Read Aloud the Text Content

This audio was created by Woord's Text to Speech service by content creators from all around the world.

Text Content or SSML code:

The capture of the Bastille was chiefly a symbolic victory: the French Revolution would have days of greater significance. Yet the events of July 14th have become one of the defining moments in European history. The storming of the Bastille has shaped our perceptions of the French Revolution, giving us powerful images of an outraged people who took up arms against a symbol of oppression. On the eve of revolution, the Bastille held very few prisoners. In the eyes of the people, however, the Bastille fortress was a physical manifestation of tyranny. The people of Paris spent July 12th and 13th July gathering arms, in order to defend the city from an anticipated Royalist assault. Gun shops, small armouries and private collections were looted. On the morning of July 14th, a crowd of several thousand people marched on the Hôtel des Invalides in western Paris. The invaders made off with around 30,000 rifles but found little gunpowder or shot with which to load them. The solution came from deserting guardsmen, who reported that 250 barrels of gunpowder had recently been stowed at the Bastille. The crowd set off on a two-and-a-half mile march to the fortress, hauling several small cannons. They arrived at 11 in the morning and formed deputations to speak with the Marquis de Launay, the governor. De Launay was a colonel with a clean but unremarkable military record. He was an authoritarian who was disliked by his prisoners and soldiers alike. Details of what transpired on the afternoon of July 14th are complex and confused. At first, the crowd seemed hopeful that De Launay, like the officers at the Invalides, would relent and simply grant them access to the Bastille’s stores. But De Launay was not the compromising sort, plus he had received official orders to hold the Bastille at any cost. Between late morning and mid-afternoon, the governor received deputations from the crowd. They pleaded with him to withdraw the fortress’s 18 cannons, pointed threateningly at the suburbs below, and to surrender the Bastille’s gunpowder to the people. De Launay agreed to the first but not the second. At around 1.30PM a small group gained access to the Bastille courtyard through a half raised drawbridge. Fearing a full-scale attack, the governor ordered his soldiers to fire on the invaders. It was a fatal miscalculation that would cost De Launay his life. Hearing the garrison had opened fire on the people, crowds around the fortress swelled and for three hours the Bastille came under siege. Two detachments of the French Guard defected and joined the people. The crowd was unable to operate the artillery pieces stolen from the Invalides, so the involvement of mutinous soldiers was critical. By late afternoon, the fortress was coming under cannon fire, much of it targeting the drawbridge. Convinced the situation was hopeless and fearing they would be slaughtered, De Launay’s officers urged him to surrender. He first tried bluff, threatening to ignite the gunpowder stores and blow much of eastern Paris into oblivion. When this did not work, De Launay surrendered the fortress at around 5pm. A large contingent then stormed the Bastille, arrested De Launay, fraternised with his soldiers and released the prisoners (there were seven in total). Those who entered the fortress – just under 1,000 in total – were later honoured with the title Vainqueurs de la Bastille (‘Vanquishers of the Bastille’). Leaders ordered De Launay to be taken to the town hall to stand trial, however, on the way he was seized by the crowd, choked and murdered. The cause of De Launay’s death is in dispute. The most popular account suggests he was stabbed and beheaded by an unemployed baker wielding a small bread knife. TASK 13. Explain the key events in chronological order or Design a Story