Each 14 July many French people dust off their tricolor flag and take to the streets to celebrate what they consider to be the most important day of the year.
In the morning a pompous military parade is organized on the famous avenue des Champs Elysées and later, at sunset, the Eiffel Tower offers a synchronized fireworks show with a mixture of classical music and hits of the moment that Parisians observe with bottles of champagne from all corners of the city.
However, the 14 juillet has its origin in a slightly less festive event: the unexpected and violent seizure of a medieval fortress known as the Bastille more than two years ago centuries, in 1790.
It was a decisive moment in world history, that marked the beginning of the Revolution f rances and with it the beginning of the end of one of the most powerful monarchies of the time .
It also generated changes in societies Europeans and around the world, serving as inspiration to many other revolutionary initiatives, such as the independence wave that would begin a couple of decades later in Latin America.
In this article we will tell you five things that perhaps You did not know about this event.
1. The great trigger
The 25 August 1788 Jacques Necker was appointed finance minister to King Louis XVI, but his removal almost a year later sparked discontent and encouraged Parisians to take up arms.
Early 1790, France was going through a major financial crisis caused by the country’s enormous debt and the incessant spending of the monarchy in conflicts with England.
To deal with it, the king convened a general assembly in May extraordinary in Versailles with representatives of the three strata of French society of the time: the clergy, the nobility and the common people or third state.
The income of the third estate, the less privileged class, had been diminished after a tax increase aimed at helping to alleviate the debt.
At that assembly, Necker was favorable to the idea of giving the third state a representation according to its demographic importance, opposing the three orders having an equal voice.
This proposal did not like neither the nobility nor the clergy, minority but very powerful, and they considered it a betrayal.
Therefore, King Louis XVI decided to fire him on 14 July .
The news of his departure lit the streets of Paris. The people saw him as the only councilor who thought of them and feared the consequences of losing a “patriot minister.”
The revolutionary journalist Camille Desmoulins invited Parisians to protest in front of the Royal Palace, but they were forcefully dispersed.
And this further irritated the French. In the following days the capital experienced violent looting, until the 14 July the revolutionaries decided to take up arms and went to the Bastille fortress.
Little did they know that that day a great revolution would begin.
2. It only housed 7 prisoners
Since the 14th century the Bastille had been one of the kings’ favorite prisons, although in the years prior to his assault it was already in decline.
So much was so the monarchy had considered closing it and that 14 July the medieval fortress only housed seven prisoners.
Four were criminals who were there while the complaints filed against them for falsification of bills of exchange were being processed.
Their names were Jean La Corrège, Jean Béchade, Bernard Laroche, also known as Beausablon, and Jean-Antoine Pujade. Shortly after being released by the revolutionaries, the authorities would catch them and send them to another prison.
Among the inmates also there was Hubert, Count of Solages, who had been imprisoned at the request of his family for “heinous crimes” and a “monstrous act.”
He and his sister Pauline were said to have committed incest and that his family periodically paid a sum of money to ensure that he was not released.
The last two prisoners of the Bastille were James Francis Xavier Whyte, Earl of Malleville, and Auguste-Claude Tavernier, who had also been locked up at the request of their respective families, who alleged that were insane .
3. Voltaire was imprisoned in the Bastille
And not once, but twice.
With just 23 years, the French writer and philosopher François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, was sent to the Bastille in 1717 by order of the monarchy.
He had written satirical verses about an alleged love affair between Duke Philip II of Orleans and one of his daughters, and it was imposed on him a pity of 04 months in prison.
Marked Due to his time in prison, upon his release he adopted the pseudonym Voltaire and devoted himself to writing poetry and other types of texts.
But in 1726 returned to the venue by d weeks after having a small altercation with the gentleman Guy-Auguste de Rohan-Chabot, known for his arrogance.
The powerful family of Rohan-Chabot obtained an order from the king and sent Voltaire to jail in retaliation.
After such humiliation, the now famous writer was forced into exile in England for two years.
4. It housed the Guillotine of Paris
Immediately after taking it, a certain Pierre-François Palloy , master mason and building contractor, took the initiative to organize and supervise the destruction of the Bastille .
Thus he transcended as one of the most prominent figures of the beginning of the French Revolution and that same night, with the help of some
A couple of months later, the secretary of the National Constituent Assembly, Joseph Ignace Guillotin, proposed a reform project to make the infractions of certain nature were “punished with the same kind of penalties.”
And he proposed the use of a mechanical device to ra the death sentences .
Thus was born the French guillotine in which Queen Marie Antoinette and the king would die years later.
Throughout the French Revolution, the device was installed in various Parisian squares, such as the Revolution square in 1793 Y 1794 (today Place de la Concorde), where the French royal family was beheaded, and the Place de la Bastille in June of 1794, where there was no longer a trace of the old medieval construction.
5. The taking is not only what is commemorated
The 14 July is a doubly symbolic date.
The French also remember the Feast of the Federation , a commemorative celebration that took place exactly one year after the storming of the Bastille and that transcended as a symbol of the unity of the French nation.
Under an intense rain, near 400. Citizens gathered at the Champ-de-Mars in western Paris , the 14 July 1789. They attended mass and acclaimed the king, celebrating the revolution at the same time.
Louis XVI did not decide between going into exile, as some nobles had already done, or staying in the Palais-Royal, which is had turned into a kind of prison for himself and his family.
He knew that at any time you could repeat the scene of October 1789, when several citizens broke into the castle of Versailles, on the outskirts of Paris, thus demonstrating their discontent with the monarchy.
But he was confident that the perception of the common people regarding his family was changing.
“I, King of France, swear to the nation to use all the power delegated to me the constitutional law of the State, in order to maintain the Constitution and enforce its laws ”, assured Louis XVI after the mass.
For his part, General La Fayette, who was in command of the Guard National and I will become to a key figure in the French Revolution, he swore to those present that he would remain faithful to the nation, the law and the king.
But the apparently conciliatory crowd that the monarch believed he had seen in Champ-de-Mars did not agree at all with reality.
As night fell, as he made his way to his residence in Saint-Cloud, west of Paris, the king encountered a much less satisfied audience , who insulted him and tried to attack him.
Once inside the immense castle walls, he wondered for the umpteenth time if the sensible thing to do was flee. But he did not.
It was not until July 6, 1880 that he 14 July became the French National Holiday, after the approval of the so-called “Raspail law.”
Actually, the text does not specify which of the two events is commemorated. Its only article reads: “The Republic adopts the 14 July as an annual national holiday ”.
Shortly before its approval, in a speech delivered in the upper house of the French Parliament, Senator Henri Martin said:
“Do not forget that after the 14 July 1789, we had the day of 14 July 1790 in Paris. That day cannot be blamed for shedding blood ”.
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