Thousands upon thousands of commoners gather for the attack on the hated symbol of royal authority, the prison fortress of Bastille. Look! His impassioned eloquence touches the popular sympathies of the common soldiers who constitute the royal guard. They lower their opposing bayonets, identify their cause with the people's, the exultant throng rushes past. Hurrah! The Revolution shall sweep on. The King's foreign soldiery are the only loyal ones now. At the side of the Place de Greve the populace throw up barricades. The conflict twixt Kingship and democracy has begun. The people have won more cannon and more small arms. They rake the loyalist Swiss and Germans with a murderous fire. The foreign troops fight to the last. They are killed or overwhelmed as the victorious commonalty take possession of the Square. Danton who has directed the proletariat is the popular hero. Forget-Not has his share of the triumph too. "Come, my men," he yells. "On to the Police Prefect's palace--let us avenge the wrongs of police tyranny!" For in this dreadful hour the baleful Jacques-Forget-Not remembers a private vengeance--his followers need no second urging to haste with him to sack and slaughter.... Fox-like, Maximilien Robespierre, the "people's advocate," has watched from a safe recess the issue of the battle. Not for him, the risking of his precious skin! Later, in the councils of the new democratic State, he shall sway men to his purposes.... And now the mob, re-enforced by many of the popular soldiery, seeks the Bastille. Our previous description of the system of lettres de cachet and the wholesale imprisonments without warrant of law, will have given readers some idea of the hate with which this fortress of injustice was commonly regarded. Many of the attackers, no doubt, had friends or relatives immured there. 'Twas the monstrous and visible crime of the Kingship--the object all had immediately in view when crying "Down with tyranny!" In less than a day the Bastille falls. 'Tis but feebly defended by a few aged veterans and a handful of valiant Swiss. Their first fire kills some of the commoners and lashes the mob to fury. Up on the walls, bastions and parapets, away from the guns at the port holes, crawl some of the more daring attackers. Others bring cannon, preparing to carry the siege by cannonade, investiture and starvation. The governor, seeing that it is a losing fight, parleys and yields. But, instead of observing the terms of the honorable surrender and safe-conduct, the inrushing mob slays and mutilates a number of the officers and defenders--the first inkling of what murder and rapine the Wild Beast of the Proletariat will commit! "Set free the victims of the tyrants!" is the sole thought after the lust of blood is satiated. The dungeons are opened, the prisoners brought forth, joy of reunion or pathos of sorrow is the result of these strange meetings, many of the victims being but the wrecks or shadows of their old selves.