The French Revolution: The Storming of the Bastille

By July 14^th 1789 the Bastille prison in Paris was no longer used to the extent to which it had been. The Bastille had been constructed several hundred years before; it was monument to Medieval architecture. By the time France was finally ripe for a revolt against the aristocracy, the Bastille mainly served as a symbol of oppression rather than any actual instrument of oppression. The political crises that precipitated the storming of the Bastille had been brewing for some time and was arousing ever more attention by ever more of the public. Of course, not every French citizen was spurred to take an interest in the political whirlwind that was throwing many radicals into a frenzy. As is so often the case, it was economic uncertainty that brought attention to the masses of the dire need for political reform.

A great many French citizens were convinced, and rightly so, that the King and the aristocrats were working in collusion to punish the Third Estate by fixing bread prices at outrageously high amounts. As the final days of June 1789 dwindled to a close there were many rumors circulating that the King was in the process of attempting a coup to consolidate his power. The electors of Paris had tossed their lot in with the Third Estate and they recoiled in fear from both the idea of the King's counterrevolution, but also the rise of power among France's poor and hungry. This group of workers, shopkeepers, tradesmen and the like began to join forces that eventually coalesced into a kind of provisional government with their own militia. Of course, a militia without arms is like a donut without a hole, which is called a Danish. Determined to arm themselves in order to back up their demands with firepower, they set their sights on a fortress in the middle of Paris that they knew to be overflowing with munitions.

The Bastille has earned a place in history as the first real salvo in the French Revolution; the date of that storming of this fortress, July 14^th, is celebrated in the same way America celebrates July 4^th, as their Independence Day. Many people believe that the real reason the uprising took this ancient prison as its target was to release political prisoners. In fact, there were only a handful of prisoners in the Bastille and none of them were really political prisoners; two of were mentally disabled. The real prize inside the Bastille was that firepower. At first the governor of the Bastille dragged his feet when access to munitions were demanded. In fact, he feared an all-out assault from the increasingly violent crowd outside the fortress walls. For that reason, it was he who opened fire on the rabble-rousers. Releasing the prisoners inside the Bastille was actually a form of revenge more than anything else. Of course, cutting off the governor's head may have been considered overkill, but that was also an Inigo Montoya action.

Although the storming of the Bastille was the symbolic action that precipitated the bloody violence to come in the French Revolution, it was actually how it served to establish a revolutionary municipal government that had the most palpable effect on the Revolution. The establishment of this government inspired other groups to do the same across France and it was this acknowledgment of the very real power that lay in the hands of the common folk that served as an authentic agent for change more than the pure symbolism of the storming of the Bastille.