five o’clock
Thus they prepared to resist the attack that from seven points was to be launched that evening upon the city . But Paris did not wait for the attack . It took the initiative . Mad with enthusiasm it conceived the insane project of taking that terrible menacing fortress , the Bastille , and , what is more , it succeeded , as you know , before five o'clock that night , aided in the enterprise by the French Guards with cannon . The news of it , borne to Versailles by Lambesc in flight with his dragoons before the vast armed force that had sprouted from the paving-stones of Paris , gave the Court pause . The people were in possession of the guns captured from the Bastille . They were erecting barricades in the streets , and mounting these guns upon them .