louis XVI; Louis fails to ratify the August acts of the National Assembly.

• October 5-6: Outbreak of the Paris mob; Liberal monarchical constitution; the Women's March on Versailles

• October 6 Louis XVI agrees to ratify the August Decrees, Palace of Versailles stormed.

Louis and the National Assembly move to Paris.

• November 2: Church property nationalised and otherwise expropriated

• November: First publication of Desmoulins' weekly Histoire des Révolutions ...

• December: National Assembly distinguishes between 'active' (monied) and 'passive' (property-less) citizens "only the active could vote

• December 12 Assignats are used as legal tender

1790

• January: Former Provinces of France replaced by new administrative Departments.

• February 13 Suppression of monastic vows and religious orders

• March 5: Feudal Committee reports back to National Assembly, delaying the abolition of feudalism.

• March 29: Pope Pius condemns the Declaration of the Rights of Man in secret consistory.

• May National Assembly renounces involvement in wars of conquest.

• May 19 Nobility abolished by the National Assembly.

• July 12 The Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Demands priests to take an oath of loyalty to the state, splitting the clergy between juring (oath-taking) and non-juring priests.

• July: Growing power of the clubs (including: Cordeliers, Jacobin Club)

• July: Reorganization of Paris

• August 16 The parlements are abolished

• September: First edition of radical newspaper Le Père Duchesne printed by Jacques Hébert.

• September: Fall of Necker

1791

• January 30: Mirabeau elected President of the Assembly

• February 28: Day of Daggers; Lafayette orders the arrest of 400 armed aristocrats at the Tuileries Palace

• March 2: Abolition of trade guilds

• March 10: Pope Pius VI condemns the Civil Constitution of the Clergy

• April 2: Death of Mirabeau "first person to be buried in Pantheon, formerly the church of Sainte-Geneviève

• April 13: Encyclical of Pope Pius VI, Charitas, condemning the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and the unauthorised appointment of Bishops is published

• April 18: Louis and Marie-Antoinette prevented from travelling to Saint-Cloud for Easter

• June 14: Le Chapelier law banning trade unions is passed by National Assembly

• June 20–25: Royal family's flight to Varennes

• June 25: Louis XVI forced to return to Paris

• July 10: Leopold II issues the Padua Circular calling on the royal houses of Europe to come to his brother-in-law, Louis XVI's aid.

• July 14: Second anniversary of the fall of the Bastille is celebrated at the Champs de Mars.

• July 15: National Assembly declares the king to be inviolable and he is reinstated.

• July 17: Anti-Royalist demonstration at the Champ de Mars; National Guard kills fifty people.

• July: Remains of Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire reburied in Pantheon.

• August 14: Slave revolts in Saint Domingue (Haiti)

• August 27: Declaration of Pillnitz (Frederick William II and Leopold II)

• September 13–14: Louis XVI accepts the Constitution formally

• September 30: Dissolution of the National Constituent Assembly

[edit] Legislative Assembly

• October 1: Legislative Assembly meets "many young, inexperienced, radical deputies.

• November 9 All émigrés are ordered by the Assembly to return under threat of death

• November 11 Louis vetoes the ruling of the Assembly on émigrés.

1792

• January – March: Food riots in Paris

• February 7: Alliance of Austria and Prussia

• March 20: Guillotine adopted as official means of execution.

• April 20: France declares war against Austria

• April 25: Battle Hymn of the Army of the Rhine composed by Rouget de Lisle. First execution using the guillotine.

• April 28: France invades Austrian Netherlands (Belgium).

• July 5: Legislative Assembly declares that the fatherland is in danger (La Patrie en Danger).

• July 25: Brunswick Manifesto "warns that should the royal family be harmed by the popular movement, an "exemplary and eternally memorable revenge" will follow.

• July 30: Austria and Prussia begin invasion of France.

• July: The tricolor cockade made compulsory for men to wear. La Marseillaise sung by volunteers from Marseilles on their arrival in Paris.

