De Launay was on the ground, his head buzzing, and he tried to get up but was too weak to make a move. He tried to call for help from those next to him, but those next to him were also on the ground, unable to move. Moreover, he couldn't even hear himself shouting.
'It's over, the gunpowder depot must have exploded.' De Launay thought so.
The gunpowder storage in the Bastille certainly did not contain the hundreds of thousands of pounds of gunpowder capable of blowing up the entire Bastille; in fact, the total amount of gunpowder there was less than 10,000 pounds. But if that 10,000 pounds of gunpowder did blow up, it would be quite deadly.
'Damn, I wonder if the walls are down yet.' De Launay thought.
After who knows how long, de Launay finally regained a bit of strength, and, holding onto the table, he reluctantly climbed up and stumbled over to the walls.
A long crack appeared on the city wall, wide enough to fit a fist. Most of the defenders on the wall were still on the ground, and only one or two had their hands on the palisade and were struggling to get up.
"What's going on? What happened?" De Launay asked aloud.
No one answered him, and even one of the soldiers, who had already gotten up, just looked at him with confused eyes as if he didn't understand what he was saying at all.
De Launay realized that this must be because he couldn't hear himself speak at all - the explosion earlier had damaged his hearing. In fact, de Launay himself couldn't even hear what he was saying.
De Launay stumbled over to the palisade wall and peered down.
There was a large pit not far from the trench, and smoke rising slowly from it. All the houses in a thirty to forty-meter radius around this pit have collapsed. A little farther down the street, the streets, and even the roofs of buildings that hadn't collapsed yet, were filled with people.
'What's ... this ... going on? Did a meteorite fall here?' Such strange thoughts even popped into de Launay's head all at once.
It was certainly not caused by a meteorite but by the result of a passionate collision between a large explosive charge and a bullet.
Just now, a horse-drawn wagon was brought in, loaded with a "new type of dynamite" that is said to be used for mining.
"We are with the Duke of Orleans, and this is the dynamite we use for mining. We wrapped the dynamite and stuck in the fuse. All it takes is one warrior, a real one, like Oenomaus (the character in Spartacus who ends up singing the "Slave War Song" on the cross.), to risk taking a tyrant's bullet and send this thing under the walls to ignite it, and it could blow a whole section of the wall into the sky in one fell swoop." The man who drove the wagon here exclaimed.
"These things can blow up the walls?" A man asked, not quite believing it.
"As long as there are enough explosives, they can bring down even a mountain." The man driving the carriage replied.
At that moment, a large man approached, shouting, "I'll do it, I'll do it!" as he reached down and grabbed a bag of dynamite from the wagon.
"So light?" The big guy bristled, "There's only a little more gunpowder in here, what can this do?"
"What we have here is dynamite, which is much more powerful than gunpowder. And it's not lighter either, there are twelve pounds of dynamite in it!" The wagon driver said.
"Don't be cheap, add more." The big guy said, "It might take several sacrifices to get one of these through. If it's not powerful enough, and putting one over there isn't enough, won't more people have to be sacrificed? So the more powerful, the better, and the more explosives packed, the better. I say we just pool the contents of these things together and send the entire Bastille into the sky at once, what do you say?"
The people around them then boomed together accordingly.
"That's right!"
"Send them all to heaven!"
"Let them go up there and ask God for forgiveness themselves!"
That big guy saw that everyone was supporting him, so he became increasingly energized and simply took matters into his own hands and started dismantling the explosive packages.
"Hey, hey! Don't move, we'll do it, we'll do it, if you don't know how to do it, you'll blow it up!" The man who drove the carriage hurriedly said.
Soon, the five explosive packets on the wagon were synthesized into one.
"This thing is over sixty pounds. Can you hold it?" The wagon driver asked.
That big guy grabbed the large explosive packet with one hand and tossed it lightly in the air, scaring the wagon driver so much that he almost fell to the ground.
"It's okay, it doesn't weigh much. Someone give me another torch!" The big guy shouted.
