Prise de la BASTILLE. L.A., July 15, 1789; 4pages in-4 (slight defects; the end is missing). Account of the storming of the Bastille by a participant. "From the morning of the 14th our Bourgeois troops, better armed and better ordered than the day before, numbering some 30 to 40 thousand, were reinforced"... They presented themselves without cannon in front of the Invalides; the doors were opened to them: "we found very little powder but at least 30 to 40 thousand rifles, pistols, sabers and eight or ten large cannons, not counting the small ones. [...] We wanted to attack the Bastille. I thought it impossible [...] The governor used cannonballs and grapeshot. There may have been 200 of our men killed, we were busy setting fire to the gates [...] and we went to take the biggest cannon, which we aimed at the place opposite the gate"; the inner defenses went to the breach, and M. de Launay, the governor, resorted to a ruse: "he lowered the drawbridge, and our Bourgeois troops, believing the place to be theirs, entered triumphantly; but as soon as there were around 200 of them, he had his invalids lay down their arms, and urged the Bourgeois to do the same; immediately the drawbridge was raised and our troops were fired upon". The cannon having made a breach, "our bourjois with some French guards entered with fury", and punished Launay: "we gave him a blow of bayonete on the figures, and then each one with envy gave him bourrades, we led it to the strike where he was hung"... 2 L.A.S. from François RAVAISSON-MOLLIEN, June 11, 1874 and n.d. (4p. in-8, coll. Taillade stamp). On his work, and in particular on the storming of the Bastille, about which he has found no accurate information: "the victors have generally kept a prudent silence, and the vanquished, those who escaped the massacre, have not wanted to say anything about it either; the truth is, I believe, that the prison was poorly attacked and not defended at all"; Louis XVI let it happen, and the people of the Bastille did not want to take responsibility, etc.