Talk:Storming of the Bastille/Archive 1

Casualties
Ok than, am I the only one who notices this? The casualties are seriously screwed up. Now, I CAN believe that the Invalids mangaged the kill several of the milita. But it only says that there was ONE solitary death for the Royalists. Apparently, in the eyes of the casualty box, the parisian milita began rioting outside the fortress, De Launay orders his men to fire, several milita are killed, some of the French regulars defect to the revolutionaries, they fire a cannon at the Bastile, killing absolutely nobody, than the rebels get into the fortress, and to quote the History Channel "tear into the guards with knives and pikes." In doing this, the guards kill several more rebels, but the rebels cannot even HURT one of the guards, that De Launay surrenders for no apparent reason, the rebels shoot and stab him anyway, and to top it off they cut his head off, and they let the rest of the garrison go on a charming walk back to their homes.

Because THAT is what the casualty box shows (Revolutionaries:98/Royalists:1) At BEST the article leaves out the executions that befell most of the garrison. At worst, It is simply being unexcuasably unrealistic. I happen to believe the latter.

Now, I am usually the VERY, VERY LAST person to come to support the combat poweress of untrained, slimly controlable, hardly armed rioters, but the fact is that they were not complete idiots, they obviously killed far more than De Launay.

For This Reason, I request a rewrite. ELV —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.146.147.150 (talk • contribs).


 * Suggest that you check the remainder of the article below the casualty box. A number of first hand accounts of the fall of the Bastille have survived. Only one of the defenders was killed during the actual fighting. This was because they were sheltering behind the walls of a massive medieval fortress. By contrast the attackers were in the open and sustained losses. After the fortress surrendered all three of the officers of the company of Invalides (soldier-pensioners) that made up the permanent garrison of the Bastille were killed by the mob. Suriving police reports detail their wounds and clothing. They wore officers' uniforms which would have made them a target for the mob. The unfortunate Governor was in "coloured" i.e. civilian dress, had been seen by the attackers during an abortive attempt at negotiations, and was easily identified. Two of the Invalides were lynched - reportedly because they had been more active in firing from the battlements than their fellows. The most effective defence of the Bastille was that mounted by the Swiss detachment from the Salis-Samade Regiment sent to reinforce the garrison. The Swiss grenadiers had been firing from loopholes at ground level and were not immediately the target of attack after the surrender (according to one account they had discarded their distinctive red coats and were initially taken to be warders or other prison staff). The Gardes Francais (French Guards) then intervened and escorted the Swiss and surviving Invalides through the crowd to their barracks. The Swiss were held under guard and then released to rejoin their regiment a day or so later. Their officer wrote a detailed report in which he states that two of his men were still missing, presumed killed. They may however have simply deserted or become lost in the chaos of the day. There is no suggestion in any eye witness reports that the majority of the garrison were executed. Overall the Paris mob seems to have behaved with greater restraint than during subsequent occasions such as the storming of the Tuileries in August 1792 (when over 600 Swiss Guards were massacred) or the September Massacres that followed. Credit for the relatively limited number of killings after the Bastille fell is probably mainly due to the readiness of the Gardes Francais to protect their prisoners. Buistr 20:59, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

"Storming"
Anyone have any idea why the phrase is always "stormed"? I've always wondered. Deltabeignet 23:22, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well it may be a reflection of the 'Bias'* of history: From Feynnman's Farewell to Reason (I'm a noob so this is the ISBNs that I found ISBN 0-86091-185-5 or ISBN 0-860191-895-3 Pbk) in Footnote 45 from the Notes on relativism chapter: " Ilya Ehrenburg (People and Life, Memoirs of 1891-1917, London 1961, p.8) writes as follow about the 'French Revolution' (retranslated from German): "The Images which authors hand over to later generations are formalized and occasionally completely contrary to the truth ... There is sometimes talk about the 'Storming of the Bastille' though in reality the Bastille was not stormed by anyone - 11 July 1789 was merely one episode in the French Revolution; the people of Paris entered the prision without difficulty and found there only a few prisioners. But just this capture of the Bastille became the national holiday of the revolution" " So maybe the verb 'Storming' reflects the 'emotion/feeling/situacion/experience' that wanted to be portrayed by a group of people in accordance to their interesets which achieved 'power/mass diffusion/mass acceptance' and was remebered as such. PuercoPop


 * Good explanation, I completely agree. WinterSpw 05:35, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

neutrality
this article seems biased in favor of the royal troops... 66.66.18.139 (talk) 01:02, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

nonworking image
Was a huge blank section at beginning of article, because of a nonfunctioning image of a statue or something. So, I removed it. Pop6 (talk) 18:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It was in the Necker's dismissal section. Pop6 (talk) 18:48, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism
I performed a few edits (the last few ones) but forgot to a) log in on the first one and b) write what i edited. so i'd just like to let you guys know that i restored the background section and necker's dismissal which were entirely missing from the current version - Sai the Explorer 23:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

It looks like the first paragraph, at least, has been hit again. Gotta love the ignorant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.39.42.142 (talk) 19:30, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

merging this with Bastille article?
In some sections, the two articles (Bastille and Storming of the Bastille are almost identical. Any thoughts on merging the two articles? --Syrthiss 19:17, August 31, 2005 (UTC).


