is accident as prophetic of the fate
of his own head, as well as the ruin of his family, if he persisted. He
made no answer, but left the room.

"On the 14th of July, and two or three days preceding, the commotions
took a definite object. The destruction of the Bastille was the point
proposed, and it was achieved. Arms were obtained from the old
pensioners at the Hotel des Invalides. Fifty thousand livres were
distributed among the chiefs of those who influenced the Invalides to
give up the arms.

"The massacre of the Marquis de Launay, commandant of the place, and of
M. de Flesselles, and the fall of the citadel itself, were the
consequence.

"Her Majesty was greatly affected when she heard of the murder of these
officers and the taking of the Bastille. She frequently told me that the
horrid circumstance originated in a diabolical Court intrigue, but never
explained the particulars of the intrigue. She declared that both the
officers and the citadel might have been saved had not the King's orders
for the march of the troops from Versailles, and the environs of Paris,
been disobeyed. She blamed the precipitation of De Launay in ordering up
the drawbridge and directing the few troops on it to fire upon the
people. 'There,' she added, 'the Marquis committed himself; as, in case
of not succeeding, he could have no retreat, which every commander should
take care to secure, before he allows the commencement of a general
attack.

[Certainly, the French Revolution may date its epoch as far back as the
taking of the Bastille; from that moment the troubles progressively
continued, till the final extirpation of its illustrious victims. I was
just returning from a mission to England when the storms began to
threaten not only the most violent effects to France itself, but to all
the land which was not divided from it by the watery element. The spirit
of liberty, as the vine, which produces the most luxurious fruit, when
abused becomes the most pernicious poison, was stalking abroad and
revelling in blood and massacre. I myself was a witness to the
enthusiastic national ball given on the ruins of the Bastille, while it
was still stained and reeking with the hot blood of its late keeper,
whose head I saw carried in triumph. Such was the effect on me that the
Princesse de Lamballe asked me if I had known the Marquis de Launay. I
answered in the negative; but told her from the knowledge I had of the
English Revolution, I was fearf