Storming of the Bastille
Storming of the Bastille | |||||||
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Part of the French Revolution | |||||||
Storming of The Bastille, Jean-Pierre Houël | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
French Guards mutineers | Royal government | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Pierre Hulin*[1] Stanislas Maillard Jacob Élie[2] | Bernard-René Jourdan de Launay | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
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114 soldiers
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Casualties and losses | |||||||
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The Storming of the Bastille (
In France, 14 July is a national holiday called Fête nationale française which commemorates both the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille and the Fête de la Fédération which occurred on its first anniversary in 1790. In English this holiday is commonly referred to as Bastille Day.
Background
During the reign of
On 17 June 1789, the Third Estate, with its representatives drawn from the commoners, reconstituted itself as the National Assembly, a body whose purpose was the creation of a French constitution. The King initially opposed that development but was forced to acknowledge the authority of the assembly, which renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly on 9 July.[5]
Paris, close to insurrection and in François Mignet's words, "intoxicated with liberty and enthusiasm",[6] showed wide support for the Assembly. The press published the debates, and political debate spread beyond the Assembly itself into the public squares and halls of the capital. The Palais-Royal and its grounds became the site of an ongoing meeting.[7]
The crowd, on the authority of the meeting at the Palais-Royal, broke open the
Necker's dismissal
On 11 July 1789, Louis XVI, acting under the influence of the conservative nobles of his
News of Necker's dismissal reached Paris on the afternoon of Sunday, 12 July. The Parisians generally presumed that the dismissal marked the start of a coup by conservative elements.
The Swiss and German battalions referred to were among the foreign
During the public demonstrations that started on 12 July, the multitude displayed busts of Necker and of
Meanwhile, unrest was growing among the people of Paris who expressed their hostility against state authorities by attacking customs posts blamed for causing increased food and wine prices.
Armed conflict
The regiment of
The future "Citizen King",
On the morning of 13 July, the electors of Paris met and agreed to the recruitment of a "bourgeois militia" of 48,000 men[18] from the sixty voting districts of Paris, to restore order.[23] Their identifying cockades were of blue and red, the colours of Paris. Lafayette was elected commander of that group on 14 July and subsequently changed its name to the National Guard. He added the colour white, the colour of the King, to the cockade on 27 July, to make the famous French tricolour.
Storming the Bastille (14 July 1789)
On the morning of 14 July 1789, the city of Paris was in a state of alarm. The partisans of the Third Estate in France, now under the control of the Bourgeois Militia of Paris (soon to become Revolutionary France's National Guard), had earlier stormed the Hôtel des Invalides without meeting significant opposition.[25] Their intention had been to gather the weapons held there (29,000 to 32,000 muskets, but without powder or shot). The commandant at the Invalides had in the previous few days taken the precaution of transferring 250 barrels of gunpowder to the Bastille for safer storage.[26]
At this point, the Bastille was nearly empty, housing only seven prisoners:[27] four forgers arrested under warrants issued by the Grand Châtelet court; James F.X. Whyte, an Irish born "lunatic" suspected of spying and imprisoned at the request of his family; Auguste-Claude Tavernier, who had tried to assassinate Louis XV thirty years before; and one "deviant" aristocrat suspected of murder, the Comte de Solages,[28] imprisoned by his father using a lettre de cachet. A previous prisoner the Marquis de Sade had been transferred out ten days earlier, after shouting to passers-by that the prisoners were being massacred.[26]
The high cost of maintaining a garrisoned medieval fortress, for what was seen as having a limited purpose, had led to a decision being made shortly before the disturbances began to replace it with an open public space.[29] Amid the tensions of July 1789, the building remained as a symbol of royal tyranny.[30]
The regular garrison consisted of 82 invalides (veteran soldiers no longer suitable for service in the field).