• August 1: News of the Brunswick Manifesto reaches Paris "interpreted as proof that Louis XVI was collaborating with the foreign Coalition.

• August 9: Revolutionary commune took possession of the hôtel de ville.

• August 10–13: Storming of the Tuileries Palace. Swiss Guard massacred. Louis XVI of France is arrested and taken into custody, along with his family. Georges Danton becomes Minister of Justice.

• August 16: Paris commune presents petition to the Legislative Assembly demanding the establishment of a revolutionary tribunal and summoning of a National Convention.

• August 19: Lafayette flees to Austria. Invasion of France by Coalition troops led by Duke of Brunswick

• August 22: Royalist riots in Brittany, La Vendée and Dauphiné.

• September 3: Fall of Verdun to Brunswick's troops.

• September 3–7: The September Massacres of prisoners in the Paris prisons.

• September 19: Dissolution of Legislative Assembly.

[edit] National Convention

• September 20: First session of National Convention. French Army stops advance of Coalition troops at Valmy.

• September 21: Abolition of royalty and proclamation of the First French Republic.

• September 22: First day of the French Revolutionary Calendar (N.B.: calendar introduced in 1793).

• December 3: Louis XVI brought to trial, appears before the National Convention (11 & 23 December). Robespierre argues that "Louis must die, so that the country may live".

1793

• January 21: Citizen Louis Capet guillotined, formerly known as Louis XVI.

• March 7: Outbreak of rebellion against the Revolution: War in the Vendée.

• March 11: Revolutionary Tribunal established in Paris.

• April 6: Committee of Public Safety established.

• May 30: A revolt breaks out in Lyon.

• June 2: Arrest of Girondist deputies to National Convention by Jacobins.

• June 10: Jacobins gain control of the Committee of Public Safety.

• June 24: Ratification of new Constitution by National Convention, but not yet proclaimed. Slavery is abolished in France until 1802 (Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte).

• July 13: Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat by Charlotte Corday.

• July 27: Robespierre elected to Committee of Public Safety.

• July 28: Convention proscribes 21 Girondist deputies as enemies of France.

• August 23: Levée en masse (conscription) order.

• September 5: Start of Reign of Terror.

• September 9: Establishment of sans-culottes paramilitary forces "revolutionary armies.

• September 17: Law of Suspects passed.

• September 22: A new calendar is introduced, denoting September 22, 1792 as being the start of year I.

• September 29: Convention passes the General Maximum, fixing the prices of many goods and services.

• October 10: 1793 Constitution put on hold; decree that the government must be "revolutionary until the peace".

• October 16: Marie Antoinette guillotined.

• October 21: An anti-clerical law passed, priests and supporters liable to death on sight.

• October 24: Trial of the 21 Girondist deputies by the Revolutionary Tribunal.

• October 31: The 21 Girondist deputies guillotined.

• November 3: Olympe de Gouges, champion of rights for women, guillotined for Girondist sympathies.

• November 8: Madame Roland guillotined as part of purge of Girondists.

• November 10: Celebration of the Goddess of Reason at Cathedral of Notre Dame which was re-dedicated as the Temple of Reason.

• December: First issue of Desmoulins' Le Vieux Cordelier.

• December 4: Law of 14 Frimaire (Law of Revolutionary Government) passed; power becomes centralised on the Committee of Public Safety.

• December 23: Anti-Republican forces in the Vendée finally defeated and 6000 prisoners executed.

1794

• February: Final 'pacification' of the Vendée "mass killings, scorched earth policy.

• March 13: Last edition of Jacques Hébert's Le Père Duchesne produced.

• March 19: Hébert and his supporters arrested.

• March 24: Hébert and leaders of the Cordeliers guillotined.

• March 28: Death of philosopher and mathematician Marquis de Condorcet in prison.

• March 30: Danton, Desmoulins and their supporters arrested.

• April 5: Danton and Desmoulins guillotined.

• May 7: National Convention, led by Robespierre, passes decree to establish the Cult of the Supreme Being.

• May 8: Antoine Lavoisier, chemist, guillotined as traitor.

