Paris in the 18th century the Marquis de Lafayette organized a "Garde nationale" to defend the city against the army. On 14 July, a mob seized the arsenal at the Invalides, acquiring thousands of guns, and stormed the Bastille, a symbol of royal authority, a prison which at the time held only seven prisoners, and was defended by eighty invalid soldiers, reinforced by thirty-six Swiss guards. About forty Revolutionaries were killed in the fighting. The governor of the Bastille, the Marquis de Launay, surrendered and then was killed, and his head put on the end of a pike and carried around Paris. The Provost of
Paris in the 18th century 1789. unable to finish it to complete the churches of Saint-Barthélemy and Saint-Sauveur. Four old churches, falling into ruins, were torn down and not replaced because of lack of funds. After the fall of the Bastille, the new National Assembly argued that the belongings of the church belonged to the nation, and ordered that church property be sold to pay the debts incurred by the monarchy. Convents and monasteries were ordered closed, and their buildings and furnishings sold as national property. Priests were no longer permitted to take vows; instead, they were required to take an oath of fidelity to