Enlightenment in Spain in 1782, and the Bahamas were seized later that year. The Treaty of Paris (1783) restored much of what Spain had lost in the Seven Years' War, including Florida. King Charles III died on 14 December 1788. Seven months later, French revolutionaries stormed the Bastille, launching the French Revolution. Charles III's eldest son was both epileptic and mentally disabled and was passed over for the throne in favor of his second eldest, Charles IV. Charles IV was seen by many of his time as being as uninterested in politics as Ferdinand VI had been. His chief interest upon his arrival
Bastille and why: the legend of the "Man in the Iron Mask", a mysterious prisoner who finally died in 1703, symbolises this period of the Bastille. Although in practice many were held at the Bastille as a form of punishment, legally a prisoner in the Bastille was only being detained for preventative or investigative reasons: the prison was not officially supposed to be a punitive measure in its own right. The average length of imprisonment in the Bastille under Louis XIV was approximately three years. Under Louis, only between 20 and 50 prisoners were usually held at the Bastille at any