after it was taken, it was ordered by the National
Assembly to be razed to the ground, and in May, 1790, not a
trace of it was left.--ED.]

The stormers of the Bastille arrived at the Place de la Greve, rending
the air with shouts of victory. They marched on to the great hall of the
Hotel de Ville, in all the terrific and unusual pomp of a popular
triumph. Such of them as had displayed most courage and ardor were borne
on the shoulders of the rest, crowned with laurel. They were escorted up
the hall by near two thousand of the populace, their eyes flaming, their
hair in wild disorder, variously accoutred, pressing tumultuously on
each other, and making the heavy floors almost crack beneath their
footsteps. One bore the keys and flag of the Bastille, another the
regulations of the prison brandished on the point of a bayonet; a
third--a thing horrible to relate!--held in his bloody fingers the
buckle of the governor's stock. In this order it was that they entered
the Hotel de Ville to announce their victory to the Committee, and to
decide on the fate of their remaining prisoners, who, in spite of the
impatient cries to give no quarter, were rescued by the exertions of the
commandant La Salle, Moreau de St. Mery, and the intrepid Elie.

Then came the turn of the despicable Flesselles, that caricature of
vapid, frothy impertinence, who thought he could baffle the roaring
tiger with grimace and shallow excuses. "To the Palais-Royal with him!"
was the word; and he answered with callous indifference, "Well, to the
Palais-Royal if you will." He was hemmed in by the crowd and borne along
without any violence being offered him to the place of destination; but
at the corner of the Quai le Pelletier an unknown hand approached him
and stretched him lifeless on the spot with a pistol-shot. During the
night succeeding this eventful day Paris was in the greatest agitation,
hourly expecting, in consequence of the statements of intercepted
letters, an attack from the troops. Every preparation was made to defend
the city. Barricades were formed, the streets unpaved, pikes forged, the
women piled stones on the tops of houses to hurl them down on the heads
of the soldiers, and the National Guard occupied the outposts.

While all this was passing, and before it became known at Versailles,
the Court was preparing to carry into effect its designs against the
Assembly and the capital. The night between the 14th and 15th was fixed
u