On the 13th, towards four o'clock in the afternoon, a skirmish of the German regiment on the Place Vendôme, where it came into collision with the "demonstration"--as we should say to-day--which was displaying busts of Necker and the Duke of Orleans, and dispersed it. At six o'clock, a march of the same horse soldiers to the swinging-bridge of the Tuileries, where they had five or six chairs thrown at their head; and the massacre, by M. de Lambesc, of the legendary grey-beard who, an hour after, was describing his tragic end at the Palais-Royal! At nine o'clock, a military promenade of the same regiment along the boulevards. A volley from the Gardes Françaises slew two of their number, and the regiment beat a retreat without returning fire, to the great surprise of M. de Maleissye, officer of the Guards. For, by his own confession, if the cavalry had charged, it would easily have routed the Gardes Françaises "in the state of drunkenness in which they then were." And Besenval, terrified at such a resistance, assembled all his troops, shut himself up with them in the Champ de Mars, and did not move another step! We ask ourselves, "Was he a fool? or was he a traitor?" He was a fool, for he thought he had "three hundred thousand men" in front of him, took every excited person for a rebel, and did not understand that out of every hundred Parisians there were ninety who were relying on him to bring the mutineers to reason. He had no confidence in his troops, he said. It was rather for them to have no confidence in him, and to lose heart utterly at such a spectacle of cowardice. But he was slandering them. One solitary regiment showed disloyalty. And if he had only given the Swiss the word to march, their conduct on August 10 gives ample proof that they could have been depended on. "And then," says he again, "I was fearful of letting loose civil war!" Indeed! And so a soldier going to suppress a revolt is not to run the risk of fighting! Last reason of all: "I requested orders from Versailles--and did not get them!" What, then, had he in his pocket? Finally, after having sent word to Flesselles and De Launey to maintain their position till he arrived, and after having allowed the arms of the Invalides to be looted under his eyes without a single effort to save them, he waited till the Bastille was taken before making up his mind to leave the Champ de Mars, and to return quietly to Versailles with his 35,000 men, who had not fired a shot! Ah! those were the days for rioting! * * * * * "On July 13," says Michelet, "Paris was defending herself." (Against whom?) "On the 14th, she attacked! A voice wakened her and cried, 'On, and take the Bastille!' And that day was the day of the entire People!" Admirable poetry; but every word a lie!