Place de la Bastille in Paris
Friday, 14 December 2018 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: European Union / Europäische Union Category/Kategorie: General , Paris / Île-de-France
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Place de la Bastille © Kaihsu Tai
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The Place de la Bastille is a square in
Paris where the
Bastille prison stood until the
storming of the Bastille and its subsequent physical destruction between 14 July 1789 and 14 July 1790 during the
French Revolution . No vestige of the prison remains. The square straddles 3
arrondissements of Paris, namely the
4th ,
11th and
12th . The square and its surrounding areas are normally called simply
Bastille .
The July Column (Colonne de Juille t) which commemorates the events of the July Revolution (1830) stands at the center of the square. Other notable features include the Bastille Opera , the Bastille subway station and a section of the Canal Saint Martin . Prior to 1984, the former Bastille railway station stood where the opera house now stands. The square is home to concerts and similar events. The north-eastern area of Bastille is busy at night with its many cafés, bars, night clubs, and concert halls. As a consequence of its historical significance, the square is often the site or point of departure of political demonstrations, including the massive anti-CPE demonstration of 28 March 2006 .
The Bastille was built between 1370 and 1383 during the reign of King Charles V as part of the defenses of Paris, the structure was converted into a state prison in the 17th century by Richelieu , who was king Louis XIII ‘s chief minister. At that time it primarily housed political prisoners , but also religious prisoners, “seditious ” writers, and young rakes held at the request of their families. It began to acquire a poor reputation when it became the main prison for those taken under lettres de cachet issued by the King of France. By the late 18th century, the building was made up of eight close-packed towers, around 24 m (80 ft) high, surrounding two courtyards and the armoury. The prisoners were held within the 5-7 story towers, each having a room around 4.6 m (15 ft) across and containing various articles of furniture. The infamous cachots (dungeons), the oozing, vermin-infested subterranean cells were no longer in use, since the respective reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI , who both worked on reforming the penal system in France. The governor of the prison was given a daily allowance per prisoner, the amount depending on their status—from nineteen livres per diem for scientists and academics down to three for commoners. In terms of standards, there were many worse prisons in France, including the dreaded Bicêtre , also in Paris. However, in terms of popular literary accounts, the Bastille was a place of horror and oppression, a symbol of autocratic cruelty.
Drawings of the wall of the fortress of la Bastille on the cobblestones of the place de la Bastille © Tangopaso
The confrontation between the commoners and the
Ancien Régime ultimately led to the people of Paris
storming the Bastille on July 14, 1789, following several days of disturbances. At this point, the prison was nearly empty, with only seven inmates: four counterfeiters, two madmen, and a young aristocrat who had displeased his father. The regular garrison consisted of about 80 ‘
invalides ‘ (veteran soldiers no longer capable of service in the field) under Governor
Bernard-René de Launay . They had however been reinforced by a detachment of 32
grenadiers from one of the
Swiss mercenary regiments summoned to Paris by the Monarchy shortly before 14 July. A crowd of around 600 people gathered outside around mid-morning, calling for the surrender of the prison, the removal of the guns and the release of the arms and gunpowder. Two people chosen to represent those gathered were invited into the fortress and slow negotiations began. In the early afternoon, the crowd broke into the undefended outer courtyard and the chains on the drawbridge to the inner courtyard were cut. A spasmodic exchange of gunfire began; in mid-afternoon the crowd was reinforced by mutinous
Gardes Françaises of the Royal Army and two cannons. De Launay ordered a ceasefire; despite his surrender demands being refused, he capitulated and the victors swept in to liberate the fortress at around 5:30.
On 16 June 1792, the area occupied by the
Bastille was turned into a square celebrating
liberty , and a
column would be erected there. The first stone was laid by
Palloy ; however, construction never took place, and a fountain was built instead in 1793. In 1808, as part of several urban improvement projects for Paris,
Napoléon planned to have a monument in the shape of an elephant built here, the
Elephant of the Bastille . It was designed to be 24 m (78 ft) in height, and to be cast from the bronze of
cannons taken from the Spanish. Access to the top was to be achieved by a stairway set in one of the legs. However, only a full-scale plaster model was built.
Victor Hugo immortalized the monument in the novel
Les Misérables where it is used as a shelter by
Gavroche . The monument was demolished in 1846. In 1833,
Louis-Philippe decided to build the
July Column as originally planned in 1792. It was inaugurated in 1840.
The former location of the fort is currently called Place de la Bastille, which is very popular among
tourists . It is home to the
Opéra Bastille . The large ditch (
fossé ) behind the fort has been transformed into a
marina for pleasure boats, the
Bassin de l’Arsenal , to the south, which is bordered by the
Boulevard de la Bastille . To the north, a covered
canal , the
Canal Saint-Martin , extends north from the marina beneath the vehicular roundabout that borders the location of the fort, and then continues for about 4.4 kilometers to the
Place de la Bataille-de-Stalingrad . On Thursdays and Sundays, a large, open-air market occupies part of the park to the north of the Place de la Bastille, along the
Boulevard Richard-Lenoir . Consumers can find fresh fruit, fish, meat, cheese and bread along with clothing and typical flea market items. Some undemolished remains of one tower of the fort were discovered during excavation for the
Métro (rail mass-transit system) in 1899, and were moved to a park (the
Square Henri-Galli ) a few hundred metres away, where they are displayed today. The original outline of the fort is also marked on the pavement of streets and pathways that pass over its former location, in the form of special paving stones. A café and some other businesses largely occupy the location of the fort, and the
Rue Saint-Antoine passes directly over it as it opens onto the roundabout of the Bastille.
Read more on
ParisInfo.com – Place de la Bastille ,
LonelyPlanet.com – Place de la Bastille and
Wikipedia Place de la Bastille (
Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State -
Weather report by weather.com -
Global Passport Power Rank -
Travel Risk Map -
Democracy Index -
GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank -
Global Competitiveness Report -
Corruption Perceptions Index -
Press Freedom Index -
World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index -
UN Human Development Index -
Global Peace Index -
Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index ). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at
comment@wingsch.net . Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.
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