"One of the revolutionary days in Paris and now a national holiday, the 14th of July ("Bastille Day") is celebrated with a mixture of solemn military parades and easygoing dancing and fireworks. The storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, has been commemorated in France for more than a century.
"Paris was in a state of high agitation in the early months of the French Revolution. In the Spring of 1789, the Estates-General refused to dissolve, transforming itself instead into a constituent National Assembly. In July, King Louis XVI called in fresh troops and dismissed his popular Minister, Jacques Necker.
"On the morning of July 14, the people of Paris seized weapons from the armory at the Invalides and marched in the direction of an ancient Royal fortress, the Bastille. After a bloody round of firing, the crowd broke into the Bastille and released the handful of prisoners held there.
"The storming of the Bastille signaled the first victory of the people of Paris against a symbol of the "Ancien Régime" (Old Regime). Indeed, the edifice was razed to the ground in the months that followed."
-bill kenny
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