master of the ceremonies called upon them to obey, Mirabeau exclaimed: 'Tell your master that we sit here by the power of the people, and that we are only to be driven out by the bayonet!' The weak king did not venture to encounter this resolute resistance by force, but rather advised the nobility and clergy to join the citizens.
The government of the city was made over to a democratic municipality, at the head of which stood Bailli, as mayor. The court, alarmed at the increasing ferment, determined upon retiring to Versailles with a few regiments of German and Swiss troops. In this proceeding, the leaders of the movement believed they saw the purpose of some act of violence, and made use of it accordingly to excite fresh irritation. The intelligence was spread abroad in Paris, that Necker had been suddenly dismissed and banished from the country, and a favorite of the queen placed in his office. This was interpreted as the first step in the contemplated outrage, and proved the signal for a general rise. Crowds of the citizens, wearing the newly-invented national cockade, (blue, white, and red,) paraded through the streets, the alarm-bell was sounded, the work-shops of the gunsmiths plundered; tumult and confusion reigned everywhere. On the 14th of July, after the populace had taken 30,000 stand of arms and some cannon from the Hospital des Invalides, took place the storming of the Bastille, an old castle that served as a state prison. The governor, Delaunay, and seven of the garrison, fell victims to the popular rage; their heads were carried through the streets upon poles; and many men who were hated as aristocrats were put to death. The banished Necker was recalled, and his entrance into the towns and villages of France was celebrated as that of a hero crowned with victory. In this joyous reception of the minister, the people displayed their enthusiasm for liberty and their hatred to the court and the aristocracy. Lafayette, the champion of the liberty of America, was appointed commander of the National Guard, and whilst the king returned to Paris, and exhibited himself to the assembled people from the balcony of the council-house with the cockade in his hat, the count of Artois, and many nobles of the first rank, as Condé, Polignac, left their country in mournful anticipation of coming events.
Since the storming of the Bastille, the laws and magistrates had lost their authority in France, and the power lay in the hands of the populace. The country people no longer paid their tithes, taxes, and feudal dues to the clergy and nobles, but took vengeance for the long oppression they had suffered, by destroying the manorial castles. When intelligence of these proceedings spread abroad, it was proposed in the National Assembly, that the upper classes should prove to the people by their actions, that they were willing to lighten their burdens, and that, with this purpose, they should renounce, of their own free will, all the inherited feudal privileges of the middle ages. This proposal excited a storm of enthusiasm and self-renunciation. None would be behind-hand. Estates, towns, provinces, each strove for the honor of making the greatest sacrifices for the common good. This was the celebrated 4th of August, when, in one feverish and excited session, all tithes, labor-dues, manorial rights, corporate bodies, etc., were abolished, the soil was declared free, and the equality of all citizens of the state before the law and in regard to taxation was decreed. These resolutions, and the necessary laws and arrangements required for their reduction to practice, which were gradually adopted, produced in a short time a
