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You are here: Home / History / How many prisoners were released when the French revolutionaries tore down the Bastille fortress-prison in Paris?

How many prisoners were released when the French revolutionaries tore down the Bastille fortress-prison in Paris?

March 31, 2020 by Karen Hill

The Bastille in Paris, France was a prison that housed personal and political prisoners of the king and queen, and was built during the Hundred Years’ War.

Voltaire and the Marquis de Sade had both been alumni. The number of people incarcerated there varied widely at any given time.

On July 14, 1789, the prison population was at a low swing. When hundreds of howling peasants overpowered the prison’s guards, they discovered only seven captives there to liberate, and none of them were political prisoners.

Even worse, the revolutionaries didn’t find a cache of weapons to liberate either, as they had hoped.

Oh, well, at least they got to keep all the souvenir rubble they could carry.

It’d probably be worth something today on eBay.

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Filed Under: History

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

Previous Post: « Why did Marie Antoinette say “Let them eat cake” days before the French Revolution?
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