The official list of vainqueurs de la Bastille (conquerors of the Bastille) subsequently compiled has 954 names,[35] and the total of the crowd was probably fewer than one thousand. A breakdown of occupations included in the list indicates that the majority were local artisans, together with some regular army deserters and a few distinctive categories, such as 21 wine merchants.[36]
The crowd gathered outside the fortress around mid-morning, calling for the pulling back of the seemingly threatening cannon from the embrasures of the towers and walls[37] and the release of the arms and gunpowder stored inside.[26] Two representatives from the Hotel de Ville (municipal authorities from the Town Hall)[36] were invited into the fortress and negotiations began, while another was admitted around noon with definite demands. The negotiations dragged on while the crowd grew and became impatient.[37] Around 1:30 pm, the crowd surged into the undefended outer courtyard.[2] A small party climbed onto the roof of a building next to the gate to the inner courtyard of the fortress and broke the chains on the drawbridge, crushing one vainqueur as it fell. Soldiers of the garrison called to the people to withdraw, but amid the noise and confusion these shouts were misinterpreted as encouragement to enter.[2] Gunfire began, apparently spontaneously, turning the crowd into a mob. The crowd seems to have felt that they had been intentionally drawn into a trap and the fighting became more violent and intense, while attempts by deputies to organise a cease-fire were ignored by the attackers.[2]
The firing continued, and after 3:00 pm, the attackers were reinforced by mutinous gardes françaises, along with two cannons each of which was reportedly fired about six times.[9] A substantial force of Royal Army troops encamped on the Champ de Mars did not intervene.[38] With the possibility of mutual carnage suddenly apparent, Governor de Launay ordered the garrison to cease firing[39] at 5:00 pm. A letter written by de Launay offering surrender but threatening to explode the powder stocks held if the garrison were not permitted to evacuate the fortress unharmed, was handed out to the besiegers through a gap in the inner gate.[39] His demands were not met, but Launay nonetheless capitulated, as he realised that with limited food stocks and no water supply[36] his troops could not hold out much longer. He accordingly opened the gates, and the vainqueurs swept in to take over the fortress at 5:30 pm.[39]
Ninety-eight attackers and one defender had died in the actual fighting or subsequently from wounds, a disparity accounted for by the protection provided to the garrison by the fortress walls.[40] Launay was seized and dragged towards the Hôtel de Ville in a storm of abuse. Outside the Hôtel, a discussion as to his fate began.[41] The badly beaten Launay shouted "Enough! Let me die!"[42] and kicked a pastry cook named Dulait in the groin. Launay was then stabbed repeatedly and died. An English traveller, Doctor Edward Rigby, reported what he saw, "[We] perceived two bloody heads raised on pikes, which were said to be the heads of the Marquis de Launay, Governor of the Bastille, and of Monsieur Flesselles, Prévôt des Marchands. It was a chilling and a horrid sight! ... Shocked and disgusted at this scene, [we] retired immediately from the streets."[43]
The three officers of the permanent Bastille garrison were also killed by the crowd;[44] Surviving police reports detail their wounds and clothing.[45]
Three[46] of the invalides of the garrison were lynched plus possibly two[33] of the Swiss regulars of the Salis-Samade Regiment who were reported missing. The remaining Swiss were protected by the French Guards[47] and eventually released to return to their regiment.[48] Their officer, Lieutenant Louis de Flue wrote a detailed report on the defense of the Bastille, which was incorporated in the logbook of the Salis-Samade Regiment and has survived.[49] It is (perhaps unfairly) critical of the dead Marquis de Launay, whom Flue accuses of weak and indecisive leadership.[49] The blame for the fall of the Bastille would rather appear to lie with the inertia of the commanders of the 5,000[50] Royal Army troops encamped on the Champ de Mars, who did not act when either the nearby Hôtel des Invalides or the Bastille were attacked.[51] A brief order sent from the Baron de Besenval to the Governor read only "M. de Launay is to hold firm to the end; I have sent him sufficient forces".[52]
Returning to the Hôtel de Ville, the mob accused the prévôt dès marchands (roughly, mayor) Jacques de Flesselles of treachery, and he was assassinated on the way to an ostensible trial at the Palais-Royal.[53]
The King first learned of the storming only the next morning through the
14 to 15 July – immediate reaction
At Versailles, the Assembly were for a few hours ignorant of most of the Paris events. The representatives remained however concerned that the Marshal de Broglie might still unleash a pro-Royalist coup to force them to adopt the order of 23 June,
By the morning of 15 July, the outcome appeared clear to the king as well, and he and his military commanders backed down.
