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The Storming of the Bastille
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What caused people to storm the Bastille?
The storming of the Bastille followed months of unrest and anger in France. Throughout the 1780s, the French King Louis XVI spent huge sums of money fighting wars against Britain, leaving little money to care for ordinary French people. As a result, starvation and disease killed many people, especially in Paris.
To deal with this anger, some people in the French government renamed themselves the National Assembly and lobbied (pressured) the king in 1789 for permission to draw up a constitution (an important document of rules) that would take power from the French king and give it to more people.
While Louis XVI agreed to allow the National Assembly to create a constitution, he did several things to stop the Assembly achieving its goals. Louis XVI dismissed his finance minister, Jacques Necker, in 1789. Necker was one of Louis only advisers who supported the Assembly's goals, and his removal sent a clear message that the king was not truly interested in losing power and working toward a democratic France.
On the same day as he removed Necker, Louis XVI summoned soldiers to his palace at Versailles, which the French people saw as a sign that he was planning to remove the National Assembly by force. The result of this news was that fighting broke out between government officials and commoners across Paris and the rest of France.
The Storming of the Bastille
By July 14, 1789, fighting in Paris had grown out of the government’s control. Angry Parisians attacked the Hotel des Invalides to gain weapons and ammunition before they decided to get the better gunpowder and weapons kept in the Bastille.
The Bastille was a prison that had been built during the medieval period as a jail for people who hadn’t paid their taxes and enemies of the king. It had long been regarded as a symbol of the monarchy's unpopular power.
Early on July 14, rioters started demanding that the soldiers inside the Bastille surrender the weapons and release the seven prisoners who were still held inside. Negotiations between the commoners and soldiers failed, and violence broke out as the commoners attempted to enter the building. The soldiers inside the prison were overwhelmed, and by mid-afternoon the fortress was surrendered to the mob. The soldiers defending the Bastille were dragged through the filth in the streets of Paris and some were beheaded by the mob.
Significance
The storming of the Bastille was the first great victory of the French revolutionaries. It persuaded King Louis XVI to allow the National Assembly to finish its work, and the result was the creation of "The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen" in August 1789, a groundbreaking document that established that all men were equal. However, in spite of this, the storming of the Bastille was merely the first of many bloody conflicts of the revolution that took place in France until 1796.
Bastille Day
Since 1790, the 14th of July has been a national holiday in France. It is called "Bastille Day" and is celebrated as the first day of democracy and independence from royal rule in France.