Storming of the Bastille Storming of the Bastille The Storming of the Bastille ( ) occurred in Paris, France, on the afternoon of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress, armory, and political prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. The prison contained just seven inmates at the time of its storming, but was seen by the revolutionaries as a symbol of the monarchy's abuses of power; its fall was the flashpoint of the French Revolution. In France, "Le quatorze juillet" (14 July) is a public holiday, usually called Bastille Day in English. During the reign of
Historiography of the French Revolution of the Tuileries and the Terror. French historians of the first half of the 19th century like the politician and man of letters François Guizot (1787–1874), historian François Mignet (published "Histoire de la Révolution française" in 1824), and famous philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville ("L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution", 1856) established and wrote in this tradition. Other French historians in the 19th-century include: One of the most famous English works on the Revolution remains Thomas Carlyle's three-volume "The French Revolution, A History" (1837) . It is a romantic work, both in style and viewpoint. Passionate in his concern for the poor