The Bastille Day is the holiday that celebrates the attack of Bastilles—the armed fortress and the prison—on 14th of July, 1789, in one violent uprising which helped usher during the French Revolution. Also, holding some other supplies and gunpowder valuable to the revolutionaries, the Bastille symbolized also the callous autocracy of the French dominion, particularly King Louis XVI with Marie Antoinette, his queen.
The Bastille
Constructed in the year 1300s during the 100 Years’ War next to the English, Bastille was styled to defend the eastern entry to the capital of Paris. The formidable rock building’s massive defense with integrated a hundred foot-high walls with a wide moat and with more than eighty regular soldiers and thirty Swiss mercenary rank guards.
Being a prison, it will detain political dissidents (like the philosopher and writer Voltaire), and many of whom had been locked away with no trial by command of the king. But, by 1789, it was planned for demolition, and to be swapped by the public square. Furthermore, it had been down to seven prisoners: one kept in care through the appeal of his family, two were considered “lunatics”, and four being charge of forgery.
The not so famous Marquis de Sade—and from whom the “sadist” term was taken —had been likewise imprisoned there, however, he was taken out first that summer right after falsely shouting at the window that prisoners inside have been massacred.
Basis of the French Insurgency
Despite inheriting great debts from the predecessor, Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI kept on spending extravagantly, like helping the colonies of American to win their freedom from the British. During the late 1780s, the France government survived the brink of monetary disaster.
To turn-out matters worse, the widespread crop crash in year 1788 brought the global famine. The price of bread rose really high that at its peak, the normal worker spent about 88% of his wages with just one stapled.
Joblessness was really an issue, which the public blamed in part with the recent decreased customs duties in between Britain and France. Following the harsh winter, the violent food riots started smashing out across granaries, bakeries, and some other food storage and facilities in France.
Tennis Court Oath and Louis XVI
In an effort to resolve the disaster, Louis XVI summoned a long-dormant Estate-General, the national assembly separated by social class in three orders: the clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second Estate) with the commoners (Third Estate).
Although it represented around 98% of the total population, this Third Estate would still be outvoted through its two counterparts. And as an outcome of the inequality, the deputies will immediately start clamoring for the greater voice. Right after making no primary headway, they will then declare themselves as the new body named as the National Assembly.
Seeing the doors to the meeting entry locked on 20th of June, 1789, they group in the close by indoor tennis court, wherein defiance of their king, they took the oath—famous afterward as the Oath of Tennis Court—never to be separate until founding the current written constitution.
The National Assembly
If lots of clergymen and nobles crossed over to unite with the National Assembly, Sir Louis XVI unwillingly gave it his permission. But he also transferred some army regiments in Paris and its environment, leading to worries that he would smash the assembly by power.
On 11th of July, the king sent away the reform-minded and the famous Jacques Necker, the non-noble minister. Objecting the crowds poured in the streets of Paris’ the next day, irritating royalist soldiers that they left from the city. The crowds burned down also most of the Paris’ area hated customs posts that imposed taxes over the goods, and began the frantic search for foods and arms.
Unrest keep on the sunrise of the 14th of July, when the unruly mob seized about 32,000 muskets and most cannons from Hôtel des Invalides (the military hospice) prior to turning the sights on the big quantity of dust stored in Bastille.
Storming of Bastille
The governor of Bastille, Mr. Bernard René de Launay watched fearfully as the growing and large mob of mad revolutionists bordered the castle on 14th of July. Upon receiving the demand to give up, he invited the revolutionary delegates to come in for negotiation.
Lacking with straight orders from Sir Louis XVI, he allegedly took them warmly and sworn not to open the fire. Yet, as they’re talking dragged on, the populace outside grew restless—there are some that may have thought that their delegates were detained.
Eventually, the crowd of men climbed on top of the outside wall and lowered the drawbridge to the courtyard of Bastille, allowing the people to swarm in. When men started attempting to lower the next drawbridge, de Launay ruined his pledge and then ordered the soldiers to shoot. About 100 attackers passed away in the onslaught plus dozens of others had been wounded, while the royalists had lost only a soldier.
Dismantling of The Bastille
The tide rotates later that afternoon, but, when the unit of mutinous French Security showed up. Permanently situated in Paris, these French Guards had been identified to be compassionate to the revolutionaries. During the moment that they started blasting away with the filled guns at the Bastille, Mr. De Launay, who was short of adequate provisions for the long-term siege, gestured the white flag, the sign of surrender.
Taken detainee, he had been marched going to the City Hall, where in the bloodthirsty group divided him from the escort and killed him before slicing off his head, showing it on the pike and displaying it around the urban. Some other royalist armies were also butchered, disclosing the frightening bloodshed that could play the large part during and after that French Revolution.
The outcome of the attacking of the Bastille, their prison castle was systematically taken apart until almost none remained. The de facto prisoner of the 1789 of October and onward, Sir Louis XVI had been sent to execute a few years after—Marie Antoinette’s beheading after shortly thereafter.
The Bastille Day Today
Almost the same with the 4th of July in the USA, Bastille Day—the la Fête nationals in France or the Leo 14 Juillet (July 14) —is a public observance in France, commemorated by the national festivities including parades, parties and fireworks.
Attendees can hear the Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité or (“liberty, equality and also fraternity”), the French motto and may watch tricolor flag in France, break into singing the La Marseillaise—the all famous symbols of France which had their beginning in the thrilling days during the French Rebellion.
In one of those oldest yearly military parades in the world, the French troops have protested yearly since the Bastille Day in 1880 along Champs-Elysées at Paris before the French government administrators and the world leaders.
In year 2016, in one terrorist assault in Nice, the truck barreled by the pedestrian-filled gathering at the Bastille Day celebration, murdering 86 people and hurting more than 400 people.
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