Rumors and the National Guard (IV)

Charles couldn't find a reason to object to this suggestion. Although Joseph was not a command instructor, when he instructed the group in the construction of the barricades, they still felt that an instructor who taught at a military academy was far more capable in military matters than their own layman. 

"Of course there's no problem, as long as Mr. Bonaparte is willing, we are naturally more than welcome." Charles smiled, "I wonder if Mr. Bonaparte would be willing to help us."

"As a member of the community, I am naturally responsible. But as you all know, I am an active duty soldier, so if there are military orders from above, then I have to prioritize them. I'm willing to do my part as long as it doesn't go against military orders." Joseph replied.

"Well, then, let us all show our gratitude to Mr. Bonaparte!" Charles said.

That's how Joseph became a military advisor to the neighborhood's National Guard. Then, it was also agreed that tomorrow, they would begin the process of converting the neighborhood militias into the National Guard and start training them militarily. 

But that intention was almost immediately in vain. For it was at noon that day that new rumors appeared.

This rumor has it that cannons from the heights of Montmartre and the Bastille have been aimed at downtown Paris. An army loyal to the king is about to launch an attack on Paris.

It was a rumor, of course, but the vast majority of Parisian citizens believed it. And there's no way to disprove such rumors. This is not only because "rumor-mongering is easier said than done" but also because it is a political mistake to dispel rumors at this point in time. The angry public will regard anyone who tries to disprove the rumors as a "tyrant's lackey". They wouldn't hesitate to hang these guys from a streetlight pole.

Since no one dared to debunk the rumor, it naturally became more and more believable. No one dared to mention the holes in the rumor that were already there, and even as they spread, they were filled in again without a word. Anyway, the rumor convinced almost all the citizens of Paris.

In the course of the last few days, the citizens of Paris had armed themselves in part, especially after the capture of the undefended Les Invalides, from which more than thirty thousand rifles and a dozen cannons had been obtained. It's just that Les Invalides has only these guns and artillery but not enough gunpowder.

And so the newer rumor arose again on the basis of the previous rumor, which was that there was a great deal of gunpowder in the Bastille. This rumor was "reasonable" because if the king intended to use the Bastille's cannons to suppress the revolt in Paris, they would naturally have to stockpile enough gunpowder in the Bastille.

Attacking the heavily fortified heights of Montmartre was too much for the militia of Paris. But in comparison, the Bastille seems to be much more manageable.

The Bastille was built during the Hundred Years' War between England and France and was originally a fortress outside the city gates for the defense of Paris. It has eight towers about 30 meters high. The towers are connected by a wall of 30 meters high and 3 meters wide, and in later years, the wall was equipped with 15 cannons; the castle is surrounded by a 26-meter-wide and 8-meter-deep trench, which is connected to the Seine River, and there is only one drawbridge connecting it to the outside world. Definitely qualifies as a solid castle.

But later, as the city of Paris expanded, the Bastille fortress, which had been outside the city gates, became a building inside the city, and its military role in defending Paris was diminished. Thus, Bastille died as a military fortress and was replaced by Bastille as a fortress of kingship.

In the late 14th century, the fortress was converted into a royal prison for the most important "prisoners". Many of these detainees are political prisoners. Therefore, in the minds of the French, this prison is almost a symbol of the French authoritarian dynasty.

The Bastille garrison consisted of eighty-two men, and at the beginning of July, thirty-two more Swiss mercenaries were transferred to the Bastille to strengthen the defenses. But just in terms of the number of defenders, this is not comparable to Montmartre. And because of a lack of maintenance, the trench next to the Bastille is now dry. This further degraded the defenses of this former fortress. This made the militiamen feel all the more that they should be able to take down the fort.

So, early the next morning, a large (no one knows exactly how many) and disorganized armed population began to approach the Bastille. This event also naturally caused Charles' intention to overhaul the neighborhood's National Guard to have to be postponed. 

The Bastille was surrounded by tens of thousands of armed Parisian citizens, but these armed citizens with only rifles didn't really have much to do against the Bastille. The walls of this fortress were too high, and the trenches around it, though no longer watered, were still too wide and deep to climb over.

But the commander who guarded the Bastille, de Launay, thought otherwise. Many of its designs and concepts are so far behind the times that one might even say, "My lord, times have changed."