• June 8: Festival of the Supreme Being.

• June 10: Law of 22 Prairial "the Revolutionary Tribunal became a court of condemnation without the need for witnesses.

• June 26: French forces defeat Austrians at the Battle of Fleurus.

• July 25: André Chenier, poet, guillotined for conspiring against the Revolution.

• July 27-28: Night of 9-10 Thermidor "Robespierre arrested, guillotined without trial, along with other members of the Committee of Public Safety. End of the Reign of Terror. Also called The Thermidorian Reaction.

• Latter half of 1794: The White Terror "reaction against remaining Jacobins.

• November 11: Closure of Jacobin Club.

1795

• May 31: Suppression of the Paris Revolutionary Tribunal.

• July 14: Marseillaise accepted as the French National Anthem.

• August 22: 1795 Constitution ratified "bicameral system, executive Directory of five.

• October 5: 13 Vendémiaire "Napoleon's "whiff of grapeshot" quells Paris insurrection.

• October 26: National Convention dissolved.

[edit] The Directory

• November 2: Executive Directory takes on executive power.

1796

• March 9: Marriage of Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine.

• May 10: Battle of Lodi (Napoleon in Italy)

• June 4: Beginning of the Siege of Mantua

1797

• April 18: Preliminary Peace of Leoben

• July 8: Cisalpine Republic established

• September 4: Coup d'état of 18 Fructidor revives Republican measures

• October 17: Treaty of Campo Formio

1798

• February: Roman Republic proclaimed

• April: Helvetian Republic proclaimed

• May 11: Law of 22 Floréal Year VI "Council elections annulled, left wing deputies excluded from Council.

• July 21: Battle of the Pyramids

• August 1: Battle of the Nile "Nelson's victory isolates Napoleon in Egypt.

• December 24: Alliance between Russia and Britain

1799

• June 17–19: Battle of the Trebia (Suvorov defeats French)

• June 18: Coup of 30 Prairial Year VII "removed Directors, left Sieyès as dominant figure in government.

• August 24: Napoleon leaves Egypt.

• October 9: Napoleon returns to France

• October 22: Russians withdraw from coalition

• November 9: The Coup d'État of 18 Brumaire: end of the Directory

• December 24: Constitution of the Year VIII "leadership of Napoleon established under the Consulate. French Revolution may be considered ended.

The last article of Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was adopted 26 or 27 August, 1789[1] by the National Constituent Assembly (Assemblée nationale constituante), during the period of the French Revolution, as the first step toward writing a constitution for France. It was prepared and proposed by the marquis de Lafayette.[2] A second and lengthier declaration, known as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1793 was later adopted.

The 1789 Declaration defines a single set of individual and collective rights for all men. Influenced by the doctrine of natural rights, these rights are held to be universal and valid in all times and places. For example," Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good."[3] The Declaration also asserted the principles of popular sovereignty, in contrast to the divine right of kings that characterized the French monarchy, and social equality among citizens," All the citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally admissible to all public dignities, places, and employments, according to their capacity and without distinction other than that of their virtues and of their talents," eliminating the special rights of the nobility and clergy.

While it set forth fundamental rights, not only for French citizens but for "all men without exception," it did not make any statement about the status of women, nor did it explicitly address slavery.[4] The Declaration is considered to be a precursor to modern international human rights instruments.

This statement of principles was the beginning of a much more radical re-ordering of society. Six weeks after the storming of the Bastille, and barely three weeks after the abolition of feudalism, the Declaration put forward a doctrine of popular sovereignty and equal opportunity:

"(From Article III) – The principle of any sovereignty resides essentially in the Nation. No body, no individual can exert authority which does not emanate expressly from it."

This contrasts with the pre-revolutionary situation in France, where the political doctrine of the monarchy found the source of law in the divine right of kings.

(From Article VI) – "All the citizens, being equal in [the eyes of the law], are equally admissible to all public dignities, places, and employments, according to their capacity and without distinction other than that of their virtues and of their talents."

