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The French Revolution: The fall of the Bastille
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There was a rumor that made the Parisians want to take up arms against the monarchy and the nobility. What was that?
In France, there is growing unrest and in the capital Paris, people are demonstrating in the streets. The French have been heavily taxed by the king, nobility and the Church for several years. And if that wasn’t enough, the country has experienced the worst misfortune for a hundred years. Bread prices are the highest ever; People are hungry. Commoners and farmers, the third estate, have given up on parliament, declared themselves the National Assembly of France and now consider themselves in control of the country.
Many French people are influenced by writers like Rousseau and Voltaire. They have written books about a person’s ability to think for themself and how a citizen can decide more about their life without a king, an emperor, a noble or a cleric having all the power. Now, the French people want to make France an egalitarian society and abolish the advantages, the privileges that the nobility have. The Church should be state governed and they want human rights. Their motto will be liberty, equality, fraternity.
They have seen it succeed in the United States of America, where the British colonists founded a new country with neither king nor nobility. In Paris, the rumor is that the king and nobility have secretly gathered military troops. They want to remove the national assembly and retain their privileges. On the morning of July the 14th, some people break into a home for old, injured soldiers called Hotel des Invalides. They grab some rifles and rush to the Bastille, where they think there are more weapons and political prisoners. “Hey!
Where is everyone going?” “To the Bastille to get weapons and gunpowder. We’ll defend ourselves against the king’s military.” TO THE BASTILLE! Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” “Open the doors.” “Go away.” “Let us in.” The commander of the Bastille agrees to meet a small group from the angry crowd, but refuses to open the doors to the fortress itself. He promises not to shoot the people outside or at least not to be the first to open fire, but the crowds have already entered the inner courtyard.
Now, they are trying to get into the fortress. “Open the doors.” “Not on your life.” “Attack. Attack.” But suddenly, the crowd gets the help of soldiers who have cannons. “We give up. Don’t kill us.” “Open the doors and we’ll let you live. And we’ll let you live. And we’ll let you live.” Well, the rioting Parisians did not keep their promise to the commander of the Bastille.
They killed three of his soldiers right away and the commander is stabbed to death with knives and bayonets. They put his head on a stake and paraded around to celebrate the fall of the Bastille. The crowd frees the prisoners from the Bastille: Four forgers, one nobleman and two lunatics. One of them is Irish, but he is convinced that he is the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. In fact, there are no political prisoners in there.
However, the Bastille is seen as the symbol of oppression by the king and nobility. And now, it’s going to be torn down. The crowd begins to demolish the Bastille with sledgehammers and crowbars. Two miles outside Paris at the Palace of Versailles lies the king, Louis XVI, sleeping. He has been hunting all day, and is tired.
He is woken by a nobleman, a Duke who has ridden to the castle to tell the king that the Bastille has fallen. “Your majesty, I have to announce that the Bastille has fallen.” “Oh! Then it’s a revolt?” “No Sire. It’s a revolution.” The storming of the Bastille on July the 14th, 1789 is usually considered to be the beginning of the French Revolution. Today, the 14th of July, is France’s national day.