On mastering the despatch, M. Dampierre told each guest to fill his glass; then, lifting his own, “To the victory of the King, and the extermination of the rebels!” he cried. “Drink with me, gentlemen.” “To the victory of the King, and the extermination of the rebels!” cried all, with one voice. But before they had time to put the glasses to their lips, a furious gallop, coming from the direction of Paris, was heard; and, shouting with joy, a horseman, with a tricolor in his hat, shot past like a whirlwind, crying to M. Dampierre and his friends these words—not less terrible than those that Belshazzar read, in letters of fire, on the wall,—“The Bastille is taken! Long live the people!” The horseman was Jean Baptiste Drouet, who was riding at full speed to announce to his friends at Varennes the news of the victory that the people had obtained over their King. This news which he proclaimed in every city and in every village that he passed, brightened his route with a flash vivid as lightning. CHAPTER VII. CONCERNING THE BASTILLE. All France gave one cry of joy when the news arrived that the Bastille was taken. All the world knew the Bastille—that prison which has given its name to others. From one end of France to the other, all shook hands, congratulating each other on the event. And, strange to say, the Bastille was taken by those who had never entered it—in fact, it was a place of imprisonment for nobles only. One would have thought, from the fact of their attacking it, that it was a place which they themselves had to dread. Ah! it was a horrible den. You were not dead there; but what was worse, you were forgotten. Your father, wife, or brother dared not speak of you, for fear they should be sent there likewise. Once there, you no longer had a name, but a number. You died, and they buried you under a false name. No; the King did not deprive you of your head; he was too good for that; he only forgot you. Instead of dying in a moment, you suffered unutterable tortures for perhaps thirty years. In the reign of Louis XVI all the rigors of prisons were softened, with the exception of the Bastille, the discipline of which was harsher than ever. In former reigns they had barred the windows; but now they also stopped the promenades in the gardens. It is true that Louis XVI did not actually do this himself but he suffered it to be done, which is all the same. Louis XVI did not himself shut up the garden. No; it was De Launay, who was as unpopular as he well could be. At the Bastille all bought the places that they occupied, from the Governor down to the gaolers. Every situation was worth having, except that of the prisoners. The Governor had sixty thousand livres salary. He made a hundred and twenty thousand by his plunders. We have already spoken of the garden of the Bastille open to the prisoners. It was but a little plot of ground, planted, as it were, upon a bastion.