The Commons refused to dissolve, and
the Nobles prepared for a _coup d'etat._ The foreign regiments, in the
pay of the government, were stationed about Paris, while the Bastille,
which was supposed to be impregnable, was garrisoned with Swiss. In
reply, on July 14, 1789, the citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille. An
unstable social equilibrium had been already converted by pressure into
a revolution. Nevertheless, excentric as the centre of gravity had now
become, it might have been measurably readjusted had the privileged
classes been able to reason correctly from premise to conclusion. Men
like Lafayette and Mirabeau still controlled the Assembly, and if the
King and the Nobility had made terms, probably the monarchy might have
been saved, certainly the massacres would have been averted. As a
decaying class is apt to do, the Nobility did that which was worst for
themselves. Becoming at length partly conscious of a lack of physical
force in France to crush the revolution, a portion of the nobility, led
by the Comte d'Artois, the future Charles X, fled to Germany to seek for
help abroad, while the bolder remained to plan an attack on the
rebellion.
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