The Storming of the Bastille

Podcast Transcript

On July 14, 1789, in Paris, France, one of the most iconic events of the French Revolution took place.

Thousands of French citizens stormed a prison to liberate the weapons from its armory and to free any political prisoners who were held within.

It is considered to be the start of the revolution and the beginning of the end of the French monarchy.

Learn more about the Storming of the Bastille and how it sparked the French Revolution on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Almost every revolution tends to have an event that ignites a spark, causing the revolution to burst into flames.

In the case of the American Revolution, it was the British march on Lexington and Concord.

For the French, it was the Storming of the Bastille.

Many of you may have heard of the Storming of the Bastille and Bastille Day, but what was the Bastille, why was it stormed, and what happened afterward?

To understand what happened, we need to go back to the 1780s in France.

The storming of the Bastille was the product of a host of political, economic, and social problems that had been building for years in France.

I’ve covered this in pieces on previous episodes, but this is a great place to put everything together in one coherent story.

Let’s start with economics.

France in the late 18th century faced a dire financial crisis. Years of deficit spending and the massive cost of aiding the American Revolution had left the country deeply in debt.

The government was essentially bankrupt, yet the wealthy nobility and clergy remained exempt from most taxes, leaving the burden on the ordinary people, known as the Third Estate, who made up about 98% of the population.

Food shortages, inflation, and especially a sharp rise in bread prices caused extreme hardship among the urban poor.

King Louis XVI felt that he was both unable and unwilling to implement the necessary reforms without broader political support.

To that end, he convened the Estates-General in May 1789, an assembly of representatives from the three traditional estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners.

It was the first time this body had met since 1614. It was a last-ditch effort to gain approval for tax reforms and prevent the collapse of the monarchy’s finances.

The problem with the Estates-General was that the assembly’s voting system gave equal weight to each estate, meaning the privileged First Estate (the clergy) and Second Estate (the nobility) could always outvote the Third Estate, even though the Third Estate represented the vast majority of the population.

The Third Estate quickly became frustrated with the traditional voting system, which effectively sidelined their influence. They demanded that votes be taken by head, where each representative would have an individual vote, rather than by estate.

This would have given the Third Estate more voting power, but the king and the other estates refused to grant this request.

In response to this lack of progress, and after being locked out of their meeting hall by the king’s troops in June 1789, the members of the Third Estate declared themselves the National Assembly.

In June, the Assembly took the Tennis Court Oath, vowing not to disband until a constitution had been established. The king, under pressure, initially seemed to accept this. Still, he began moving troops, many of them foreign mercenaries, into Paris and Versailles, suggesting that he might dissolve the Assembly by force.

At this time, something else was happening in Paris. The bread shortages had become extreme. The harvest of 1788 had been horrible, and by the summer of 1789, the price of bread had risen to an all-time high.

Working-class Parisians were spending up to 80% of their income on bread. So, this wasn’t some academic concern about voting rights. This was literally an issue of food and survival at a time when the government needed to raise taxes, which were paid almost exclusively by the class that was struggling to eat.

The situation worsened dramatically on July 11, when Louis XVI dismissed Jacques Necker, his finance minister, who was widely popular among the common people and seen as a moderate voice for reform. News of Necker’s dismissal sparked outrage in Paris.

Crowds took to the streets, fearing that the king was preparing to launch a military coup against the revolution. Barricades were built, and looting of armories began. On July 13, a massive crowd stormed the Hôtel des Invalides, a military hospital and armory, seizing thousands of muskets but finding no gunpowder.

On July 14, the citizens of Paris turned their attention to the Bastille.

The Bastille was a medieval fortress in Paris that came to symbolize royal authority and despotism in the decades before the French Revolution. Its full name was the Bastille Saint-Antoine, and it was originally constructed in the late 14th century during the reign of King Charles V.

Its initial purpose was defensive: to protect the eastern gate of Paris against English attacks during the Hundred Years’ War. The structure consisted of eight towers connected by thick walls, surrounded by a moat, and it loomed ominously over the working-class district of Saint-Antoine.

By the 17th century, the Bastille had lost its military significance and was converted into a state prison. Under the absolute monarchy of the period, especially during the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, it became a place of detention for individuals deemed a threat to the crown.

Many of its prisoners were detained without trial under lettres de cachet, royal warrants signed by the king. These prisoners included political dissidents, writers, nobles who had fallen out of favor, and others viewed as troublesome.

Famous inmates included the writer Voltaire, who was imprisoned twice, and the mysterious “Man in the Iron Mask.”

The “Man in the Iron Mask” was an unknown prisoner held in various French jails during the reign of Louis XIV. His identity was kept secret, and he was forced to wear a mask, possibly made of velvet, not iron. He died in 1703, and his identity remains unknown, though theories suggest he may have been a royal relative or political threat.

Despite its fearsome reputation, by the late 18th century and the events of this episode, the Bastille wasn’t heavily used.

