The Storming of the Bastille did not Yield Freedom

The shocking takeover of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, is considered one of the most dramatic events in history, and is now viewed as a symbol of the spark which set off the French Revolution. Each year the anniversary is celebrated as a public holiday in France: ”Le quatorze juillet” (14 July), formally known as the “Fête de la Fédération” (Federation Holiday). In English speaking countries it is usually referred to as Bastille Day. The historic events surrounding the storming of the Bastille are looked upon with as much respect and reverence by the French and Europeans as Americans view the colonists taking on the British troops in the “shot heard ‘round the world.” The Bastille made a great target, but an even greater symbol of the people taking authority into their own hands. The Bastille was originally a medieval fortress-prison that had often been utilized by French kings to imprison their politically disagreeable or disloyal subjects.

However, contrary to the romanticized European image of the shocking attack and eventual takeover of the Bastille, the rebels that seized the prison were not trying to free prisoners, as there were few to free, and were not endowed with altruistic ideals, nor were their actions tempered by deeper principles. They were stimulated by fear, revenge, and a serious motivation for self-protection. On the morning of the attack, a crowd of around one-thousand people had been aroused and manipulated by rumors of being attacked by the Royal military, and had marched to the prison to secure a cache of weapons. Despite the numerous rumors to the contrary, that the Royal troops stationed near the outskirts of Paris would soon attack and slaughter them, the troops never actually came to the rescue of the troops defending the prison, nor did they attack the angry mob of Parisians that had stormed the Bastille. Such troops could have moved with ease against the restless crowds. It is likely that if such a scenario had unfolded, the history of France and the history of Europe would have turned out much differently. The agitated crowd that marched to the Bastille had been concerned that the French government was mounting an offensive against them. Indeed, by that time, the king had completely reorganized his ministry based upon advice from his trusted privy council, and one of the most controversial moves was the king’s banishment of his finance minister. On July 14th, the crowd that marched to the Bastille to seize weapons had ultimately seized the entire fortress as the commander in charge of the prison, Governor Bernard-Rene de Launay, surrendered the prison by the late afternoon.

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After a prolonged firefight, De Launay eventually halted his soldiers from escalating the skirmish into a bloodbath as around 100 civilians had been killed and only two soldiers. Immediately after he surrendered the Bastille, he was seized by the crowd and beaten repeatedly. By this time, the frenzied mob had become uncontrollable with rage and dragged Launay through the streets toward the Hotel de Ville. Reports indicate that it is near there he pleaded to be killed, and the people obliged by stabbing him repeatedly. One may think that the murder was unnecessary because the attackers had seized their objective, but what came afterward was even more extreme because the mob then cut off Launay’s head and stuck it upon a pike and paraded it through the streets. While the storming of the Bastille is recognized as the event that sparked the French Revolution, the treatment of de Launay could be viewed as an ominous foreshadowing of what took place during the Reign of Terror. It is undeniably true that after the taking of the Bastille, a month later in August, the people abolished feudalism; and ultimately on August 26th, the people proudly proclaimed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, which had been crafted by the Marquis de La Fayette. Even Thomas Jefferson had a hand in helping La Fayette with the writing. Nevertheless, it is also undeniable that the move toward freedom in the French Revolution devolved into some of the most unjust acts of cruelty against humanity ever committed.

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Within four years of the storming of the Bastille, the movement toward “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity” sadly deteriorated into the Reign of Terror

Within four years of the storming of the Bastille, the movement toward “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity” sadly deteriorated into the Reign of Terror, a horrific bloodbath under the machinations of the notorious revolutionary, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre and his compatriots. Robespierre led the powerful people’s tribunal known as the Committee for Public Safety that arrested, tried, and executed (beheaded via the guillotine) over 17,000 people. Even the popular Marquis de La Fayette, who was one of the most important links between the American and the French Revolutions, was targeted by the Committee for Public Safety. La Fayette, who served as general under General George Washington during the the War for Independence in America, and who helped write the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, was ultimately accused by the Committee as an enemy of the people, and was forced by the Jacobin government to flee France in 1792 in order to hold on to his head. Eventually, the powerful Committee for Public Safety became even more tyrannical than King Louis XVI. Especially, Robespierre, although only one on the absolutist committee, was the only member who had full support of the fanatical “Society of the Friends of the Constitution,” eventually known as the Jacobins, who were among the more radical supporters of the French Revolution -- or of their own power. Robespierre was the individual most closely identified with the Reign of Terror. ​​​While the treatment of de Launay would prove to be a foreshadowing of the Reign of Terror, the eventual denunciation of La Fayette as an enemy of the people and of the revolution demonstrates how such a popular revolution for freedom could be de-railed and devolve into confusion, chaos, rampant suspicion, widespread accusation, and the ​condemnation and execution of thousands of human beings.

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The eventual outcome of the French Revolution came when Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power and ultimately crowned himself emperor. Despite the illusion of freedom, such an outcome, when compared to the outcome of the American War for Independence can reveal how truly elusive freedom can be. In short, the French Revolution, despite being imbued with noble ideals at the outset, despite being supported by many good patriots, despite the noble intentions, ​yielded an outcome​​ ​that ​did not usher in freedom for the French people, it ushered in another monarchical reign, as well as greater restrictions imposed upon France from all other monarchies in Europe. Such an example in history demonstrates that all revolutions are not created equally. Ultimately, from the takeover of the Bastille to the Reign of Terror, the history of the French Revolution represents a display of some of the most inhumane atrocities against humanity, and the revolution’s de-volution into the tyranny under the Napoleonic Empire represents a complete distortion of the ideals of freedom. Those who defend these episodes in human history as important advances in human freedom need to free themselves from illusions fabricated by intellectuals enamored with failed ideologies, and from the rhetoric propagated by radicals hoping to incite their own revolution.