That was the true word. It was a revolution. With the taking of the Bastille the Revolution of France was fairly inaugurated. As for that detested fortress, its demolition began on the next day, amid the thunder of cannon and the singing of the _Te Deum_. It had dominated Paris, and served as a state-prison for four hundred years. Its site was henceforward to be kept as a monument to liberty. _THE STORY OF THE SAINTE AMPOULE._ Sad years were they for kings and potentates in France--now a century ago--when the cup of civilization was turned upside-down and the dregs rose to the top. For once in the history of mankind the anarchist was lord--and a frightful use he made of his privileges. Not only living kings were at a discount, but the very bones of kings were scattered to the winds, and the sacred oil, the "Sainte Ampoule," which for many centuries had been used at the coronation of the kings of France, became an object of detestation, and was treated with the same lack of ceremony and consideration as the royal family itself. Thereby hangs a tale. But before telling what desecration came to the Sainte Ampoule through the impious hands of the new lords of France, it may be well to trace briefly the earlier history of this precious oil. Christianity came to France when Clovis, its first king, was baptized. And although we cannot say much for the Christian virtues of the worthy king Clovis, we are given to understand that Heaven smiled on his conversion, for the story goes that a dove came down from the realm of the blessed, bearing a small vial of holy oil, which was placed in the hands of St. Remy to be used in anointing the king at his coronation. Afterwards the saint placed this vial in his own tomb, where it was after many years discovered by miracle. It is true, St. Remy tells us none of this. Our authority for it is Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, who flourished four centuries after Clovis and his converter had been gathered to their fathers. But as Hincmar defied those who doubted the story of the dove and the vial to prove the contrary, and produced a vial of oil from the saint's tomb in further proof of his statement, no reasonable person--at that day--could longer deny it, though the first mention of it is by a chronicler who lived a century and a half after the saint.