"Yes, yes!" Someone yelled, shoving a lit torch in front of the big guy's face at once, almost poking right into the explosive pack.
"Be careful!" The big guy took the torch with one hand and held the explosive packet under his armpit with the other, "Aren't you afraid of a 'boom' that'll send us all flying into the sky?"
"'My brothers, what have we to fear? We have nothing to fear! For what can be more agonizing, more terrible, than the life we have lived in this life?
What is there for us to fear when we live like pigs and are trampled like dirt? Do we have anything more to lose? Is there anything left for us to live for?
Friends, brothers, if there is anything we can lose in battle, the only thing we can lose is the chains that bind us, but once we are victorious, what we have won will be the whole world! A new world where no one can oppress or enslave anymore!' (Spartacus' line)" Instead, the man replied.
The big guy laughed, "Well my brother, don't recite the lines, we all know them! Well, if you're brave enough, you'll follow me, and if I fall down before I get to the walls, then you'll take the dynamite packs and torches I'm holding and keep fighting instead! How about that, any questions?"
"No problem!" The hairy guy replied loudly.
"That's good! Let's get going!" The big guy said.
"Wait a minute! Wait!" The cart driver suddenly shouted, "You can't just charge like that, you need cover. Let's get some more men and head up the hill from different angles so we can distract them. The others fire on the Bastille at the same time to cover them."
"Hey, that's a great idea you had!" Everyone shouted together, "Let's do it!"
"I'll charge too!"
"Wrap a fake dynamite pack for me! I can attract their attention too!"
The militia then began to crackle and fire toward the Bastille, and a dozen men took advantage of the opportunity to rush toward it.
The guards on the walls opened fire, and several rifles even aimed at the big man because he was so big. But as big as the big guy's target was, he was also fast, and several bullets landed behind him, missing him. Instead, the hairy guy running after him was hit by a bullet that flew towards the big guy but hit him crookedly.
"Big guy, forward!" The hairy guy shouted as he fell.
By this time, however, the big man had rushed to the front of the trench and had to slow down to leap into it safely. But just as he slowed down, a wire-bore hunting rifle took aim at him.
"Bang!" The hunting rifle went off. To the eyes of the Swiss soldier who fired it, the tall, big man looked like a big brown bear in an Alpine forest. In his anticipation, with the sound of his gun, the big man would surely fall to the ground, like the brown bears he had hit before and maybe roll twice.
However, to his surprise, the brown bear didn't fall down and roll around but instead exploded all at once.
Yes, the bullet he fired hit the explosive packet the big guy was holding.
The amazing explosive power of high explosives was shown at this moment. A huge ring-shaped shockwave visible to the naked eye swept across this large area in an instant. A few people not far away from the big man were torn to shreds by the shockwave and thrown apart almost instantly. Then came the surrounding buildings, and under the shockwave, they looked like models built out of playing cards had met a super typhoon. Just as soon as the ring shockwave touched them, they were immediately torn into pieces and floated away.
Immediately after, this shockwave hit the walls of the Bastille so hard that the tall walls shook violently, like a small boat in the midst of a shockwave.
Those soldiers standing on the walls were almost instantly toppled to the ground by the shockwave and then stunned by the explosions that followed.
If another pair of militiamen had rushed up at this time, then surely they could have easily cut the cables hanging from the drawbridge, crashed through the gates, and stormed into the Bastille. But by this time, the militia were in even worse shape than the defenders. The militiamen suffered more casualties because they were closer to the point of the explosion, and almost none of the militiamen who were firing to cover the offensive operation were hiding behind the houses destroyed by the shockwave. Almost none of them were spared after the explosion.
The militia fighters who were a bit farther away were stunned by the loudness of the explosion, and they naturally couldn't be thrown into the attack. As for the militia further away, they had no idea what was happening in front of them, and since the militia didn't have a clear chain of command, they were in disarray at the moment. They didn't even think to take advantage of the opportunity to attack. So, an opportunity like this just slipped through their fingers.