The Days of the French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert Page A

strait-jacket used to keep prisoners in tight constraint, and a confiscated printing-press which they were told was an instrument of torture. Later they were regaled with bones, probably of soldiers killed in a long-forgotten siege, but ascribed to poor unfortunate prisoners of much later date.
    The next morning, a contractor specializing in the demolition of old buildings submitted an application he had put forward before to pull the building down, supporting his claim for consideration by making the unfounded assertion that he had played a leading role in its capture. He was given the contract and, having taken on a thousand workmen to fulfil the Permanent Committee’s instructions that the Bastille ‘should be demolished without delay’, he made a great deal of money in providing the people of France with relief plans of the fortress carved on stones and with souvenir paperweights, boxes, inkpots, doorstops and key-plates made from the irons in which the prisoners had allegedly been locked.
     
    While Paris celebrated the fall of the Bastille, voices were heard in the crowds urging the people to follow up their triumph by marching on Versailles and demanding the recall of Necker. But more cautious men suggested that, so long as there were so many troops in and around Paris, it would be better to wait and see what the King would now do. In the meantime the tocsin rang repeatedly to warn them that the danger was not past, and the more determined and wary citizens continued to tear up paving-stones and to build barricades. Before nightfall a heavy rain began to pour down, driving the revellers home and bringing their celebrations to an end.

3
THE DAY OF THE MARKET-WOMEN
    5–6 October 1789
    ‘We must have a second fit of Revolution’
    LOUSTALOT

    The King had been out all day hunting. Returning tired, he went to bed early and was awakened by the news of the fall of the Bastille. ‘Is this a rebellion?’ he is said sleepily to have asked the Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, the Grand Master of the Wardrobe. ‘No, Sire,’ the Duke replied emphatically, ‘it is a revolution.’
    Within an hour the Duke was hurrying over to the National Assembly to tell the deputies that the King was coming to address them. The deputies greeted this announcement warmly, but their applause was cut short by Mirabeau who stood up to advise them, ‘Wait until the King has let us know what friendly overtures we may expect from him. Let our first greeting to him at this distressing moment be marked by a cold respect…The silence of the people is a lesson for kings.’
    Mirabeau’s warning was justified. The King’s submission was, as Thomas Jefferson, the American Minister, described it, only a ‘surrender at discretion’. He did say that he had ordered the withdrawal of troops from Paris and Versailles, but, while denying that he planned any action against the National Assembly – to which he referred by that name – he undertook neither to dismiss Breteuil nor to recall Necker. All the same, grateful for his concession regarding the troops, the delegates respectfully escorted the King back to the palace and were followed by a cheering crowd. Even the Queen was applauded for a short time when she appeared on a balcony of the Cour de Marbre.
    Soon afterwards a delegation of eighty-eight deputies left Versailles to convey the King’s reassurances about the troops to the people of Paris. They drove ‘in splendid weather in an atmosphere like that of a public festival’. ‘Our journey,’ wrote Bailly, ‘was one long triumph. At several places we came upon troops marching away from the capital, and crowds of people shouting, “ Vive la Nation! ” as our carriages drove past.’ In Paris, where most workshops were closed and groups of tense people had been gathered in the streets since dawn, the deputies were greeted with delight, their carriages were surrounded, they were handed flowers and cockades, hugged and kissed. ‘Every