Why did revolutionaries storm the bastille

But what really stirred them was the fact that, since the beginning of June , Louis XVI had concentrated troops around Paris. The weapons, however, required gunpowder, which was stored in the Bastille. After arriving at the prison and negotiating with its governor, marchers burst into an outer courtyard and a pitch battle erupted. By the time it was over, the people of Paris had freed the prisoners held in the Bastille and taken the governor captive the governor and three of his officers would soon be killed and then beheaded by an infuriated crowd, their heads paraded through the streets atop pikes.

The cost was steep: nearly one hundred citizens and eight prison guards were killed. Like many other iconic revolutionary acts, the storming of the Bastille was not intended as such.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the fall of the Bastille was chronicled by historians, depicted by artists and celebrated by common people.

In , the French chose to make the Storming of the Bastille their national holiday. Today, in times of deterritorialized terror, outsourced prisons, bitcoins, and subcontracted state and military arbitrariness, the Storming of the Bastille might look like a quaint scene from an old-fashioned opera. Yet, the world in recent years has had its own share of Bastilles, from Tahrir Square in Cairo to Independence Square in Kyiv not to mention the recent commemorations of the Tiananmen Square Movement.

The taking of the Bastille also reminds us that on the long, bumpy road toward representative democracy—that is, on the road toward the rule with the consent and for the benefit of the people—it is sometimes easier to strike down the visible signs of authoritarian power than to deal with the complicated, often shadowy sources of that power.

And, after it took the French the better part of a century to embed the democratic ideals of , the Bastille prompts us to remember just how hard it is for the voices of the people to be transformed into the enduring instructions of democratic governance and the rule of law.

The storming of the Bastille also reminds us that modern citizens were not only born out of acts of valor or cruelty, but also out of the act of remembering and out of the strong desire for justice. The fall of the Bastille was one of the moments in the eruption of the modern popular historical consciousness and the power of history and historical consciousness to the proper functioning of a democratic society. Pillaged, scattered and burned during and after the fall of the fortress, large parts of the archive were recovered by Beaumarchais and by the Russian diplomat and bibliophile Pierre Dubrowsky.

Realizing the importance of the Bastille archives, the Commune de Paris appealed to the citizens to return any documents they might have in their possession in order to help document the future trial of royal despotism.

The citizens of Paris answered promptly and , pieces were returned. On July 14, , the people of Paris seized not only a prison, but also control over their own historical memory, too. Animals Wild Cities Wild parakeets have taken a liking to London.

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How viruses shape our world. The era of greyhound racing in the U. See how people have imagined life on Mars through history. See More. On 14 July , when the Bastille in Paris, France was stormed it only housed seven old prisoners, none of which were politically important. There were even plans to close down the prison because it was so costly to maintain, for such a small purpose. To him it was as unimportant as an insignificant village.