Remains of the Bastille

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The French national holiday, commonly called Bastille Day by foreigners and simply the “national holiday” (fête nationale) by the French, marks the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789. The date has great importance as the symbolic starting point of the French Revolution, in much the same way that the signing of the Declaration of Independence is considered the birthday of the United States.

Bastille Day celebrates the taking of a small fort, the chastel Saint-Antoine, in 1789. The fort, which had been standing for centuries at what was then the eastern city limit of Paris, was notorious as a prison for political prisoners, including people imprisoned at the whim of the monarch via the infamous lettres de cachet. On the morning of July 14, a Parisian mob, armed with weapons stolen from the Invalides and the Arsenal, assembled before the prison and demanded that the seven prisoners within (including one insane person) be set free. The Marquis de Launay, who was in charge of the place at the time, refused, until the arrival of soldiers who had defected to the mob’s cause convinced him to change his mind, at which point the mob took over the fort, killed de Launay and his guards, and set the prisoners free.

The event itself was no big deal, but it had great symbolic importance, since this fort was a symbol of the hated and arbitrary autocracy of the monarchy. The taking of the Bastille marked the beginning of the end for the monarchy in France, and there was no stopping the revolution thereafter.

The name Bastille (pronounced /bastiˑj/) itself was actually a nickname applied by Parisians to the chastel Saint-Antoine, alluding to its location in a rather run-down and marshy part of town. The fort was on the city limit and right in front of a big ditch, the Fossé de Paris, which today remains as the Canal St. Martin and the Bassin de l’Arsenal.

Anyway, this pile of stones is all that remains of the Bastille. These remains have been moved from their original location next to today‘s place de la Bastille to the tiny Square Galli, a park about 500 metres southwest of the original location of the fort; and it is in this park that I photographed them. A café now stands on the original site of the fort, and I have a picture of that, if you are interested. The remaining chunk of the Bastille that you see here was called the Tower of Liberty (Tour de la liberté). The rest of the fort was demolished shortly after the events of July, 1789.

The plaque at the base of this column says the following:

Photographed on July 21, 2000. (N 48°51'04" E 002°21'42")