#Jul.14.1789

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1789-Storming of the Bastille

Storming of the Bastille in Paris. This event escalates the widespread discontent into the French Revolution.[8]Bastille Day is still celebrated annually in France.

The Storming of the Bastille (French: Prise de la Bastille[pʁiz də la bastij]) occurred in Paris, France, on 14 July 1789, when revolutionary insurgents stormed and seized control of the medieval armoury, fortress and political prison known as the Bastille. The Bastille then represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. The prison contained only seven inmates at the time of its storming but was seen by the revolutionaries as a symbol of the monarchy's abuse of power. Its fall was the flashpoint of the French Revolution.

*One of the early victims of the French Revolution.

Jacques de Flesselles (French pronunciation: ​[ʒak də flɛsɛl]; 11 November 1730 – 14 July 1789) was a French official. On 13 July 1789, de Flesselles received demands for weapons to equip a citizens' militia being organized to restore order. He was able to provide only three muskets from municipal stocks, and his suggestions of where other stores could be found proved misleading or mistaken.[2] Immediately following the storming of the Bastille on 14 July, de Flesselles found himself accused of royalist sympathies by an infuriated throng surrounding the Paris City Hall. De Flesselles was shot dead by an unknown hand on the steps of the City Hall, while trying to justify his actions, and his body decapitated. De Flesselles was one of several representatives of the ancien régime killed that day.

Bernard-René Jourdan de Launay (8/9 April 1740 – 14 July 1789) was the French governor of the Bastille. He was the son of a previous governor, and commander of the Bastille's garrison when the prison-fortress in Paris was stormed on 14 July 1789.

The permanent garrison of the Bastille, under de Launay, consisted of about 82 invalides (veteran military pensioners) no longer considered suitable for regular army service. Two days before 14 July they were reinforced by 32 Swiss grenadiers from the Salis-Samade Regiment. Unlike Sombreuil, the governor of Hôtel des Invalides, who had accepted the revolutionaries' demands earlier that day, de Launay refused to surrender the prison fortress and hand over the arms and the gunpowder stored in the cellars.[4] He promised that he would not fire unless attacked, and he tried to negotiate with two delegates from the Hôtel de Ville, but the discussions drew out. Part of the impatient crowd started to enter the outer courtyard of the fortress after a small group had broken the chains securing the drawbridge.

After shouting warnings, the garrison opened fire.[4][5][6][7][8][9] The besiegers interpreted thar as treachery on the part of de Launay.[6][7][8][9] The ensuing fighting lasted about four hours and resulted in about 100 casualties among the exposed crowd but only one death and three wounded[10] amongst the well-protected defenders firing from loopholes and battlements. With no source of water and only limited food supplies within the Bastille, de Launay decided to capitulate on the condition that nobody from within the fortress would be harmed. De Launay was then seized, and his sword and baton of rank were torn from him. He was supposed to have been taken to the Hôtel de Ville by one of the leaders of the insurrection, the soldier Pierre-Augustin Hulin, a future general. However, on the way there, the furious crowd assaulted the governor, beat him and eventually killed him by stabbing him repeatedly with their knives, swords and bayonets and shooting him once. The actual killing was reported to have taken place near the Hôtel de Ville when the struggling de Launay, desperate and abused, cried out "Enough! Let me die" and kicked an unemployed cook named Desnot in the groin. After he had been killed, Launay's head was sawn off by Mathieu Jouve Jourdan, a butcher. It was fixed on a pike, carried through the streets for some hours and thrown into the Seine the next day.

#Jul.14.1789 #Storming of the Bastille #Bastille Day #French Revolution #date of death #Jacques de Flesselles #Bernard-René Jourdan de Launay #history today