Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/718

652 churches of Versailles. Many of the clergy had already joined the body. Two days later the nobility came. The eloquent Bailly, President of the Assembly, in receiving them, exclaimed, "This day will be illustrious in our annals; it renders the family complete." The States-General had now become in reality the National Assembly.

Storming of the Bastile (July 14, 1789).—During the opening weeks of the National Assembly, Paris was in a state of great excitement. The Bastile was the old state prison, the emblem, in the eyes of the people, of despotism. A report came that its guns were trained on the city; that provoked a popular outbreak. "Let us storm the Bastile," rang through the streets. The mob straightway proceeded to lay siege to the grim old dungeon. In a few hours the prison fortress was in their hands. The walls of the hated state prison were razed to the ground, and the people danced on the spot. The key of the fortress was sent as a "trophy of the spoils of despotism" to Washington by Lafayette.

The destruction by the Paris mob of the Bastile is in the French Revolution what the burning of the papal bull by Luther was to the Reformation. It was the death-knell not only of Bourbon despotism in France, but of royal tyranny everywhere. When the news reached England, the great statesman Fox, perceiving its significance for liberty, exclaimed, "How much is this the greatest event that ever happened in the world, and how much the best!"

The Emigration of the Nobles.—The fall of the Bastile left Paris in the hands of a triumphant mob. Those suspected of sympathizing with the royal party were massacred without mercy. The peasantry in many districts, following the example set them by the capital, rose against the nobles, sacked and burned their castles, and either killed the occupants or dragged them off to prison. This terrorism caused the beginning of what is known as the emigration of the nobles, their flight beyond the frontiers of France.

"To Versailles."—An imprudent act on the part of the king and his friends at Versailles brought about the next episode in the