Place de la Bastille 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. 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
Paris in the Middle Ages urine were routinely emptied out of windows onto the street. Along with fears of an uprising of the turbulent Parisians, the smells and bad air of central Paris were a major reason why Charles V moved the royal residence permanently from the Île de la Cité outside the old city walls to a new residence, the Hotel Saint-Pol, near the new Bastille fortress. The calendar of Parisians in the Middle Ages was filled with holidays and events that were widely and enthusiastically celebrated, perhaps because of the precarious lives of the ordinary populace. In addition to holidays for Christmas, Easter,