Storming of the Bastille

Parisians stormed the Bastille prison, the symbolic start of the French Revolution.

In June 1789 the Third Estate deputies formed the National Assembly and swore not to disperse until they had given France a constitution (the Tennis Court Oath), and Louis XVI massed troops around Versailles and Paris. When news spread that Necker, the finance minister popular with commoners, had been dismissed on 11 July, Parisians already suffering from soaring bread prices concluded that the king meant to dissolve the Assembly by force.

On 14 July a crowd hunting for arms seized muskets at the Invalides and then marched on the Bastille fortress for gunpowder. The prison, a symbol of despotism, held only seven prisoners that day. After several hours of fighting the garrison surrendered, and its governor, de Launay, was killed by the crowd.

The king withdrew his troops and recalled Necker, and Paris set up its own municipal government and National Guard. The revolution spread to the countryside in peasant uprisings, and in August the Assembly responded by abolishing feudal privileges and issuing the Declaration of the Rights of Man. 14 July is France’s national day today.