1. Storming of the Bastille
The Violence Starts
Official Start of the Revolution

4. Bastille Significance
It was originally built in the 14th century to guard one of main entrances to Paris, but by the 18th century the Bastille served only as a prison - mainly for political, aristocratic prisoners who could not be placed in the crowded jails with common criminals - and occasionally as a store for arms.
Voltaire was imprisoned there twice, in 1717 and then again in 1726.
Throughout the 18th century there were never more than 40 inmates, most of them serving short sentences.
On July 14, 1789, when the Bastille was stormed, there were only half a dozen prisoners, two of whom were insane.

6. Causes of the Storming
During the summer of 1789, food riots broke out in Paris due to a bread shortage.
The working class was hungry and angry over their decreasing wages and increasing prices.
In early July, King Louis XVI stationed 17 regiments of Swiss Guards and German mercenaries in Paris and around Versailles supposedly to restore order.
People whispered that the King was going to use the soldiers against the people.
Louis then fired the liberal finance minister, Jacques Necker, who had wanted to tax everyone and was a hero to the Third Estate.
Louis turned to new advisors who were totally against change.

7. Angry crowds attacked the custom posts where the high taxes on flour were collected.
They looted and burned shops.
They rushed to arm themselves.
Order was restored on July 13, but then broke out again on July 14.
The people in Paris were convinced the troops would attack them.
And the Bastille was a symbol of the unfair arrest and jailing of innocents.
At the Bastille, there were hundred barrels of gunpowder.

9. The Storming
The time was half past three, on the famous date of July 14, 1789.
A huge, bloodthirsty mob marched to the Bastille, searching for gun powder and prisoners that had been taken by the unpopular King Louis XVI.
The flying rumors of attacks from the government and the starvation were just too much for the angry crowds.
The Bastille had been prepared for over a week, anticipating about a hundred angry subjects and along the thick rock walls of the gargantuan fortress and between the towers were twelve more guns that were capable of launching 24-ounce case shots at any who dared to attack.
But nothing could have prepared the defenders for what they met that now famous day.

11. At three o'clock that afternoon, a huge group of French guards and angry citizens tried to break into the fortress.
There were over three hundred people ready to give their lives to put an end to their overtaxing and bad government.
Three hundred guards had left their posts earlier that day, out of fear and from the rumors.
The people easily broke into the arsenal and into the first courtyard, cut the drawbridge down, and then quickly got through the wooden door behind it.

13. The Actual Attack on the Bastille
A hastily formed militia and a mob of about 900 people went to the Invalides, a military hospital, to get weapons.
Then they turned their attention to the Bastille. There was gun powder stored at the Bastille.
In the streets, they chanted “A la Bastille.”
They demanded that the Governor Marquis de Launay surrender the prison and the 250 barrels of gunpowder stored in the cellar.
DeLaunay refused to surrender. Tension grew.
Then a gunshot was fired, but no one knew by who.
A man fell dead into the prison moat.
The mob stormed the courtyard.

16. Taking The Bastille

18. Primary Sources
“The fighting grew steadily more intense; the citizens had become hardened to the fire, from all directions they clambered onto the roofs or broke into the rooms; as soon as an enemy appeared among the turrets on the tower, he was fixed in the sights of a hundred guns and mown down in an instant; meanwhile cannon fire was hurriedly directed against the second drawbridge, which it pierced, breaking the chains; in vain did the cannon on the tower reply, for most people were sheltered from it; the fury was at its height; people bravely faced death and every danger; women, in their eagerness, helped us to the utmost; even the children, after the discharge of fire from the fortress, ran here and there picking up the bullets and shot; [and so the Bastille fell and the governor, De Launey, was captured].... Serene and blessed liberty, for the first time, has at last been introduced into this abode of horrors, this frightful refuge of monstrous despotism and its crimes.”

20. Attack Continued
Then the mob was reinforced by a group of French soldiers who had abandoned the King’s regiments.
They brought with them cannons.
The cannons were aimed at the drawbridge and were about to be fired, when a few of the soldiers guarding the Bastille dropped the drawbridge.
The mob surged into the Bastille and attacked anyone in their path.
They seized the gunpowder.
Later that evening, they remembered the prisoners locked in the Bastille and freed them.

25. Outcomes of the Storming
The seven prisoners were freed. They were two madmen, four forgers, and one aristocrat.
98 men were killed.
100 were wounded.
Three officers from the Bastille were marched to City Hall and hung from lampposts.
DeLaunay (the Bastille Governor) had his throat cut and his head paraded on a pitchfork.

29. Primary Source
“On arriving at the square, the people, anxious to avenge themselves, allowed neither De Launey nor the other officers to reach the place of trial; they seized them from the hands of their conquerors, and trampled them underfoot one after the other. De Launey was struck by a thousand blows, his head was cut off and hoisted on the end of a pike with blood streaming down all sides.... This glorious day must amaze our enemies, and finally usher in for us the triumph of justice and liberty. In the evening, there were celebrations.”

30. Here is a picture of the killing of De Launay
Here is a picture of the killing of De Launay. He had been promised safety if he surrendered.

32. Punishment Of Foulon

33. Effects of the Storming
The King accepted the National Assembly and the red, white, and blue colors of the revolution.
The Bastille had fallen to an unarmed crowd of civilians.
It became the symbol for rebellion.
This is considered to be the official start of the French Revolution.
July 14, 1789 is now considered the French Independence Day.

37. The Crushed Aristocracy

38. Celebration of Bastille Day on July 14, 1790

41. The remains!
The successful attack on the Bastille became a very important event for French people, since it showed that they were able to challenge the king's authority. Today, this is all that remains of the Bastille!

42. Vocabulary Bastille – fortress and prison in Paris
Bourgeoisie – middle class
Coup d’etat – an overthrow of government

43. Louis XVI
From 1776 Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists, who were seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realized in the 1783 Treaty of Paris.
France's middle and lower classes hated the French aristocracy and to the absolute monarchy, Louis and his wife, queen Marie Antoinette.