! Never, over
nave or felloe, did thy axe strike such a stroke. Down with it, man;
down with it to Orcus: let the whole accursed Edifice sink thither, and
Tyranny be swallowed up for ever! Mounted, some say on the roof of the
guard-room, some 'on bayonets stuck into joints of the wall,' Louis
Tournay smites, brave Aubin Bonnemere (also an old soldier) seconding
him: the chain yields, breaks; the huge Drawbridge slams down,
thundering (avec fracas). Glorious: and yet, alas, it is still but the
outworks. The Eight grim Towers, with their Invalides' musketry, their
paving stones and cannon-mouths, still soar aloft intact;--Ditch yawning
impassable, stone-faced; the inner Drawbridge with its back towards us:
the Bastille is still to take!

To describe this Siege of the Bastille (thought to be one of the most
important in history) perhaps transcends the talent of mortals. Could
one but, after infinite reading, get to understand so much as the plan
of the building! But there is open Esplanade, at the end of the Rue
Saint-Antoine; there are such Forecourts, Cour Avance, Cour de l'Orme,
arched Gateway (where Louis Tournay now fights); then new drawbridges,
dormant-bridges, rampart-bastions, and the grim Eight Towers: a
labyrinthic Mass, high-frowning there, of all ages from twenty years
to four hundred and twenty;--beleaguered, in this its last hour, as we
said, by mere Chaos come again! Ordnance of all calibres; throats of all
capacities; men of all plans, every man his own engineer: seldom since
the war of Pygmies and Cranes was there seen so anomalous a thing.
Half-pay Elie is home for a suit of regimentals; no one would heed him
in coloured clothes: half-pay Hulin is haranguing Gardes Francaises in
the Place de Greve. Frantic Patriots pick up the grape-shots; bear
them, still hot (or seemingly so), to the Hotel-de-Ville:--Paris, you
perceive, is to be burnt! Flesselles is 'pale to the very lips' for the
roar of the multitude grows deep. Paris wholly has got to the
acme of its frenzy; whirled, all ways, by panic madness. At
every street-barricade, there whirls simmering, a minor
whirlpool,--strengthening the barricade, since God knows what is
coming; and all minor whirlpools play distractedly into that grand
Fire-Mahlstrom which is lashing round the Bastille.

And so it lashes and it roars. Cholat the wine-merchant has become an
impromptu cannoneer. See Georget, of the Marine Service, fresh from
Brest, ply the King of Siam