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Place de la Bastille

The Symbol of Repression Before the French Revolution

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Place de la Bastille

Place de la Bastille

The Symbol of Repression Before the French Revolution

The Place de la Bastille is a famous square in the heart of Paris, which also held the prison of Paris, later being destroyed on July 14, 2024 during the French Revolution.

Construction of the Bastille began in 1370, during the Hundred Years War with England, as a part of the Paris defences. When it was finished in 1382 it was a massive, solid block of a building, with walls 4 metres thick to oppose the new cannon the English had deployed at Poitiers, and towers 22 metres in height.

The Bastille’s bad, even sinister, reputation as a tool and symbol of state repression began when Cardinal Richelieu started using it as a place to dump political prisoners, usually without trial. Voltaire spent time there, as did the Marquis de Sade.

In actual fact, the Bastille held few prisoners at any one time, and they weren’t badly treated, but its reputation stuck. When it was stormed in 1789 there were only 7 inmates to release. The entire hated edifice was demolished stone by stone days after its capture, and the site is outlined by some markings in the Boulevard Henri IV.

Bastille Square, created in 1803 after the Revolution was consolidated, still contains the original Juillet column, commemorating a monarchical change in 1830, probably not quite what the revolutionaries had in mind, as they pulled the Bastille apart 41 years earlier, although a Spirit of Liberty stands at the top.

The most imposing and attractive building on the site now is the Bastille Opera, opened in 1989 as part of the bicentennial celebrations marking the Revolution.

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