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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 hap pened 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, die 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 seiges, 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 Flesselles, Prevot des Marchands, they seized him in the Hotel de Ville, where he was in the execution of his office, and cut off his head. These events, carried imperfectly to Versailles, were the subject of two successive deputations from the Assembly to die King, to both of which he gave dry and hard answers ; for nobody had as yet, been permitted to inform him, truly and fully, of what had passed at Paris. But at night, the Duke de Lian- court forced his way into the King s bed chamber, and obliged him to hear a full and animated detail of the disasters of the day in Paris. He went to bed fearfully impressed. The decapi tation of de Launay, worked powerfully through the night, on the whole Aristocratical party ; insomuch, that in the morning, those of the greatest influence on the Count d Artois, represented to him the absolute necessity, that the King should give up every thing to the Assembly. This according with the dispositions of the King, he went about eleven o clock, accompanied only by his brothers, to the Assembly, and there read to them a speech, in which he asked their interposition to re-establish order. Although couched in terms of some caution, yet the manner in which it was delivered, made it evident that it was meant as a surrender at discretion. He returned to the Chateau a foot, accompanied by the Assembly. They sent off a deputation, to quiet Paris, at the head of which was the Marquis de la Fayette, who had, the same morning, been named Commandant en chef of the Milice Bourgeoise ; and Monsieur Bailly, former President of the States General, was called for as Prevot des Marchands. The demolition of the Bastile was now ordered and begun. A body of the Swiss guards, of the regi-
