In the year 1789, France was experiencing great political turmoil. Popular and bourgeois pressured the royal government to extinguish the privileges of the noble and clerical classes. During the summoning of the States General, which could reform the country's laws, the members of the bourgeoisie insisted on changing the voting system. Instead of the “state vote”, the bourgeois defended the use of the “head vote”.
Not withstanding the political pressures of the Third Estate, King Luis XVI accepted the organization of a National Assembly that would vote on a new constitution. With this, the political hegemony traditionally controlled by nobles and clerics would be overcome by liberal proposals influenced by the Enlightenment. However, cornered by the situation, the French monarch dismissed the minister Jacques Necker, who supported the bourgeois reforms.
The news of the resignation was the trigger for the masses of the city of Paris to organize a revolt against the current order. On the 14th of July 1789, a great agglomeration of people surrounded the surroundings of the Bastille, fortress used by the royal government for the imprisonment of its enemies and the storage of weapons. At first, those involved in the demonstration only wanted to take the weapons and ammunition available there.
The invasion of the Bastille was an almost impossible task. Comprised of eight towers and nearly three meters thick, the enormous building was one of the most imposing symbols of French royal authority. At about thirty meters high, the prison was protected by two drawbridges. The bridge that gave access to the building was surrounded by a huge ditch twenty-five meters through which the waters of the Seine flowed.
By some estimates, the prison received an annual average of forty criminals detained, without trial, on the express orders of the king. The cells did not follow a fixed pattern. While some were limited to a cubicle where you could only stand, others had beds and other furniture. On the day of the invasion there were four forgers, one nobleman and two madmen in prison. The rest of the population consisted of a hundred French and Swiss soldiers.
Trying to calm the mood of the rebels, the Marquis de Launay, director of the prison, invited the leaders of the uprising to lunch. However, the wait and the lack of an immediate response only made the population even more dissatisfied. The most agitated took axes to break the chains of the outer gates of the Bastille. Suddenly, the explosion of a shot led to a direct confrontation between the popular and the officials.
Late that afternoon, no longer withstanding the pressure, Launay lowered the drawbridge and allowed the people to enter. The unfortunate director ended up being the target of the revolts' fury when he had his head cut off and exposed at the point of a spear through the streets of Paris. All the prisoners were released and the protesters appropriated the entire military arsenal of the Bastille.
At the end of the clashes, a guard and approximately one hundred protesters ended up dying. The seizure of this symbol of French imperial power did not end until five months later, when, already under revolutionary control, the French government stipulated the demolition of the Bastille. In 1880, this famous date was commemorated as a national holiday. Currently, an indicative plaque suggests the place where, one day, the enemies of the Old Regime were imprisoned.
By Rainer Sousa
Graduated in History
Brazil School Team
16th to 19th century - wars - Brazil School
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/guerras/a-queda-bastilha.htm