Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Storming of the Bastille

Starting point is 00:00:00 On July 14, 1789, in Paris, France, one of the most iconic events of the French Revolution took place. Thousands of French citizens stormed a prison to liberate the weapons from its armory and to free any political prisoners who were held within. It's considered to be the start of the revolution and the beginning of the end of the French monarchy. Learn more about the storming of the Bastille and how it sparked the French Revolution on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

Starting point is 00:00:54 And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. Almost every revolution tends to have an event that ignites a spark causing the revolution to burst into flames. In the case of the American Revolution, it was the British march on Lexington and Concord. For the French, it was the storming of the Bastille. Many of you have heard of the Storming of the Bastille and Bastille Day, but what was the best deal? Why was it stormed? And what happened afterwards? To understand what happened, we need to go back to the 1780s in France.

Starting point is 00:01:35 The storming of the Bastille was a product of a host of political, economic, and social problems that had been building for years in France. I've covered this in pieces on previous episodes, but this is a great place to put everything together in one coherent story. And let's start with economics. France in the late 18th century faced a dire financial crisis. Years of deficit spending and the massive cost of aiding the American Revolution had left the country deeply in debt.

Starting point is 00:02:04 The government was essentially bankrupt, yet the wealthy nobility and clergy remained exempt from most taxes, leaving the burden on the ordinary people. known as the third estate, who made up about 98% of the population. Food shortages, inflation, and an especially sharp rise in bread prices, caused extreme hardship amongst the urban poor. King Louis XVIth felt that he was both unable and unwilling to implement the necessary reforms without broader political support. And to that end, he convened the Estates General in May of 1789, an assembly of representatives from the three traditional estates, the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. It was the first time that this

Starting point is 00:02:50 body had met since 1614. It was basically a last-ditch effort to gain approval for tax reforms and to prevent the collapse of the monarchy's finances. The problem with the Estates General was that the Assembly's voting system gave equal weight to each estate, meaning that the privileged first estate, the clergy, and the second estate, the nobility, could always outvoted. The assembly, could always outvoted. the third estate, even though the third estate represented the vast majority of the population. The third estate quickly became frustrated with the traditional voting system, which effectively sideline their influence. They demanded that the votes be taken by head, where each representative would have an individual vote rather than by a state. This would have given the third estate

Starting point is 00:03:36 more voting power, but the king and the other estates refused to grant this request. In response to this lack of progress, and after being locked out of their meeting hall by the king's troops in June of 1789, the members of the third estate declared themselves the National Assembly. In June, the National Assembly took the tennis court oath, vowing not to disband until a constitution had been established. The king, under pressure, initially seemed to accept this. Still, he began moving troops, many of them foreign mercenaries, into Paris and Versailles, suggesting that he might dissolve the assembly by force. At this time, something else was happening in Paris. The bread shortages that I had previously mentioned had become extreme. The harvest of 1788 had been horrible, and by the summer

Starting point is 00:04:24 of 1789, the price of bread had risen to an all-time high. Working-class Parisians were spending up to 80% of their income just on bread. So this wasn't some academic concern about voting rights. This was literally an issue of food and survival at the time when the government was needing to raise taxes, which were paid, almost exclusively, by the class that was struggling to eat. The situation worsened dramatically on July 11th when Louis XVIth dismissed Jacques Nacquer, his finance minister, who was widely popular amongst the common people and seen as a moderate voice of reform. News of Nekir's de Missile sparked outrage in Paris. Crowds took to the streets fearing that the king was preparing to launch a military coup against the revolution.

Starting point is 00:05:12 Barricades were built and the looting of armories began. On July 13th, a massive crowd stormed the Hotel Le Invalid, a military hospital and armory, seizing thousands of muskets, but finding no gunpowder. On July 14th, the next day, the citizens of Paris turned their attention to the Bastille. The Bastille was a medieval fortress in Paris that came to symbolize royal authorities, and despotism in the decades before the French Revolution. Its full name was the Bastille Saint-Antoine, and it was originally constructed in the late 14th century

Starting point is 00:05:47 during the reign of King Charles V. Its initial purpose was defensive, to protect the eastern gate of Paris against English attacks during the Hundred Years' War. The structure consisted of eight towers connected by thick walls surrounded by a moat, and it loomedously over the working-class district of San Antoine. By the 17th century, the Bastille had lost its military significance and was converted into a state prison.

Starting point is 00:06:12 Under the absolute monarchy of the period, especially during the reigns of Louis XIII and 14th, it became a place of detention for individuals deemed a threat to the crown. Many of its prisoners were detained without trial under Letters de Cache, royal warrants that were signed by the king. These prisoners included political dissidents, writers, nobles who had fallen out of favor, and others viewed as troublesome. Famous inmates of the bestial included the writer Voltaire, who was imprisoned there twice, and the mysterious Man in the Iron Mask. The Man in the Iron Mask was an unknown prisoner held in various French jails during the reign of Louis XIV. His identity was kept secret and he was forced to wear a mask, probably made of velvet not iron.

