Storming of the Bastille July 14,1789

Storming of the Bastille July 14,1789

On 19 May 1789,Louis XVI convened the Estates-General (a general assembly representing the French estate of the realm - the clergy (First Estate), the nobles (Second Estate), and the common people (Third Estate)) to hear their grievances.

The deputies of the Third Estate, representing the common people (the two others were the Catholic Church  and nobility), decided to break away and form a National Assembly [the Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath, swearing not to separate until a constitution had been established].

 They were gradually joined by delegates of the other estates;Louis XVI started to recognize their validity on June 27. The assembly renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly on July 9, and began to function as a legislature and to draft a constitution.

In the wake of the July 11dismissal of Jacques Necker  (the finance minister, who was sympathetic to the Third Estate), the people of  Paris, fearful that they and their representatives would be attacked by the royal army, and seeking to gain ammunition and gunpowder for the general populace, stormed the Bastille,a fortress-prison in Paris which had often held people jailed on the basis of lettres de cachet  arbitrary royal indictments that could not be appealed.

Besides holding a large cache of ammunition and gunpowder, the Bastille had been known for holding political prisoners whose writings had displeased the royal government, and was thus a symbol of the absolutism of the monarchy.

As it happened, at the time of the attack in July 1789 there were only seven inmates, none of great political significance

When the crowd—eventually reinforced by mutinous gardes francaises - proved a fair match for the fort's defenders,Governor de Launay, the commander of the Bastille, capitulated and opened the gates to avoid a mutual massacre.

However, possibly because of a misunderstanding, fighting resumed. Ninety-eight attackers and just one defender died in the actual fighting, but in the aftermath,Governor de Launay and seven other defenders were killed, as was the 'prévôt des marchands' (roughly, mayor)Jacques de Flesselles
Shortly after the storming of the Bastille, on 4 August, Feudalism was abolished.

On August 26, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was proclaimed