Bastille Day had often held people jailed on the basis of "lettres de cachet" (literally "signet letters"), arbitrary royal indictments that could not be appealed and did not indicate the reason for the imprisonment. The Bastille held a large cache of ammunition and gunpowder, and was also 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. The crowd was eventually reinforced by mutinous "Gardes Françaises" ("French
Paris in the 17th century Protestants of Paris permission to build a church, as long as it was far from the center of the city. The new church was constructed at Charenton, six kilometers from the Bastille. In 1680, there were an estimated eight thousand five hundred Protestants in the city, or about two percent of the population. Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, leading to an important exodus of Protestants from the city, and forcing those who remained to practice their faith in secret. The Jewish population of Paris in the 17th century was extremely small, following centuries of persecution and