Aftermath
Political
Immediately after the violence of 14 July members of the nobility—little assured by the apparent and, as it was to prove, temporary reconciliation of king and people—started to flee the country as
The news of the successful insurrection at Paris spread throughout France. In accord with principles of popular sovereignty and with complete disregard for claims of royal authority, the people established parallel structures of municipalities for civic government and militias for civic protection.[23] In rural areas, many went beyond this: some burned title-deeds and no small number of châteaux, as the "Great Fear" spread across the countryside during the weeks of 20 July to 5 August, with attacks on wealthy landlords impelled by the belief that the aristocracy was trying to put down the revolution.[64][65]
On 16 July 1789, two days after the Storming of the Bastille,
On 22 July 1789 the populace lynched Controller-General of Finances Joseph Foullon de Doué and his son-in-law[67] Louis Bénigne François Bertier de Sauvigny. Both had held official positions under the monarchy.
About 900 people who claimed to have stormed the Bastille received certificates (Brevet de vainqueur de la Bastille) from the National Assembly in 1790, and a number of these still exist.[68]
Demolition of Bastille
Although there were arguments that the Bastille should be preserved as a monument to liberation or as a depot for the new National Guard, the Permanent Committee of Municipal Electors at the Paris Town Hall gave the construction entrepreneur Pierre-François Palloy the commission of disassembling the building.[69] Palloy commenced work immediately, employing about 1,000 workers. The demolition of the fortress itself, the melting down of its clock portraying chained prisoners, and the breaking up of four statues were all carried out within five months.[70]
In 1790,
Palloy also took bricks from the Bastille and had them carved into replicas of the fortress, which he sold, along with medals allegedly made from the chains of prisoners. Pieces of stone from the structure were sent to every district in France, and some have been located. Various other pieces of the Bastille also survive, including stones used to build the
In popular media
La Révolution française, a 1989 French film dramatizes the storming in Part I.
One Nation, One King, a 2018 French film dramatizes the storming.
Notes
- ^ Claude Cholat was a wine merchant living in Paris on the rue Noyer at the start of 1789. Cholat fought on the side of the Revolutionaries during the storming of the Bastille, manning one of their cannon during the battle. Afterwards, Cholat produced a famous amateur gouache painting showing the events of the day; produced in primitive, naïve style, it combines all the events of the day into a single graphical representation.[24]
References
Citations
- ISBN 978-0-8223-1894-1.
- ^ a b c d e Schama 1989, p. 402.
- ^ Schama 1989, pp. 60–71.
- ^ Price 2003, p. 20.
- ^ a b Sydenham 1965, p. 46.
- ^ a b This article incorporates text from the public domain History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814, by François Mignet (1824), as made available by Project Gutenberg.
- ^ Schama 1989, pp. 370–371.
- ^ Schama 1989, p. 371.
- ^ a b Godechot 1970, p. 242.
- ^ Schama 1989, p. 375.
- ^ Price 2003, pp. 85–87.
- ^ Price 2003, p. 85.
- ^ Price 2003, p. 76.
- ^ a b Godechot 1970, p. 258.
- ^ Micah Alpaugh, "The Politics of Escalation in French Revolutionary Protest: Political Demonstrations, Nonviolence, and Violence in the Grandes journees of 1789", French History (Fall 2009)
- ^ Schama 1989, p. 385.
- ^ Cobb & James 1988, p. 73.
- ^ a b Price 2003, p. 88.
- ^ Louis, Bergeron (1970). Le Monde et son Histoire. Paris. p. Volume VII, Chapter VI.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) Micah Alpaugh, "The Politics of Escalation in French Revolutionary Protest: Political Demonstrations, Nonviolence and Violence in the Grandes Journees of 1789", French History (2009) - ISBN 1-84176-660-7
- ^ Price 2003, pp. 96–97.
- ^ Comments recorded in diary entries made by Louis-Philipp during 1789
- ^ a b Cobb & James 1988, p. 75.
- ^ Schama, pp. 340–342, fig. 6.
- ^ Cobb & James 1988, p. 68.
- ^ a b c d Schama 1989, p. 399.
- ^ Civilisation: A Personal View, Kenneth Clark, Penguin, 1987, p. 216
- ^ Godechot 1970, p. 92.
