During the following night and day (July 13) the barriers where the excise was levied were set on fire, the prisons opened, and bakers and wine shops pillaged. There were none in authority, and none who obeyed. The electors, sitting at the Hôtel de Ville, usurped what authority they could, which they exercised surrounded by a raging mob at imminent peril of their lives. At their appeal the bourgeoisie began promptly to raise an organised militia force in each of the sixty districts. Early next morning, July 14, the fury of the people was directed against the Bastille, the great State fortress and prison in the Faubourg St. Antoine, the ‘Tower’ of Paris, where for centuries past prisoners, often without charge of crime, had wasted their lives away. Its commander, the Marquis de Launay, had long since pulled up his drawbridges and made ready for defence as he watched the insurrection grow. His garrison was small, consisting only of thirty-two Swiss and eighty-two old French soldiers or Invalides. But the massive walls of the fortress and its double moat would effectually guard it against the assault of an undisciplined multitude. Summoned to surrender by a deputation from the Hôtel de Ville, De Launay replied that he would rather set fire to the powder magazine and blow the place to the skies. The population streamed by thousands to the spot, and the fortress was soon surrounded by a surging mob. An old soldier succeeded in cutting the chain which held up the drawbridge of the outer moat. A shout of triumph was raised. The assailants rushed over the fallen bridge, but only to be confronted by the second moat and unscaleable walls of the fortress. The French guards, bringing with them cannon, joined the besiegers, but all efforts to force the passage of the moat were frustrated. For five hours an incessant fire of musketry had been kept up. A hundred of the assailants lay dead, and but one of the garrison, when the Bastille unexpectedly and suddenly succumbed. The Invalides refused longer to resist, and compelled De Launay to surrender. Hulin, an officer leading the French guards, accepted the terms proposed--pardon and immunity for all. But he could not enforce their observance. The mass of human beings behind knew nothing of what those in front did. Enraged and uncontrollable, the mob broke into the fortress, those behind pushing aside those who went before, and striking blows at random. Six of the garrison were killed. De Launay was sent with an escort of French guards to the Hôtel de Ville. On the way the escort was hustled aside and the old man savagely murdered. His head, fixed on a pike, was carried in triumph about the streets. Late at night the news reached Versailles that the Bastille had fallen. ‘But,’ said Louis, ‘that is a revolt.’ ‘Sire,’ replied his informant, the Duke of Liancourt, ‘it is not a revolt, it is a revolution.’ ♦Establishment of a Municipality and of a National Guard in Paris.♦