For the longest time, the Bastille trapped the people of Paris under its terrorizing shadow. It stood there, tall, in the middle of the city as an eternal reminder of royal despotism. Yet, when it was finally stormed on July 14th, 1789, the revolutionaries found no torture chambers and rotting corpses like they were told they would be. So, how did it became a symbol of the French revolution?
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In the 14th century, France was in the middle of the 100 years war and the capital was threatened by the English. The west of Paris was already protected by the Louvre. As a result, the mayor of Paris strengthened the city’s defenses by expanding its walls in 1357 and building two large towers around the Saint-Antoine gate in the east. These types of defenses were known as “bastilles”, and so, the gateway was named the Bastille Saint-Antoine.
A decade later, the new provost of Paris fortified the Bastille Saint-Antoine. He did so by building six new towers, thus giving the Bastille its ionic shape. In the 17th century, with the reign of Louis XIV, the Bastille gained its notoriety as the symbol of French despotism and absolutism, and would detain over 2,000 individuals throughout his reign, or an average of 43 yearly. Most of its prisoners were put there by order of Lettres de Cachet.
As Paris grew, the Bastille became a clear divide between the wealthy aristocratic neighborhood of the Marais and the densely populated, working-class Faubourg of Saint-Antoine, and so a symbol of growing inequalities. Famous writers who stayed there, such as Voltaire, wrote dramatized accounts of their stay.
By Louis XV’s reign, the Bastille’s yearly prisoner count barely passed 20, and those who were imprisoned were treated relatively well. For example, the Marquis of Sade arrived with an elaborate wardrobe and over 130 books.
On July 11th, 1789, Louis XVI dismissed his Finance Minister, the Swiss banker Jacques Necker. In retaliation, 10,000 Parisians gathered around the Palais Royal where Camille Desmoulins, famously rallied the mob. On July 13th, mass looting ensued. On that same day, a bourgeois militia of 48,000 men was formed to restore order. On the famous July 14th, the newly created militia stormed the Hôtel des Invalides, a vast military complex that held muskets but not tgunpowder, which was stored in the Bastille, the last remaining royalist stronghold in Paris. By late morning, a crowd of 954 Parisians, later called “Les Vainqueurs de la Bastille”, gathered around the Bastille Prison.
The crowd demanded its surrender along with its supply of arms and gunpowder. By mid-afternoon, mutinous French troops had joined the mob along with two cannons. DeLaunay, the commander of the Bastille, surrendered. He was then brutally dragged to the town hall before being stabbed to death. His head was then cut off and put unto a spike along with the heads of three other officers of the Bastille.
Following the storming of the Bastille, the more despotic and evil it was described, and the more justified the revolution became. And so, that’s what the revolutionary press did. Following this, the King announced he would recall Necker and return to Paris from Versailles.
At first, the revolutionaries were unsure of the fate of the Bastille, but Mirabeau symbolically started destroying the prison himself. By November of the same year, the fortress has been destroyed and in 1793, a fountain was built on the new Place de la Bastille.
The first official celebration of Bastille Day occurred in 1790 on the Champs de Mars and was called the Fête de la Fédération. Despite the rain, over 260,000 Parisians watched as General Lafayette and the King took oath on the new constitution.
It was under Napoleon that Bastille Day became more militarized as to favor national unity in the face of numerous foreign threats. During the 1870s, near the end of Napoleon III’s reign, Bastille day became a rallying point for republicans as its celebration had been made illegal by the Emperor. Finally, with the permanent re-establishment of the Republic, it became a National Holiday on 1880 and has remained the most important holiday in France ever since. Since the Treaty of Versailles in 1918, the military parade now takes place on the Champs-Élysées with the participation of our Allies. And even during Nazi occupation in WW2, Bastille Day was still celebrated under the command of De Gaulle in London.