Responding to the frantic appeals of a group of demonstrators, a second delegation of Electors, led by a lawyer, Thuriot de la Rozère, went up to the Governor’s lodging where they met the other delegates on their way out. Thuriot de la Rozère told the Governor that the people outside, believing that the guns had been withdrawn from view only to be loaded, were now demanding that a citizen’s militia should be allowed into the stronghold to hold it in the name of the city. The Governor protested that the guns were certainly not being loaded, and he invited Thuriot – who knew the Bastille well having often visited one of his clients there – to satisfy himself that no attack on the people was intended. He took Thuriot up to the top of the towers to show him the unloaded guns and the blocked-up apertures; he urged him to believe that he would never open fire unless he were attacked; he gave his word of honour that he intended no harm to anyone and, in Thuriot’s presence, he asked the garrison to swear that they would not use their arms except in self-defence, an undertaking which they were only too willing to give. So eager, in fact, was the Governor to display his good intentions that Thuriot believed he would have agreed to accept a citizens’ militia had not his officers declared that they would all be dishonoured if they gave in so meekly.
When Thuriot came out again into the Cour du Passage, the crowds thronging the courtyard had become threatening and angry. A few, impatient with the unsatisfactory negotiations, shouted abuse at him. Others cried out, ‘We want the Bastille! Out with the troops!’ The mob was denser than ever now, the new arrivals pushing forward so that those in front were forced towards the edge of the moat that separated the Cour du Passage from a second courtyard, the Cour du Gouvernement. The two drawbridges which spanned the moat, the pedestrian and the wider one for carriages, had both been pulled up.
In the towers high above these bridges the involutes looked down at the swirling mass of cockaded hats and heaving shoulders of the crowds that now stretched as far as the Rue des Tournelles. They shouted at them to retreat, as the cannon were loaded now and the Swiss troops might be persuaded to open fire. They waved their caps in the air and made warning gestures. The sound of their words was lost above the roar of voices in the Cour du Passage, but the gesticulations were observed and apparently misinterpreted as signs of encouragement. For at that moment two men, followed by several others, clambered on to the roof of one of the shops that lined the northern side of the Cour du Passage, dashed along the walk at the top of the rampart wall and jumped down into the Cour du Gouvernement on the other side of the moat. Here they broke into the guardhouse, emerged with axes and sledge-hammers, and began to slash at the pulleys of the drawbridges. There was a sudden rattle of chains; the drawbridges began to move. The men on the far side of the moat pushed furiously against the bodies behind them in an effort to get back from the edge as the immense bound planks, now fully released, fell towards them. But one man was killed and another badly hurt by an impact they could not avoid. The crowd behind them rushed over their bodies into the Cour du Gouvernement.
To their right were the Governor’s lodgings; to their left the main gate of the Bastille itself, its huge entrance blocked by a further raised drawbridge across another deep moat. For a moment the leaders seemed to hesitate, wondering what to do. Then the crackling sound of musketry fire rang out, followed by the boom of a cannon.
Afterwards there was bitter controversy as to who first started firing. According to the assailants it was the defenders who opened fire on them as soon as they debouched from the narrow passage between the Governor’s lodgings and the guardhouse, shouting ‘Down with the drawbridge!’ But Lieutenant Deflue insisted that it was the besiegers who ‘fired the first shots at those on top of the towers…The assailants were asked what they wanted, and the general demand was for the bridge to be lowered. They were told that this could not be done and that they must withdraw, or else they would be shot. They renewed their cries, “Down with the bridge!” It was then that the order to fire was given.’
Finding themselves under a heavier fire than they were able to return, the assailants took shelter in a range of buildings to the right of the gate which contained the Bastille’s kitchens. From here several ran out to attack the drawbridge but were driven back by the fire of the garrison. So two carts filled with straw were brought up from Santerre’s brewery, set alight and dragged in front of the drawbridge to afford the protection of a smoke screen.
It was now about two o’clock in the afternoon. And it was at this time that yet another delegation from the Permanent Committee at the Hôtel de Ville, led by Delavigne, the Chairman of the Assembly of Electors, and the Abbé Fauchet, arrived at the Bastille hoping to prevent further bloodshed by persuading the Governor to hand over the fortress to a citizens’ militia who would ‘guard it in conjunction with the troops of the existing garrison’ and who would be ‘under orders from the city’. But so great was the noise of firing and shouting that they could not make themselves heard above the din; nor was the slightest notice taken by the garrison of the white handkerchiefs which the Electors’ delegates waved above their heads. ‘We do not know whether our signals were noticed and understood,’ they subsequently reported. ‘But the firing never stopped.’ Eventually they managed to affect a partial ceasefire in the Rue Saint-Antoine. ‘Although we renewed our signals, however, the garrison went on firing at us,’ the report continued. ‘And we experienced the pain and mortification of seeing several citizens, whose brave fight we had interrupted, fall at our sides. The assailants therefore resumed their fire with as much indignation now as courage. And we could do nothing to prevent them. They were no longer interested in our deputation. What they wanted now, and loudly clamoured for, was the destruction of that fearful prison and the death of its Governor.’
At the Hôtel de Ville the Permanent Committee, concerned by the failure of Delavigne’s delegation to restore order at the Bastille, decided to make one final effort to persuade the Governor to agree to their terms. Wounded men were being carried into the building on makeshift stretchers and in the arms of their friends. Others arrived to demand more ammunition and then shouted abuse at Flesselles who was disbelieved when he declared that he had none left to give them. It was even feared that if the slaughter continued unavailingly at the Bastille, the people might turn upon the Hôtel de Ville in their fury. So Ethis de Corny set out with five other delegates, carrying a large flag and accompanied by a drummer of the Gardes-françaises.
As the delegation approached the Bastille by the Cour de l’Orme, the flag was vigorously waved and the Garde-française loudly beat his drum. Two of their number, Boucheron and Piquod de Saint-Honorine, forced their way through the crowds across the Cour du Passage and over the drawbridges into the Cour du Gouvernement where, persuading the assailants to stop firing for a moment, Boucheron shouted to the garrison at the top of his voice that the city had sent a delegation to discuss terms but that they must all hold their fire and lay down their arms.
‘A person in a coloured coat, in the middle of a group of invalides who were all holding their hats in their hands, answered me from the summit of the citadel,’ Boucheron recorded. ‘He said he was willing to receive the delegation but the crowd must withdraw.’
Behind Boucheron and Piquod de Saint-Honorine, the other members of the delegation could see that the invalides were quite ready to accept their terms. They were waving their hats in the air and turning their muskets upside down; one went so far as to wave a white flag. But these friendly gestures suddenly ceased, being brought to a halt, so the invalides later maintained, by the Governor who insisted that the delegates did not really represent the city but were leaders of the mob, intent on trickery.