The towering walls of the Bastille were, in the circumstances of the fourteenth century, almost unconquerable. But this towering vertical wall has become a glaring weakness these days. The Battle of Constantinople in 1453 had proved that tall, vertical walls were very susceptible to massive collapse under artillery attack. So the walls of the fort thereafter became progressively lower and thicker, and the ramparts became more and more inwardly sloping. This prevents the wall from collapsing massively under the fire of the shells. But these improvements are not seen in the Bastille.

The walls of the Bastille were too high, up to 30 meters high, and completely vertical, yet only 3 meters thick. Such a wall could not withstand the bombardment of cannons. Since there was no longer a requirement to clear the shooting boundaries after the conversion to a prison, various buildings were built in the vicinity of the Bastille, which obscured the view of the guards on the Bastille quite a bit.

So de Launay was not at all sure that he could hold the old fortress.

So when the citizens began to close in on the Bastille, de Launay forbade the soldiers to shoot at the approaching citizens and offered them peace talks.

It took a lot of time for the citizens, in a chaotic manner, to elect a group of representatives to go into the Bastille to negotiate with the defenders. However, right in the middle of the negotiation process, a new rumor started to spread among the public because of miscommunication and the fact that the negotiation consumed too much time.

The rumor claimed that the delegates who had entered the Bastille had been killed by "the tyrant's dogs" in a brutal and merciless manner. This rumor immediately angered the tens of thousands of "armed mobs" gathered outside. So the crowd began to close in on the Bastille, and everyone shouted:

"Fight your way down to the Bastille and kill all the bad guys!"

"Kill them all! Kill them all!"

"Charge up! Go on!"

Someone led the singing of the Slave War Song, one or two at first, then more, which came together to form a rushing river toward the Bastille. Tens of thousands of militiamen, with rifles in their hands, approached the Bastille, singing, "The old world is in ruins, the slaves rise up". Some of the fast-moving militiamen had even crossed the trench, which had dried up and climbed to the drawbridge, swinging their axes and trying to cut the chains hanging from it.

In a panic, one of the Swiss guards fired a shot towards the militiaman holding his axe aloft. So, all peace negotiations went out the window, and the militia immediately fired back, and everyone crackled and fought.

The circumstances of the battle were less favorable to the militia, however; the Bastille's predecessor was, after all, a fortress, and even if it was only a fourteenth-century fortress, it still gave the defenders more of an advantage. In a rifle firefight, the guards, who had the cover of the fort and stood tall, easily took down a number of militia members. The untrained militia members, while numerous, couldn't even aim effectively. Many had never even touched a firearm before this and didn't even know how to aim it (but then again, whether or not a smoothbore can hit doesn't depend entirely on aiming a lot of the time. After the shoot, it is basically up to faith to hit the target. So they opened fire in a chaotic manner, and the crackling sound of gunfire became a piece. Although it seems lively, the result is good; it did not hit any target. (In the original history, until the surrender of the Bastille, there was only one minor injury among the defenders.) But the firepower on the defense side was far more effective, quickly knocking down dozens of militiamen and silencing the rest, who would surely have suffered far more if it weren't for the fact that plenty of buildings near the Bastille could provide them with cover.

For some time after that, the engagement went into a stalemate. More than once, Commander de Launay hung out his banner in hopes of negotiating a truce with the besiegers outside, but his gesture was rejected without hesitation by the besiegers outside. What de Launay was doing, they thought, was merely deceiving everyone, and he was no longer in a position to surrender after the men under him had fired on the people!

But not accepting negotiations is one thing, and being able to fight their way in is another, and the militia used all sorts of tactics, including some whimsical ones. It was suggested, for example, that burning linoleum could be used to start a fire or even to burn the garrison's artillery. However, after setting the linoleum on fire, they realized that there was no way for them to get the burning linoleum over the thirty-meter-high city wall.

Of course, others thought of artillery, which the militia did have in their hands. But they lacked gunners, so the few shellings they made from a safe distance were very unsuccessful. Although, in theory, the Bastille was a massive target, and firing at it would not be easy to hit crookedly, the militia gunners, who had never used artillery before, managed to keep their shells out of the way of the massive target in front of them. They fired several cannons, but even one of them managed to have managed to hit the walls of the Bastille.