366 FRANCE. 



by which they had hitherto been restrained. The supplies of arms 

 and ammunition which had been provided for their subjugation, were 

 turned against the crown ; and the Hotel des Invalides, the great 

 repository of military stores, after a faint resistance, surrendered. 



The prince de Lambesc, who alone, of all the officers commanding 

 the royal troops in the vicinity of Paris, attempted to carry into execu- 

 tion the plan for disarming the capital, was repulsed in a premature 

 and injudicious attack, which he made at the head of his dragoons, 

 near the entrance of the garden of the Thuilleries. Already the 

 Prevot des Marchands, monsieur de Fiesselles, convicted of enter- 

 taining a correspondence with the court, and detected in sending 

 private intelligence to monsieur de Launay, governor of the Bastile, 

 had been seized by the people, and fallen the first victim to general, 

 indignation. His head, borne on a lance, exhibited an alarming spec- 

 tacle of the danger to which adherence to the sovereign must expose 

 In a time of anarchy and insurrection. 



The Bastile alone remained : and while it continued in the power 

 of the crown, Paris could not be regarded as secure from the severest 

 chastisement. It was instantly invested, on the 14th of Jujy, 1789, 

 by a mixed multitude, composed of citizens and soldiers who had 

 joined the popular banner. De Launay, who commanded in the cas- 

 tle, by an act of perfidy unjustifiable under any circumstances, and 

 which rendered his fate less regretted, rather accelerated than de- 

 layed the capture of that important fortress. He displayed a flag of 

 truce, and demanded a parley ; but abusing the confidence which 

 these signals inspired, he discharged a heavy fire from the cannon 

 and musketry of the place upon the besiegers, and made considera- 

 ble carnage. Far from intimidating he only augmented, by so trea- 

 cherous a breach of faith, the rage of an incensed populace. They 

 renewed their exertions with a valour raised to phrenzy, and were 

 crowned with success. The Bastile, that awful engine of despotism, 

 whose name alone diffused terror, and which for many ages had been 

 sacred to silence and despair, was entered by the victorious assailants. 

 De Launay, seized and dragged to the Place de Greve, was instantly 

 dispatched, and his head carried in triumph through the streets of 

 Paris. 



In this prison were found the most horrible engines for putting to 

 the severest tortures those unhappy persons whom the cruelty or 

 Jealousy of despotism had determined to destroy. An iron cage, 

 aboxit twelve tons in weight, was found with the skeleton of a man in 

 it, who had probably lingered out a great part of his days in 'that 

 horrid mansion. Among the prisoners released by its destruction, 

 were major White a Scotsman, earl Massarene an Irish nobleman, 

 and the count de Lorges. The former appeared to have his intellec- 

 tual faculties almost totally impaired by the long confinement and 

 miseries he had endured ; and, by being unaccustomed to converse 

 with any human creature, had forgotten the use of speech. Earl 

 Massarene, at his arrival on the British shore, eagerly jumped out 

 of the boat, fell down on his knees, and, kissing the ground thrice, 

 exclaimed, " God bless this land of liberty !" The count de Lorges, 

 at a very advanced period of life, was also liberated, and exhibited to 

 the public curiosity in the Palais Royal. His squalid appearance, 

 his white beard which descended to his waist, and, above all, his 

 imbecility, resulting probably from the effect of an imprisonment of 

 thirty-two years, were objects highly calculated to operate upon the 