- ^ Schama 1989, p. 398.
- ^ Godechot 1970, p. 87.
- ^ Connelly, Owen (2006). The Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon 1792–1815. New York: Routledge. p. 18.
- ISBN 1-84176-660-7.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8139-3833-2
- ^ Pfanner, Eric (9 January 2013). "'Paris 3D,' a Digital Model of the French Capital". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 July 2018.
- ^ Hibbert, Christopher. The French Revolution (1980), p. 82 (1982 Penguin Books edition)
- ^ a b c Schama 1989, p. 400.
- ^ a b Schama 1989, pp. 400–401.
- ^ Price 2003, p. 89.
- ^ a b c Schama 1989, p. 403.
- ^ Schama 1989, pp. 403–404.
- ^ Schama 1989, p. 404.
- ^ Schama 1989, p. 405.
- ]
- ^ Jacques Godechot, page 315 "The Taking of the Bastille July 14th, 1789", Charles Scribner's Sons New York 1970
- ^ J. B. Morton, appendix The Bastille Falls: and other studies of the French Revolution, Longmans, Green & Co, London 1936
- ^ Godechot 1970, p. 244.
- ISBN 1-84176-660-7.
- ^ Godechot 1970, pp. 292–299.
- ^ a b "Relation de la prise de la Bastille le 14 juillet 1789 par un de ses défenseurs", in Revue Rétrospective, vol. 4 (Paris: M. J. Taschereau, 1834)
- ISBN 978-0140049459
- ^ Godechot 1970, pp. 216–217.
- ^ Jacques Godechot, page 297 "The Taking of the Bastille July 14th, 1789", Charles Scribner's Sons New York 1970
- ISBN 0-688-03704-6.
- ^ Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret, La Bastille est prise, Paris, Éditions Complexe, 1988, p. 102.
- ISBN 978-1-84668-541-5.
- Fitchburg State College. Archived from the originalon 27 September 2011. Retrieved 22 January 2009.
- ^ Schama 1989, pp. 419–420.
- ^ Price 2003, p. 92.
- ISBN 1-84176-660-7
- ^ François Furet and Mona Ozouf, eds. A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (1989), pp. 519–528.
- ^ Sydenham 1965, p. 50.
- ^ Price 2003, p. 93.
- ^ Cobb & James 1988, p. 129.
- ^ Sydenham 1965, p. 54.
- ^ Cobb & James 1988, p. 77.
- ^ Alger, John Goldworth (1889). "Chapter II. At the Embassy". Englishmen in the French Revolution. Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington. Retrieved 14 July 2018 – via Wikisource.
- ^ Sydenham 1965, p. 55.
- ^ "Brevet de vainqueur de la Bastille (1790)". Criminocorpus.org. 14 July 1790. Retrieved 14 July 2018.
- ^ Schama 1989, p. 412.
- ^ Schama 1989, p. 414.
- ^ "Bastille Key". Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington. Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. Retrieved 10 April 2019.
- ISBN 978-1537323374
- ^ "14 Revolutionary Facts About Bastille Day". mentalfloss.com. 14 July 2017.
Works cited
- Cobb, Richard; James, Colin (1988). The French Revolution. Voices From a Momentous Epoch 1789–1795. Guild Publishing.
- Godechot, Jacques (1970). The Taking of the Bastille. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
- Sydenham, M.J. (1965). The French Revolution. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd.
- ]
- ISBN 0-670-81012-6.
Further reading
- OL 13506000M.
- Alpaugh, Micah (Spring 2014). "A Self-Defining Bourgeoisie in the Early French Revolution: The Milice bourgeoise, the Bastille Days of 1789, and their Aftermath". Journal of Social History. 47 (3): 696–720. .
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 502.
- OL 7156213M.
- Sewell, William H. (December 1996). "Historical Events as Transformations of Structures: Inventing Revolution at the Bastille". Theory and Society. 25 (6): 841–881. .
- Taylor, David (1997). The French Revolution. Heinemann. pp. 16–17. OL 10245877M.
External links
Media related to Storming of the Bastille at Wikimedia Commons
- Place de la Bastille – official French website (in English)
- Thomas Jefferson's letter to John Jay recounting the storming of the Bastille