Under the command of the Comte de Saint-Chamans[219],çoisRené the first column of the Guard set out from the Madeleine to proceed along the boulevards to the Bastille. No sooner had they started, than the platoon commanded by M. Sala[220] was attacked; the royalist officer briskly repulsed the assault. As they advanced, the posts of communication left behind on the road, too weak and too far removed one from the other, were cut by the people and separated by felled trees and barricades. An affray took place, attended with bloodshed, at the Portes Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin. Passing by the scene of the future exploits of Fieschi[221], M. de Saint-Chamans encountered numerous groups of women and men on the Place de la Bastille. He called upon them to disperse, distributing some money among them; but the people persisted in firing from the surrounding houses. He was obliged to renounce his intention of reaching the Hôtel de Ville by the Rue Saint-Antoine and, after crossing the Pont d'Austerlitz, returned to the Carrousel along the south boulevards. Turenne, acting on behalf of the mother of the infant Louis XIV., had been more fortunate before the Bastille, then not yet demolished.
The column sent to occupy the Hôtel de Ville[222] followed the Quais des Tuileries, du Louvre and de l'École, crossed the first half of the Pont-Neuf, took the Quai de l'Horloge and the Marché-aux-Fleurs, and reached the Place de Grève by the Pont Notre-Dame. Two platoons of Guards effected a diversion by filing towards the new suspension bridge. A battalion of the 15th Light Infantry supported the Guards, and was to leave two platoons on the Marché-aux-Fleurs.
There was some fighting as they crossed the Seine on the Pont Notre-Dame. The mob, headed by a drum, bravely faced the Guards. The officer in command of the Royal Artillery explained to the mass of people that they were exposing themselves uselessly and that, as they had no guns, they would be shot down without the smallest chance of succeeding. The rabble persisted; the guns were fired. The soldiers streamed on to the quays and the Place de Grève, where two other platoons of Guards arrived by the Pont d'Arcole. They had been obliged to force their way through crowds of students from the Faubourg Saint-Jacques. The Hôtel de Ville was occupied.