over dead
prey, the multitude, with clangour and vociferation, pounces on them;
struggling, dashing, clutching:--to the jamming-up, to the pressure,
fracture and probable extinction, of the weaker Patriot. (Deux Amis, i.
302.) And so, with such protracted crash of deafening, most discordant
Orchestra-music, the Scene is changed: and eight-and-twenty thousand
sufficient firelocks are on the shoulders of so many National Guards,
lifted thereby out of darkness into fiery light.

Let Besenval look at the glitter of these muskets, as they flash by!
Gardes Francaises, it is said, have cannon levelled on him; ready to
open, if need were, from the other side of the River. (Besenval, iii.
416.) Motionless sits he; 'astonished,' one may flatter oneself, 'at
the proud bearing (fiere contenance) of the Parisians.'--And now, to
the Bastille, ye intrepid Parisians! There grapeshot 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
portholes. Towards noon, Elector Thuriot de la Rosiere gains admittance;
finds de Launay indisposed for surrender; nay disposed for blowing up
the place rather. Thuriot mounts with him to the battlements: heaps
of paving-stones, old iron and missiles lie piled; cannon all duly
levelled; in every embrasure a cannon,--only drawn back a little! But
outwards behold, 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,
behold