On the 11th of July, about a fortnight after the nobles and clergy had resumed their seats, he presented to the Assembly his Declaration of Rights, modeled upon the American Declaration of Independence, to be placed at the head of the French Constitution. Two days later he was elected vice-president of the Assembly "with acclamations." Toward evening of the 14th the Vicomte de Noailles came from Paris with the startling news that people had been fighting in the streets for hours; that they had gained possession of the Bastille, the gray old prison which stood in their eyes for all that was hateful in the old regime; that its commander and several of its defenders had been murdered; and that their heads were being carried aloft on pikes among the crowds. [Pg 196]On the 15th the king came with his brothers to the Assembly and made a conciliatory speech, after which Lafayette hurried away to Paris at the head of a delegation charged with the task of quieting the city. They were met at the Tuileries gate and escorted to the Hôtel de Ville, where the City Council of Paris, a parliament in miniature, held its meetings. Lafayette congratulated the city on the liberty it had won, delivered the king's message, and turned to go. As he was leaving the room somebody cried out saying that here was the man Paris wanted to command its National Guard, and that Bailly, who accompanied him, ought to be mayor. It was one of those sudden ideas that seem to spread like wildfire. Lafayette stopped, drew his sword, and, acting upon that first impulse which he was so apt to follow, swore then and there to defend the liberty of Paris with his life if need be. He sent a message to the National Assembly asking permission to assume the new office, and on the 25th took, with Bailly, a more formal oath. The force of militia which he organized and developed became the famous National Guard of Paris; while this governing body at the Hotel de Ville which had so informally elected him, enlarged and changing from time to time as the Revolution swept on, became the famous, and infamous, "Commune." Lafayette himself, not many days after he assumed the new office, ordered the destruction of the old Bastille. One of its keys he sent to Washington at Mount Vernon. Another was made into a sword and presented by his admirers to the man whose orders had reduced the old prison to a heap of stones.