It typically housed a small number of inmates in relatively decent conditions compared to other prisons of the time. However, its symbolism far outweighed its practical role. It represented the arbitrary power of the monarchy to imprison citizens without due process, and more importantly, it was right in the middle of Paris.

Ironically, the Bastille was a significant financial burden to the crown, as it required a large garrison to house its small number of prisoners. The decision had been made to demolish the building and replace it with an open space before the events of July 14 took place.

On the morning of July 14, thousands of Parisians gathered outside the Bastille, demanding the release of the fortress’s arms and gunpowder. The Bastille was garrisoned by around 80 veterans, reinforced by 30 Swiss mercenaries.

Bernard-René de Launay, the governor of the Bastille, initially tried to negotiate, but the talks dragged on.

De Launay, facing an impossible situation with only 82 soldiers to defend the fortress, sought a peaceful solution. However, communication between the crowd and the fortress broke down catastrophically.

When some of the crowd entered the outer courtyard, the chains of the drawbridge were cut, causing it to crash down. The crowd interpreted this as an invitation to advance, but the soldiers saw it as an attack. In the confusion, shots were fired from the fortress, killing several people in the crowd.

This moment transformed what might have been a negotiated surrender into a full-scale assault. The crowd, now enraged and convinced of betrayal, pressed their attack with renewed fury.

The siege that followed was brief but intense. The fortress’s medieval walls, designed to withstand siege weapons, were actually vulnerable to the crowd’s cannons. Two key factors determined the outcome: the arrival of French Guards who joined the crowd and brought military expertise, and the fortress’s limited garrison, which was hopelessly outnumbered.

By 5 PM, facing inevitable defeat and fearing a massacre of his men, de Launay agreed to surrender. However, the crowd’s anger had reached a fever pitch.

When the gates opened, de Launay was seized, dragged through the streets by the mob, and lynched near the Hôtel de Ville. His severed head was placed on a pike and paraded through Paris.

It should be noted that there were only seven prisoners in the Bastille, and the intent of the mob wasn’t to free prisoners. It was to get weapons.

The seven prisoners held in the fortress included four people accused of forgery, two people locked up as lunatics, and an aristocrat imprisoned at his family’s request on suspicion of murder. They were released, though their freedom was largely symbolic.

That night and in the following days, Parisians ransacked the Bastille for arms, ammunition, and souvenirs. The fortress, already seen as a symbol of tyranny, began to be physically dismantled almost immediately.

Around 250 barrels of gunpowder were taken, which complemented the weapns confiscated the day before.

A man named Pierre-François Palloy took charge of the demolition and turned the effort into a patriotic cause. Some stones from the Bastille were carved into miniature replicas and other keepsakes, which were sold and distributed across France as emblems of liberty.

Many stones were later used to build the Pont de la Concorde, also known as the Bridge of Harmony, literally transforming a symbol of oppression into one of unity.

Meanwhile, the political impact was immediate and dramatic.

News of the storming of the Bastille spread around France, encouraging more Frenchmen in more communities to join the rebellion.

The National Assembly was emboldened, and King Louis XVI, realizing he had lost control of Paris, visited the city on July 17 wearing the revolutionary tricolors. He recognized the National Guard, newly formed under the command of the Marquis de Lafayette, and effectively acknowledged the new revolutionary authority.

The storming of the Bastille marked a pivotal moment in the Revolution, marking the end of royal absolutism and the beginning of a new era in French political life.

The commemoration of July 14 began the very next year.

The first official celebration occurred on July 14, 1790, with the Fête de la Fédération.

A massive celebration was held on the Champ de Mars in Paris, marking the anniversary and symbolizing the reconciliation of the French people and the unification of the nation under a constitutional monarchy.

King Louis XVI even participated in the event, swearing an oath to the new constitution.

That same year, the key to the Bastille was presented to President George Washington by the Marquis de Lafayette.

However, during the turbulent years of the Revolution and the rise and fall of successive regimes (Napoleon, the Bourbon Restoration, the July Monarchy, and the Second Empire), official celebrations of July 14 were inconsistent or nonexistent. Different governments viewed the date either as a dangerous revolutionary symbol or as politically irrelevant.

It wasn’t until 1880, under the French Third Republic, that July 14 was officially declared a national holiday. A law was passed to anchor the new Republic in revolutionary tradition and to promote civic pride and unity.

The date chosen commemorated both the storming of the Bastille and the peaceful Fête de la Fédération, allowing it to honor both revolution and reconciliation.

Today, Bastille Day is marked by a wide range of patriotic ceremonies, most notably the military parade on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, which began in 1880 and remains the oldest and largest such parade in Europe.

The Storming of the Bastille is unquestionably the seminal moment in the French Revolution. However, it was mostly symbolic. Few prisoners were liberated, and there was little in the way of weapons that were seized.

Nonetheless, it was a powerful symbol, not just for France, but for many of the revolutions that came after.