guards, forced the prison of
St. Lazare, released all the prisoners, and took a great store of
corn, which they carried to the corn-market. Here they got some arms,
and the French guards began to form and train them. The city committee
determined to raise forty-eight thousand bourgeoisie, or rather to
restrain their numbers to forty-eight thousand.

On the 14th, they sent one of their members (Monsieur de Corny) to the
Hotel des Invalides, to ask arms for their Garde Bourgeoisie. He was
followed by, and he found there, a great collection of people. The
Governor of the Invalids came out, and represented the impossibility
of his delivering arms without the orders of those from whom he
received them. De Corny advised the people then to retire, and retired
himself; but the people took possession of the arms. It was remarkable
that not only the Invalids themselves made no opposition, but that a
body of five thousand foreign troops, within four hundred yards, never
stirred. M. De Corny, and five others, were then sent to ask arms of
M. de Launay, Governor of the Bastile. They found a great collection
of people already before the place, and they immediately planted a
flag of truce, which was answered by a like flag hoisted on the
parapet. The deputation prevailed on the people to fall back a little,
advanced themselves to make their demand of the Governor, and in that
instant a discharge from the Bastile killed four persons of those
nearest to the deputies. The deputies retired. I happened to be at the
house of M. de Corny, when he returned to it, and received from him a
narrative of these transactions.

On the retirement of the deputies the people rushed forward, and almost in
an instant were in possession of a fortification of infinite strength,
defended by one hundred men, which in other times had stood several regular
sieges, and had never been taken. How they forced their entrance has never
been explained. They took all the arms, discharged the prisoners, and such
of the garrison as were not killed in the first moment of fury; carried the
Governor and Lieutenant-Governor to the Place de Greve (the place of public
execution), cut off their heads, and sent them through the city, in
triumph, to the Palais royal. About the same instant a treacherous
correspondence having been discovered in M. de Flesseles, Prevot des
Marchands, they seized him in the Hotel de Ville, where he was in the
execution of his office, and cut off hi