DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

ties, the mob gathered strength and boldness and pillaged the shops for bread and arms. An organized police force being unknown at the time, the main- tenance of order in Paris was entrusted to the Gardes Frangaises, a regiment of 3000 soldiers, all Parisians by birth. But as the men had become imbued with the ideas of the Revolution and frater- nised with the people, the citizens, to ensure order and their own safety, constituted themselves into a volunteer National Guard, under the command of the Marquis de Lafayette. This young nobleman, who had been the companion-in-arms of Washi ngton, played a conspicuous part during the early stages of the Revolution, but being saturated with vanity and egotism, he aimed at no higher object than the popularity of the mob, missed the greatest oppor- tunities of achieving a useful and splendid career, and ended a miserable failure. The riot in the meantime increased; the mob, swelled by some National Guards and uncontrolled by the others, made for the armoury of the Palace of the Invalides and took possession of its stores of weapons and ammunition. Then, bent on destroying some tangible manifestation of the detested govern- ment, they swayed towards the Bastille. The fortress of the Bastille, the state prison of France, situated in the centre of Paris, had long been an object of terror and hatred. At the end of the