Again, this strikingly contrasts with the pre-revolutionary division of French society in three estates (the clergy, the aristocracy, and the rest of the populace, known as the Third Estate), where the first two estates had special rights. Specifically, it contradicts the idea of people being born into a nobility or other special class of the population, and enjoying (or being deprived of) special rights for this reason.

All citizens are to be guaranteed the rights of "liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression". The Declaration argues that the need for law derives from the fact that "...the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the enjoyment of these same rights". Thus, the declaration sees law as an "expression of the general will", intended to promoat this equality of rights and to forbid "only actions harmful to the society".

Before the adoption of the declaration those of the laboring class which had made up the Third Estate during the Old Regime had few rights, if any. Only the First and Second Estates enjoyed the luxuries of a just society. The adoption of The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen gave the lower class a new identity. They were no longer a group that could be trampled on by the upper classes; they had their individual rights and the ability to be active French citizens. Now the former Third Estate was welcome to fair judicial hearings and appropriate due process.

During the Old Regime the laboring class was unfairly represented because their representatives were concerned only with personal agendas and not the desires of those they were meant to represent. Article XII of The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen states “The guarantee of the rights of man and citizen requires a public force; this force then is instituted for the advantage of all and not for the personal benefit of those to whom it is entrusted.” This article guarantees the protection of the people’s rights and also guarantees that, unlike in the Old Regime, people in positions of power will not abuse their positions for personal gains. Such a promise shows notable improvement in the conditions for French citizens since the fall of the Old Regime.

The declaration then goes on to address another primary concern of the working class citizens, taxes. The Old Regime tax policy made it so that the Church and the nobility were excused from taxation. Only the Third Estate was required to pay a tax to the government. Often this tax was so steep that those who were forced to pay it could not even afford it. Article XIII of the declaration abolishes the idea of Old Regime taxation and introduces a new, more equal approach to taxes: “A general tax is indispensable for the maintenance of the public force and for the expenses of administration; it ought to be equally apportioned among all citizens according to their means.” This new tax policy greatly benefited the working class because not only did it split up taxation among all French citizens, it also assured the less fortunate that their taxes would not be too high. Instead they would be taxed according to their financial situation. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen offered working men basic liberties that they were previously denied, eliminated the threat of corrupt and self-serving positions of power at any level, and gave them their individual rights and no longer treated the lower class workers as a mob that could be oppressed and controlled.

The Declaration puts forward several provisions similar to those in the United States Constitution (1787) and the United States Bill of Rights (1789, and adopted after the Declaration). Like the U.S. Constitution, it discusses the need to provide for the common defense and states some broad principles of taxation, especially equality before taxation (a striking difference from the pre-revolutionary era, when the Church and the nobility were exempted from most taxes). It also specifies a public right to an accounting from public agents as to how they have discharged the public trust.

"We've brought back the baker, the baker's wife, and the baker's

boy! Now we shall have bread!"

Jean-Baptiste Carrier became notorious for the Noyades ["drownings"] "he organized in Nantes[66]; his conduct was judged unacceptable even by the Jacobin government and he was recalled.[citation needed]

1785 ̶ Alexandre-Theodore-Victor Comte de Lameth was appointed colonel of a cavalry regiment.

1788, December 27. ̶ Doubling of Third Estate representation decreed on the suggestion of Necker reinstated in August 1788.

1789, May 5 ̶ Convocation of Estates General.

1789 ̶ Lameth was elected a representative for the nobility to the Estates General that convened on May 5.

1789, May 27 ̶ The nobles voted for separate session from the Third Estate.

1789, May 28 ̶ Abbé Sieyès (a member of the clergy, but, like Mirabeau, elected to represent the Third Estate) moved that the representatives of the Third Estate, who now called themselves the Communes ("Commons"), proceed with verification and invite the other two Estates to take part, but not to wait for them.

1789, June 13 ̶ the Third Estate had arrived at a resolution to examine and settle in common the powers of the three orders, and invited to this common work those of the clergy and nobles.

