The first reason is explained in the following excellent passage from _Rabagas_[57]:-- _Carle._--But how then do you distinguish a riot from a revolution? _Boubard._--A riot is when the mob is defeated ... they are all curs. A revolution is when the mob is the stronger: they are all heroes! During the night of July 14, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld woke Louis XVI. to announce to him the capture of the Bastille. "It's a revolt then," said the king. "Sire," replied the duke, "it is a revolution." The day on which the royal power, in its feebleness and irresolution, abandoned Paris to the mob, was the day of its abdication. The Parisians attempted to organize themselves into a citizen militia in order to shoot down the brigands. The movement on the Bastille was a stroke of genius on the part of the latter--instinctive, no doubt, but for all that a stroke of genius. The people now recognized its masters, and with its usual facility it hailed the new régime with adulation. "From that moment," said a deputy, "there was an end of liberty, even in the Assembly; France was dumb before thirty factionaries." What rendered the national enthusiasm for the conquerors more easy was precisely all those legends to which credence was given, in all sincerity, by the most intelligent people in France--the legends on the horrors of the Bastille and the cruelties of arbitrary power. For fifty years they had been disseminated throughout the kingdom, and had taken firm root. The pamphlets of Linguet and Mirabeau, the recent stupendous success of the _Memoirs of Latude_, had given these stories renewed strength and vigour. Compelled to bow before the triumphant mob, people preferred to regard themselves--so they silenced their conscience--as hailing a deliverer. There was some sincerity in this movement of opinion, too. The same districts which on July 13 took arms against the brigands could exclaim, after the crisis had passed: "The districts applaud the capture of a fortress which, regarded hitherto as the seat of despotism, dishonoured the French name under a popular king."