Note 202 — Front matter (continued 4)

Madame de Genlis, who witnessed the demolition of the Bastille, in her gossiping yet very interesting memoirs, writes, "I experienced the most exquisite joy in witnessing the demolition of that terrible monument, in which had been immured and where had perished, without any judicial forms, so many innocent victims. The desire to have my pupils see it led me to take them from St. Leu to pass a few hours in Paris, that they might see from the garden of Beaumarchais all the people of Paris engaged in destroying the Bastille. It is impossible to give one an idea of that spectacle. It must have been seen to conceive of it as it was. That redoubtable fortress was covered with men, women, and children, toiling with inexpressible ardor upon the loftiest towers and battlements. The astonishing number of workmen, their activity, their enthusiasm, the joy with which they saw this frightful monument of despotism crumbling down, the avenging hands which seemed to be those of Providence, and which annihilated with so much rapidity the work of many ages, all that spectacle spoke equally to the imagination and the heart."—Mémoires sur le Dix-huitième Siècle et la Revolution Française de Madame la Comtesse de Genlis, tome iii., p. 261.