The sky was covered with foreboding clouds that made the landscape almost a short scenario. A persistent wind blew strongly from the west, contrary to what is believed due to popular legend, it was hot that day. Much better than that: at noon the temperature was 22 degrees Celsius. At the beginning people crowded around the fortress of the Bastille, was armed with a few rifles, swords and kitchen knives, remained fairly calm until the arrival of people better armed and more aggressive. The wagon was built liftgate since morning, but the footbridge had been down for a while. The first attack was directed against these two bridges by advance elements.
The reinforcements to the advance team arrived from the Invalides, the "Faubourg Saint-Antoine", some with guns and others, like the case of the small group led by the shopkeeper Pannetier, with axes, spades, rakes, shovels rods and taken to force the team early in the regiment of Nassau. They were ecstatic and were inflamed. You could hear cries of "come down the troops" and "we want the Bastille, but their cries could not be clearly understood by individuals who remained on the towers to twenty-five feet high. Very soon, within the "Cour des casernes" an offensive movement is brewing. The group led by Pannetier notes that could easily reach over the wall of the "Contrescarpe" the road of turning round the moat, through the "Cour du gouvernement." Pannetier makes short staircase to Tournay, who, with another seven or eight men climb over the wall, follow the road round and down to the "Cour du gouvernement", without being stopped or arrested.