Louis XVI convened the Estates-General to hear their grievances. The deputies of the Third Estate representing the common people decided to break away and form a National Assembly. On June 20 the deputies of the Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath, sw
Louis XVI convened the Estates-General to hear their grievances. The deputies of the Third Estate representing the common people decided to break away and form a National Assembly. On June 20 the deputies of the Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath, swearing not to separate until a constitution had been established. The assembly renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly on July 9, and began to function as a legislature and to draft a constitution. In the wake of the July 11 dismissal of Jacques Necker, the people of Paris, fearful that they and their representatives would be attacked by the royal military, and seeking to gain ammunition and gunpowder for the general populace, stormed the Bastille, a medieval fortress and prison in Paris. Besides holding a large cache of ammunition and gunpowder, the Bastille had been known for holding political prisoners whose writings had displeased the royal government, and was thus a symbol of the absolutism of the monarchy. At the time of the siege there were only seven inmates, none of great political significance. When the crowd proved a fair match for the fort's defenders, Governor de Launay, the commander of the Bastille, capitulated and opened the gates to avoid a mutual massacre. But the fighting resumed and 98 attackers and one defender died in the actual fighting, but in the aftermath, de Launay and seven other defenders were killed. The storming became a symbol of the abuses of the monarchy and its fall was the start of the French Revolution. French sketching from 1789.
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Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
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