Yet, their entrance is effected only because they are let in.

If they get into the Invalides it is owing to the connivance of the soldiers .-- At the Bastille, firearms are discharged from ten in the morning to five in the evening against walls forty feet high and thirty feet thick, and it is by chance that one of their shots reaches an invalid on the towers.

They are treated the same as children whom one wishes to hurt as little as possible.

The governor, on the first summons to surrender, orders the cannon to be withdrawn from the embrasures; he makes the garrison swear not to fire if it is not attacked; he invites the first of the deputations to lunch; he allows the messenger dispatched from the Hotel-de-Ville to inspect the fortress; he receives several discharges without returning them, and lets the first bridge be carried without firing a shot.[1242] When, at length, he does fire, it is at the last extremity, to defend the second bridge, and after having notified the assailants that he is going to do so.

In short, his forbearance and patience are excessive, in conformity with the humanity of the times.