STORM AND VICTORY.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLIII, Issue 2283, 5 February 1912, Page 7

STORM AND VICTORY.

THE FALL OF THE BASTILLE. How the great Bastille Clock ticks (inaudible) in its Inner Court there, at its ease, hour alter hour ; as i£ nothing special, for it or the world, were passing 1 It tolled One when the firing began ; and is now pointing towards Five, and still the firing slakes not.—Far down, in their vaults, the seven Prisoners hear muffled din as of earthquakes ; their turnkeys answer vaguely. Wo to thee, Dc Launay, with your poor hundred Invalides ! Broglie is distant, and his ears heavy : Lesenval hears, but can send no help. One poor troop of Hussars has crept, reconnoiterlng, cautiously along the Quais, as far as the Pont Neuf. We are come to join you," said the Captain ; for the crowd seems shoreless. A large-headed dwarfish individual, of smoke-bleared aspect, shambles forward, opening bis blue lips, for there is sense in him ; and croaks — "Alight then, and give up your arms !” The Hussar-Captain is too happy to be escorted to the Barriers, and dismissed on parole. Who the squat individual was ? Men answer, It is M. Marat, author of the excellent pacific "Avis au peuple !” Great truly, O thou remarkable Dogleech, is this thy day of emergeance and new-birth : and yet this day come four years—!— But let the curtains of the Future bang. What shall De Launay do ? One thing only De Launay could have done : what be said he would do. Fancy him sitting, from the first, with lighted taper, within arm’s length of the Powder-Magazine ; motionless, like old Homan Senator, or Bronze Lampholder ; coldly apprising Thuriot, and all men, by a slight motion of his eye, what his resolution was : Harmless he sat there, while unharmed ; but the King’s Fortress, meanwhile, could, might, would, or should in no wise be surrendered, save to the King’s messenger : one old man’s life is worthless, so It be lost with honour; but think, ye brawling "canaille*, ” how will it be when a whole Bastille springs skyward !—ln such statuesque taper-holding attitude, one fancies De Launay might have left. Thuriot the red Clerks of the Basochc, Cure of Saiut-Stephen and all the tag-rag-and-bobtail of the world, to work their will. And yet, withal, he could not do it. Hast thou considered how each man’s heart is so tremendously responsive to the hearts of all men ; hast thou noted how omnipotent is the very sound of many men ? How their shriek of indignation palsies the strong soul ; their howl of contumely withers with unfelt pangs ? The Ritter Gluck confessed that the ground tone of the noblest passage, in one of his noblest Operas, was the voice of the Populace he had beard at Vienna, crying to their Kaiser : Bread ! Bread ! Great is the combined voice of men ; tin utterance of their instincts, which are truer than their thoughts : it is the greatest a. man encounters, among the sounds and shadows which make up this World of Time. He who can resist that, has his footing somewhere beyond Time. De Launay could not do it. Distracted, he hovers between two ; hopes in the middle of despair; surrenders not his Fortress ; declares that he will blow it up, seizes torches to blow it up, and does not blow it up, Unhappy old De Launay, it is the death-agony of thy Bastille and thee ! Jail, Jalloring, and Jailor, all three, such as they may have been must finish. For four hours now has the WorldBedlam roared : call it. the WorldChimaera, blowing fire ! The poor Invalides have sunk under their battlements, or rise only with reversed muskets : they have made a white flag of napkins ; go beating the "chamade,’’ or seeming to beat, for one can hear nothing. The very Swiss at the Portcullis look weary of firing ; disheartened in the firedeluge : a porthole at the drawbridge is opened, as by one that would speak. See Huissier Maillard the shifty man ! On his plank, swinging over the abyss of that stone Ditch ; plank resting on parapet, balanced by weight of Patriots, —he hovers perilous : such a Dove towards such an Ark ! Deftly, thou shifting Usher ; one man already fell ; and lies smashed, far down there, against the masonry ! Usher Maillard falls not : deftly, unerring he walks, with outspanned palm. The Swiss holds a paper through his porthole ; the shifty Usher snatches it, and returns. Terms of surrender: Pardon, immunity to all ! Are they accepted ? " 'Pol d’offlcier,’ On the word of an officer,” answers halfpay Hulin,—or half-pay Elie, for men do not a£ ree on It, —"they are !’ Sinks the drawbridge,—Ushe? Millard bolting It when down ; rushes-ln the living deluge : the Bastille is fallen ! "Victoire ! La Bastille est prise !’’--Carlyle ; "The French Revolution."