Bernard-René Jourdan de Launay Bernard-René Jourdan de Launay Bernard René Jourdan, marquis de Launay (1740–1789) was the French governor of the Bastille, the son of a previous governor, and commander of its garrison when the prison-fortress in Paris was stormed on 14 July 1789 ("see Storming of the Bastille"). The marquis Bernard-René Jordan de Launay was born on the night of 8/9 April 1740 in the Bastille where his father, René Jourdan de Launay, was governor. At the age of eight he was appointed to an honorary position in the King's Musketeers ("mousquetaires du roi"). He subsequently entered the French Guards ("gardes-françaises"), a regiment
Bernard de Marigny Bernard de Marigny Jean-Bernard Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville (1785–1868), known as Bernard de Marigny, was a French-Creole American nobleman, playboy, planter, politician, duelist, writer, horse breeder, land developer, and President of the Louisiana State Senate between 1822 and 1823. The son of Pierre Enguerrand Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville (1751-1800) Ecuyer and Chevalier de St. Louis and his wife Jeanne Marie d'Estrehan de Beaupré, Bernard was born in New Orleans in 1785, the third generation of his family to be born in colonial Louisiana. His paternal grandfather, Antoine Philippe de Marigny, was a French nobleman, military officer, and