The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 3 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and PrivateJefferson, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 3 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
followed the cavalry, attacked them in the street, (_the rue basse des
ramparts_,) and killed four. (I did not know this fact with certainty
when I wrote to Mr. Jay, it is therefore not in my letter. I since have
it from an eye-witness.) The insurrection became now universal. The next
day (the 13th) the people forced a prison and took some arms. On the
14th a committee was framed by the city, with powers corresponding to our
committees of safety. They resolve to raise a city militia of forty-eight
thousand men. The people attack the invalids and get a great store of
arms. They then attack and carry the Bastile, cut off the Governor's and
Lieutenant-Governor's heads, and that also of the Prevost des Marchand's,
discovered in a treacherous correspondence. While these things were
doing here, the council is said to have been agitating at Versailles a
proposition to arrest a number of the members of the States, to march all
the foreign troops against Paris, and suppress the tumult by the sword.
But the decapitations being once known there, and that there were fifty
or sixty thousand men in arms, the King went to the States, referred
everything to them, and ordered away the troops. The City Committee named
the Marquis de La Fayette commander-in-chief. They went on organizing
their militia, the tumult continued, and a noise spread about Versailles
that they were coming to massacre the court, the ministry, &c. Every
minister hereupon resigned and fled, the Count d'Artois, Prince of Condé,
Duke de Bourbon, the family of Polignacs, the Count de Vaudreuil, Abbé
Vermont, confessor of the Queen, and key-stone of all the intrigues, all
fled out of the kingdom. The King agreed to recall Mr. Neckar, reappointed
Montmorin and St. Priest, friends of Neckar, and came with the States
General to Paris to satisfy the city of his dispositions. All the streets
through which he passed were lined with Bourgeoise, armed with guns,
pistols, pikes, pruning-hooks, scythes, and whatever they could lay
hold of, about sixty thousand. The States General on foot on each side
of his coach, the Marquis de La Fayette at their head, on horseback.
He returned to Versailles in the same order, to the great joy of the
remaining courtiers, who feared he would have been detained in Paris.
The tumults in the city had pretty well subsided, but to-day they have
been revived by a new incident. Foulon, one of the fugitive ministers,
was taken in the country, (it is said by his own tenants,) and brought
to Paris. Every possible effort of persuasion was exerted in vain to
save him. He was forced from the hands of the Gardes Bourgeoises by the
mob, was hung, and after severing his head, the body was dragged by the
enraged populace through the principal streets of Paris. The Intendant of
Paris (de Chauvigny), accused of having been in the plots with the late
ministry, and who had fled, was taken at Compiegne, and a party of two
hundred militia horse are now gone for him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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