What Paris prison was stormed by the mob in 1789?
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
Newgate Prison and deep to enlarge the site of the prison and to build a new sessions house. The work followed the designs of George Dance and was almost finished when it was stormed by a mob during the Gordon riots in June 1780. The building was gutted by fire, and the walls badly damaged. The cost of repairs was estimated at £30,000. Dance’s new prison was finally completed in 1782. The new prison was constructed to an "architecture terrible" design intended to discourage law-breaking. The building was laid out around a central courtyard, and was divided into two sections: a "Common"