Keversau

In the following viewpoint a French citizen named Keversau explains his role in the taking of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. A large crowd stormed the Bastille, the site of a large fortress and prison, in order to search for weapons to use against King Louis XVI, should he renege on proposed economic and political reforms and instruct his troops to attack Paris. More than one hundred people, including the governor of the Bastille, died in the attack. Keversau argues that the crowd behaved bravely despite being fired upon by the Bastille’s soldiers and praises the freeing of seven prisoners.

Veteran armies inured to War have never performed greater prodigies of valour than this leaderless multitude of persons belonging to every class, workmen of all trades who, mostly ill-equipped and unused...