Siege of the Bastille (Cholat) Siege of the Bastille (Cholat) La Prise de la Bastille is a gouache painting by Claude Cholat, now in the Carnavalet Museum in Paris, France. Claude Cholat was a wine merchant living in Paris on the rue Noyer at the start of the French Revolution in 1789. On the morning of 14 July a large Revolutionary crowd gathered outside the royal prison called the Bastille and in the afternoon fighting broke out between the crowd and the royal garrison. Cholat fought on the side of the Revolutionaries, manning one of their cannon during the battle. Afterwards, Cholat produced a famous
French Constitution of 1791 French Constitution of 1791 The short-lived French Constitution of 1791 was the first written constitution in France, created after the collapse of the absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime. One of the basic precepts of the revolution was adopting constitutionality and establishing popular sovereignty. The National Assembly began the process of drafting a constitution. The Declaration of the Rights of Man, adopted on 27 August 1789 eventually became the preamble of the constitution adopted on 3 September 1791. The Declaration offered sweeping generalizations about rights, liberty, and sovereignty. A twelve-member Constitutional Committee was convened on 14 July 1789 (coincidentally the