ey flash by!
Gardes Francaises, it is said, have cannon leveled on him; ready to
open, if need were, from the other side of the river. Motionless sits
he; "astonished," one may flatter one's self, "at the proud bearing
(_fiere contenance_) of the Parisians." And now to the Bastille, ye
intrepid Parisians! There grape-shot still threatens; thither all
men's thoughts and steps are now tending.

Old De Launay, as we hinted, withdrew "into his interior" soon after
midnight of Sunday. He remains there ever since, hampered, as all
military gentlemen now are, in the saddest conflict of uncertainties.
The Hotel-de-Ville "invites" him to admit National Soldiers, which is
a soft name for surrendering. On the other hand, his Majesty's orders
were precise. His garrison is but eighty-two old Invalides, reinforced
by thirty-two young Swiss; his walls, indeed, are nine feet thick; he
has cannon and powder, but alas! only one day's provision of victuals.
The city, too, is French, the poor garrison mostly French. Rigorous
old De Launay, think what thou wilt do!

All morning, since nine, there has been a cry everywhere: To the
Bastille! Repeated "deputations of citizens" have been here,
passionate for arms, whom De Launay has got dismissed by soft speeches
through port-holes. Towards noon, Elector Thuriot de la Rosiere gains
admittance, finds De Launay indisposed for surrender, nay, disposed
for blowing up the place, rather. Thuriot mounts with him to the
battlements; heaps of paving-stones, old iron, and missiles lie piled;
cannon all duly leveled; in every embrasure a cannon,--only drawn back
a little! But outwards, behold, O Thuriot, how the multitude flows on,
welling through every street, tocsin furiously pealing, all drums
beating the _generale_; the suburb Saint-Antoine rolling hitherward
wholly as one man! Such vision (spectral, yet real) thou, O Thuriot,
as from thy Mount of Vision, beholdest in this moment: prophetic of
what other Phantasmagories and loud-gibbering Spectral Realities which
thou yet beholdest not, but shalt! "_Que voulez-vous?_" said De
Launay, turning pale at the sight, with an air of reproach, almost of
menace. "Monsieur," said Thuriot, rising into the moral-sublime, "what
mean _you_? Consider if I could not precipitate _both_ of us from this
height,"--say only a hundred feet, exclusive of the walled ditch!
Whereupon De Launay fell silent. Thuriot shows himself from some
pinnacle to comfort the multitude bec