Years ago, a good friend of mine called me from Paris. He told me he had spent the last hour looking for the Bastille fortress and simply couldn’t find it. So for his sake, and for the sake of all my fellow Francophiles, let me share a few facts about the Bastille that you probably didn’t know:
What did the Bastille look like in 1789?
In 2014, a video game called Assassin’s Creed Unity came out, set during the French Revolution. The dedicated developers didn’t skimp on detail and built a very impressive 3D model of Paris as it looked in the late 18th century, which let me “walk around” old Paris and visit the Bastille as it stood in 1789.
If you’d like to keep exploring 18th-century Paris virtually, feel free to check out the article about a guided tour of 18th-century Paris.
The Bastille didn’t start out as a prison
The first two towers of the Bastille were built in 1357, not as a royal prison but as a fortress meant to guard the eastern edge of Paris. In fact, these towers weren’t built by the King of France at all, but by Étienne Marcel, the provost of the Paris merchants and the city’s unofficial mayor (the office of mayor didn’t exist yet at the time). During the 1370s, six more towers were added and the Bastille became one of the most impressive fortresses of the Middle Ages. That didn’t stop the English from capturing it in 1420…
The Bastille’s first prisoner was its own architect…
The English were also the first to turn the Bastille into a prison, and its very first inmate was none other than its own architect, Hugues Aubriot. No doubt about it, the English already had a fine sense of irony back in the 15th century…
The Bastille was a luxury prison
During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Bastille became a symbol of the brutality of absolute rule, even though in practice it was more of a “luxury prison,” usually holding noblemen for stays of no more than six months. Unlike in other prisons, inmates could keep much of their previous lifestyle: they were allowed to bring in furniture and servants, enjoy entertainment, and even receive visits from their mistresses. Cardinal de Rohan went so far as to invite about 20 of his closest friends to his Bastille cell for a lavish dinner.
And there were some very famous guests…
One of the Bastille’s most famous prisoners was Voltaire (1694-1778), locked up there in 1717 after mocking the Duke of Orléans, who was serving as regent of France at the time. Voltaire used his time behind bars to write the play Oedipus, and all in all he didn’t have it too bad there. Proof of that comes from what he told the governor after being released: “I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the excellent food you provided me. Next time, there’s no need to pay for my lodging as well.” Another famous prisoner was the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), who was locked up in the Bastille at his own family’s request, and who wrote one of his most famous works there, 120 Days of Sodom. The Marquis didn’t live too badly either, and was even allowed to drink wine produced on his own estates in Provence. However, 10 days before the storming of the Bastille, the Marquis de Sade was moved to the insane asylum at Charenton, after the governor of the Bastille took away his privilege of walking on the fortress’s towers. In response, the Marquis built himself a sort of paper megaphone and started shouting down to the passersby under his window that the prisoners inside were being slaughtered by their guards.
So who really wanted to tear down the Bastille?
Was it really the French people who set out to destroy the Bastille? Not quite. Keeping up the Bastille cost France a fortune, and in 1784 it was decided to shut the prison down, tear down most of the fortress, and leave just two towers standing as a historical marker. On the ruins of the Bastille, a “Place Louis XVI” was supposed to rise, with a pyramid at its center made from the iron chains and locks once used in the fortress. On top of the pyramid was to stand a statue of the king reaching out toward the ruins of the Bastille, symbolically setting Paris free. But like plenty of plans, this one got bogged down in French bureaucracy, and as a result the revolutionaries got to the Bastille first. The rest is history.
Where can you find the Bastille today?
After the Bastille was torn down, the revolutionaries put up a fountain in its place. Napoleon, who wasn’t fond of that revolutionary symbol, first thought about putting his famous Arc de Triomphe up at Place de la Bastille, but later decided to build a giant plaster elephant statue instead. That statue stood there from 1814 to 1846. In 1833, a column was raised beside it, topped with a bronze statue commemorating those killed in the July Revolution of 1830. The column still stands today. Still want to walk on the Bastille? Head to Place de la Concorde and cross the Seine. Congratulations, you’re now standing on the Bastille, since the builders of that bridge used stones taken straight from the fortress. The rest of the stones were sold off to tourists by Pierre-François Palloy, which made him a very rich man and, in the process, the father of the tourist souvenir trade.
The Bastille area is a great place to stay
Until the 1990s, the Bastille area, and eastern Paris more broadly, was considered a less desirable part of town, socioeconomically speaking. But over the past few decades the area has gone through serious gentrification, and today it’s one of the liveliest neighborhoods in Paris, thanks to the restaurants and nightlife around Place de la Bastille and the streets nearby. Place de la Bastille sits where several arrondissements meet:
- the 4th arrondissement (the southern Marais), which borders the Bastille to the west.
- the 11th arrondissement, which borders the Bastille to the north and northeast.
- the 12th arrondissement, which borders the Bastille to the southeast.
From the square, it’s worth continuing on foot along Rue Saint-Antoine. After about a ten-minute walk, you’ll reach the Église Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, built by the Jesuits in the 17th century. Admission is free.
So if you’ve decided to stay in the area, feel free to check out the recommended hotels in Paris page or the recommended vacation rentals page, where you’ll find hotels and apartments carefully picked out for you.
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