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
Governor of the Bastille Governor of the Bastille The Bastille or Bastille Saint-Antoine was completed in 1383. The commander of the Bastille was its governor, and was previously called "capitaine". In 1367, King Charles V ordered the construction of the "fort et bastide Saint Anthoine lez Paris", literally fort and bastide of Saint Anthony close to Paris, which will later take the name of "Bastille". The works will be completed twenty years later, in 1387, under the reign of Charles VI. The first captain-governor was a close aquaintaince of the King, already chamberlain under the two previous reigns: Jehan de La Personne, knight, viscount