 * I'm inclined to keep them separate, if only because either might grow considerably. Duplication in this case is not a problem, Wiki is not paper. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:30, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

One obligation of keeping separate articles for Bastille and Storming of the Bastille is to continually maintain consistency between them. There is one current (13 July 2011) contradiction: The Bastille article notes that Fête de la Fédération occurred once in 1790 (first anniversary), and is commemorated every year as "Fête Nationale". But Storming of the Bastille states that the annually recurring occasion is called "Fête de la Fédération". So in keeping two articles, it must be decided whether "Fête de la Fédération" happened just once (1790) or happens every year on 14 July. One of the articles needs correcting. ChrisJBenson (talk) 16:53, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Arithmetic
1% Nobility, 2% Catholic Church leaders (implicitly not their followers) and 97% bourgeoisie. Can anyone help me with 97+2+1 and explain where the peasantry, the labourers and those in domestic service have gone? Steve H (talk) 15:23, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Help me with that too Binba (talk) 20:11, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

the 97% represents the third estate whih are all non noble or not part of the church —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.190.32.195 (talk) 06:57, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Not only was the third estate mainly non nobles and not part of the church, but they were also the labour force of pre-revolutionary France at the time. The third estate was composed of the poor because they did not have a lot of wealth they often worked for the nobility to get food to supply their families with.--Dalgerus (talk) 14:38, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Freemasonry
The remark about Camille Desmoulins being "a known freemason from the lodge of the Nine Sisters" was made anonymously without citation. At about the same time, at Estates-General of 1789 a similar remark was made by User:Melkart about Mirabeau. I am not sure of the accuracy or relevance of either statement; barring citation, I am inclined to revert, but will leave a chance for comment first. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:13, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

And, some five and a half years later, I'm going to delete it-- I've certainly never encountered it as a claim. At any rate, it's irrelevant to the topic at hand. -- Zhuravlei (talk) 04:48, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

This has been reintroduced since then; I've deleted it again. Kilburn London (talk) 22:55, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Cockades?
I read that "... the National Guard, [was] sporting tricolour cockades (cocardes) of blue, white and red, formed by combining the red and blue cockade of the Paris commune and the white cockade of the king ..." (from the "Background" section). The article on Paris Commune indicates that the Commune was formed just after the storming of the Bastille. If so, how could they be wearing cockades inspired in part from that of the Commune when the Commune didn't yet exist? Terry Thorgaard (talk) 14:11, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Good spot. Corrected. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:04, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Citations needed
I parked numerous passages here I think need citations -- someone interested in documenting this article could work from these. I thought this was a good article, it's just a shame whoever wrote it didn't include more sources (6 of the 17 references are to the same book). Unfortunately, too, most of them date back to the 1980s; surely there are newer books with other viewpoints. Rissa, Guild of Copy Editors (talk) 03:41, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 November 2016
The link in the "External links" section to , which link is now dead (and reads "14 July"), should be replaced with a link reading "Place de la Bastille" and going to .

2601:602:101:8358:9DFB:5B3C:C7EB:74A (talk) 04:03, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Topher385 (talk) 02:36, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Vandalism
Somebody keeps changing the belligerents on the Republican side to "traitors" which obviously is not appropriate for a neutral encyclopedia. If someone that knows better how wiki works than me could look into it, that'd be great. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a01:cb04:6ca:f100:a86c:484c:8d9e:c6f0 (talk) 21:34, September 27, 2017‎ (UTC)
 * working on it Justin15w (talk) 23:21, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

In popular culture
The movie "Con Air" occurs on a (fictional) July 14th. Very unlikely to be coincidental, given the plot of the movie, about two revolutionaries taking over a (airborne) prison and releasing a variety of small-time crooks, a few psychopaths and a rapist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:F01C:1D01:39EE:FCC4:4105:217E (talk) 12:24, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Section "Armed conflict"
The section describes:
 * Gardes Françaises favor popular cause.
 * Therefore they are confined to their barracks.
 * Important Guy posted guards from another regiment in front of the barracks.
 * Officers of Gardes Françaises tried to rally, but failed.
 * Profit! (aka the citizens now had a trained military unit)
 * Profit! (aka the citizens now had a trained military unit)

That's bullshit. 91.10.26.201 (talk) 13:01, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

What about the Marquis de Sade?
If there were only seven prisoners, and allegedly Sade had been in the Bastille since 1784, where was he when the storming happened? Some accounts say he was released from the Bastille in 1790. So did they just leave him in there, or what? (anon 15 July 2005)
 * He was transferred out about 2 weeks before that. This used to be in the article, you can look through the history and find out why it was removed. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:37, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
 * You can find it mentioned here. My own inclination would be to mention him in this article, because he was imprisoned there until so shortly beforehand, and was far more famous than anyone who was actually freed. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:39, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

More importantly lots of his work where lost as the only copy where in the Bastille.--CuriousQuestions (talk) 12:08, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

How was the Bastille torn down?
How was the Bastille torn down? As a child, I was told that the people tore it down with their bare hands. While the article mentions the fate of a few bits and pieces, and that nothing is left but a brick reconstruction, it doesn't say what actually happened to the original. WordwizardW (talk) 06:21, 10 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Good question. Most of the details of the actual demolition of the building (which was carried out in a matter of months by a professional contractor) were already contained in the article but mixed up with political developments after 14 July. I have tried to separate this material into two separate sections under the heading "Aftermath". Buistr (talk) 07:25, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Necker's Dismissal
What the heck is happening here? I see a ton of repeated text in the quote. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.135.98.93 (talk) 17:56, 27 May 2022 (UTC)