Storming of the Bastille Storming of the Bastille The Storming of the Bastille ( ) occurred in Paris, France, on the afternoon of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress, armory, and political prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. The prison contained just seven inmates at the time of its storming, but was seen by the revolutionaries as a symbol of the monarchy's abuses of power; its fall was the flashpoint of the French Revolution. In France, "Le quatorze juillet" (14 July) is a public holiday, usually called Bastille Day in English. During the reign of
Paris in the 18th century replaced by a new model called a "réverbère" which, mounted on a lamp post, gave off a much brighter light. By 1789, there were 5,694 new lanterns in service. A few years later the most popular revolutionary song, "Ça ira!" urged Parisians to hang aristocrats from the new lanterns. The predominant architectural style in Paris from the mid-17th century until the regime of Louis Philippe was neo-classicism, based on the model of Greco-Roman architecture; the most classical example was the new church of "La Madeleine", whose construction began in 1764. It was so widely used that it invited criticism: just