1789, June 17 ̶ with the failure of efforts to reconcile the three Estates, the Communes completed their own process of verification and almost immediately voted a measure far more radical: led by Mirabeau and Abbe Sieyes, they declared themselves redefined as the National Assembly, an assembly not of the Estates but of the People. They invited the other orders to join them, but made it clear that they intended to conduct the nation's affairs with or without them.

1789, June 20 ̶ The king ordered the Salle des États, the hall where the National Assembly met, closed. The Assembly moved their deliberations to the King's tennis court.

1789, June 20 ̶ Tennis Court Oath. We swear never to separate ourselves from the National Assembly, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the realm is drawn up and fixed upon solid foundations.

1789, June 22 ̶ Tennis Court is closed. The National Assembly moves to the church of Saint Louis, where the majority of the representatives of the clergy joined them.

1789, June 23 ̶ In the séance royale of 23 June, the King granted a Charte octroyée, a constitution granted of the royal favour, which affirmed, subject to the traditional limitations, the right of separate deliberation for the three orders, which constitutionally formed three chambers.

1789, June 25 ̶ Lameth joined the unprivileged Third Estate, which had declared itself a revolutionary National Assembly.

1789, June "August ̶ Lameth helped draft the Assembly’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and he supported measures abolishing feudalism and restricting the hitherto absolute powers of King Louis XVI.

9 July 1789. The National Constituent Assembly (French: Assemblée nationale constituante) was formed from the National Assembly during the first stages of the French Revolution. It dissolved on 30 September 1791 and was succeeded by the Legislative Assembly.

1789, July 11 ̶ Necker is dismissed.

1789, July 14 ̶ Storming of the Bastille.

1789, July (late) ̶ Reinstatement of Necker.

1789, September ̶ Lameth and his two close associates, Antoine Barnave and Adrien Duport—the “triumvirate”—blocked legislation that would have created a separate legislative chamber for the nobility.

1791, Spring ̶ Lameth and his friends felt that continuation of the Revolution might endanger the monarchy and private property. They then became secret advisers to the royal family, which subsidized their newspaper, the Logographe.

1791, June ̶ Louis XVI’s abortive attempt to flee from France discredited the new system of constitutional monarchy.

1791, (June?) ̶ In an attempt to consolidate their forces, Lameth and his associates withdrew from the Jacobin Club and formed the Club of the Feuillants. They struggled unsuccessfully against the Jacobins.

1791, July 17 ̶ the Cordeliers organized an event, at the Champ de Mars, to gather signatures on a petition which called for a referendum on Louis XVI.[94] The assembled crowd, estimated to be up to 20,000, hanged two men, believed to be spies, after they were found under a platform.[95] In response, the Assembly asked Bailly, the mayor of Paris, to "halt the disorder";[96] martial law was declared; and National Guard troops, under Lafayette, marched to the scene.[96] Lafayette, at the head of the column, carried a red flag to signify martial law. The sequence of the following events is controversial: the crowd threw stones at the troops, and a shot was allegedly fired; in response, the National Guard shot into the crowd. Exact deaths are unknown; estimates generally range from a dozen to fifty.[95][96] In combination with the Flight to Varennes, this event, known as the Champ de Mars Massacre (Fusillade du Champ de Mars), furthered the public's mistrust in Lafayette and Bailly; in the aftermath, Lafayette resigned his National Guard command and Bailly vacated his post as mayor.

1792, April ̶ France went to war with Austria, Lameth became an officer in the Army of the North.

1792, August 10 ̶ Fall of the monarchy.

1792, August ̶ Lameth emigrated with the Marquis de Lafayette after the fall of the monarchy on Aug. 10.

1792 "1796 ̶ Interned for more than three years in Austria, Lameth settled in Hamburg in 1796.

1800 ̶ After Napoleon came to power in France, Lameth returned to his homeland and 1802 "1815 ̶ Lameth served as a prefect from.

1815 "1829 ̶ Lameth was a member of the liberal parliamentary opposition during the reigns of kings Louis XVIII and Charles X.

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