Starting point is 00:06:56 He died in 1703 and his identity remains unknown, although theory suggests he may have been a royal relative or some political threat. Despite its fearsome reputation, by the late 18th century and the events of this episode, the Bastille wasn't heavily used anymore. It typically housed a small number of inmates in relatively decent conditions compared to other prisons at the time. However, its symbolism far outweighed its practical role. It represented the arbitrary power of the monarch to imprison citizens without due process, and more importantly, it was right in the middle of Paris. Ironically enough, the Bastille was a significant financial burden to the crown,

Starting point is 00:07:37 as it required a large garrison to house its small number of prisoners. The decision had actually been made to demolish the building and replace it with an open space before the events of July 14th took place. On the morning of July 14th, thousands of Parisians gather outside the Bastille demanding the release of the fortress's arms and gunpowder. The Bastille was garrisoned by around 80 veterans, reinforced by 30 Swiss. mercenaries. Benar-René Delunay, the governor of the Bastille, initially tried to negotiate, but the talks dragged on. De Lune, facing an impossible situation with only about 80 soldiers to defend

Starting point is 00:08:13 the fortress, sought a peaceful solution. However, communication between the crowd and the fortress broke down catastrophically. When some of the crowd entered the outer courtyard, the chains of the drawbridge were cut, causing it to crash down. The crowd interpreted this as an invitation to advance. but the soldiers inside saw it as an attack. In the confusion, shots were fired from the fortress, killing several people in the crowd. This moment transformed what might have been a negotiated surrender into a full-scale assault.

Starting point is 00:08:46 The crowd, now enraged and convinced of betrayal, pressed their attack with renewed fury. The siege that followed was brief but intense. The fortress's medieval walls designed to withstand siege weapons were actually vulnerable to the crowd's case. cannons. Two key figures determine the outcome. The arrival of the French guards, who joined the crowd and brought military expertise, and the fortress's limited garrison, which was hopelessly outnumbered. By 5 p.m., facing inevitable defeat and fearing a massacre of his men,

Starting point is 00:09:19 De Lune agreed to surrender. However, the crowd's anger had reached a fever pitch. When the gates opened, DeLune was seized, dragged through the streets by a mob, and lynched near the Hotel de Ville. His severed head was placed on a pike and paraded throughout Paris. And it should be noted, there were only seven prisoners in the Bastille, and the intent of the mob was not to free prisoners. It was to get weapons, in particular, gunpowder. The seven prisoners held in the fortress included four people accused of forgery, two people locked up as lunatics, and an aristocrat imprisoned at his family's request on suspicion of murder. They were released, though their freedom was largely successful.

Starting point is 00:10:00 symbolic. That night and in the following days, Parisians ransacked the Bastille for arms, ammunition, and even souvenirs. The fortress, already seen as a symbol of tyranny, began to be physically dismantled almost immediately. Around 250 barrels of gunpowder were taken, which complemented the weapons that were confiscated the day before on July 13th. A man by the name of Pierre Francois Palawa took charge of the demolition and turned the effort into a patriotic cause. Some stones from the Bastille were carved into miniature replicas and other keepsakes, which were sold and distributed across France as emblems of liberty. Many stones were later used to build the Pont de la Concorde, also known as the Bridge of Harmony,

Starting point is 00:10:44 literally transforming a symbol of oppression into one of unity. Meanwhile, the political impact of the storming of the Bastille was immediate and dramatic. News of the event spread around France, encouraging more Frenchmen in more communities to join the rebellion. The National Assembly was emboldened and King Louis XVIth himself, realizing that he had lost control of Paris, visited the city on July 17th wearing the revolutionary tricolors. He recognized the National Guard, newly formed under the command of the Marquis de Lafayette, and effectively acknowledged the new revolutionary authority. The storming of the Bastille marked a pivotal moment in the revolution, marking the end of royal absolutism and the beginning of a new era of French political life. The commemoration of the events of July 14th began the very next year. The first official celebration occurred on July 14th, 1790, with the Fet de la Féteracion.

Starting point is 00:11:41 It was a massive celebration held on the Champs de Mars in Paris, marking the anniversary and symbolizing the reconciliation of the French people and the unification of the nation under a constitutional monarchy. Louis XVIth even participated in the event, swearing an oath to the new constitution. That same year, the key to the best deal, was presented to President George Washington by the Marquis de Lafayette. However, during the turbulent years of the revolution and the rise and fall of successive regimes, Napoleon, the Bourbonne restoration, the July monarchy, and the Second Empire,

Starting point is 00:12:16 official celebrations of July 14th were inconsistent or non-existent. Different governments viewed the date either as a dangerous revolutionary symbol or as politically irrelevant. It wasn't until 1880, under the French Third Republic, July 14th was officially declared a national holiday. A law was passed to anchor the new Republican revolutionary tradition and to promote civic pride and unity. The date chosen commemorated both the Storming of the Bastille and the peaceful Fet de la Federation,

Starting point is 00:12:46 allowing to honor both revolution and reconciliation. Today, Bastille Day is marked by a wide range of patriotic ceremonies, most notably the military parade on the Champs-Lizé in Paris, which began in 1880 and remains the oldest and largest a such parade in Europe today. The storming of the Bastille is unquestionably the seminal moment in the French Revolution. However, it was mostly symbolic. Few prisoners were liberated, and there was very little in the way of weapons that were seized.

Starting point is 00:13:15 Nonetheless, it was a powerful symbol, not just for France, but for many of the revolutions which came after. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Oakden and Cameron Kiefer. I want to thank everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible. I'd also like to thank all the members of the Everything Everywhere community who are active on the Facebook group and the Discord server. If you'd like to join in the discussion, there are links to both in the show notes.

Starting point is 00:13:48 And as always, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you too can have it read on the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Storming of the Bastille

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