by Wikibooks, open books for an open world
Available in 159 free installments
Owner:
The storming of the Bastille, July 14 1789
On July 14, 1789, the revolting Paris mob stormed the Bastille. While only seven prisoners were housed behind its walls, none of whom could be considered political in any way, this event was essential because it symbolized that the people were no longer standing for the power of the nobles and the king, or the rising of the people against the tyranny of absolutism. The fall of the Bastille was also the first time, but certainly not the last, during the Revolution that popular mobs would rise up and take action outside of the legislature. These later risings, known in French as journees, would prove to be both extremely influential on public opinion and a cause for major hand-wringing on the part of the legislature, who did not want to risk a massive popular revolution as opposed to the controlled "bourgeois" revolution.
