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 American historian working in this tradition is Keith Michael Baker. A collection of his essays ("Inventing the French Revolution", 1990) examines the ideological origins of the Revolution. Timothy Tackett in particular has changed approach, preferring archival research to historiographical dialectics. He challenges the ideas about nobility and bourgeoise in "Becoming a Revolutionary" (2006), a "collective biography" via letters and diaries of the third estate deputies of 1789. His other major work is "When the King Took Flight" (2004), a study of the rise of republicanism and radicalism in the Legislative Assembly in 1791/2. Tackett also has several works focusing on