*Ø* Blogmanac July 14 | Fête Nationale, France: Happy Bastille Day!
1789 The Fall of the Bastille
Rien. (Nothing.)
Diary entry by King Louis XVI on July 14, 1789
When the revolutionary mob stormed the French prison they were surprised to find most of the cells empty but for the miserable scratchings of prisoners on the walls. Only seven prisoners were resident, under the relatively (for his time) lenient penal policies of King Louis XIV. Among those inmates, Marquis de Sade is believed to have triggered the assault by crying that people were being executed inside.
Three of the prisoners were old men, legitimately incarcerated; two of these had become insane, no doubt because of the horrible conditions in the cells. The other four prisoners had been in the Bastille for only four years each, for various crimes such as forgery. The seven were paraded through the streets as heroes, though the revolutionaries must have been disappointed that they did not have more to show off.
It was widely believed at the time and for years afterwards, that the wasted body of the celebrated Man in the Iron Mask had been found there, with the mask still on his skull.
Held for over forty years in various prisons during the reign of King Louis XIV, the Man in the Iron Mask was an unknown prisoner. When travelling from prison to prison, he always wore a mask of velvet, not iron. He was buried as ‘M. de Marchiel’, but his true identity has never been revealed. One suggestion was that he was the Duc de Vermandois, an illegitimate son of Louis XIV.
Alexandre Dumas in his romantic novel suggested that he was an illegitimate elder brother of the king, with Cardinal Mazarin his father – a suggestion originally made by Voltaire.
Lord Acton, the British historian, suggested a minister of the Duke of Mantua, who, in his negotiations with the king, was found to be treacherous and imprisoned at Pignerol.
Whenever he was moved, he was diguised with a velvet and whalebone mask, though it entered the popular imagination that this mysterious, unknown character, was masked with iron. He died on November 19, 1703. His dungeon was scraped to the stone, and his doors and windows burned, lest any inscribed message get out to the world and thus reveal his identity, and Louis's great cruelty to the representative of another state.
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Bastille Day (Fête Nationale), France (public holiday)
Célêbraté with Frênçh rècipés
Bastille Day e-cards
1789 The Fall of the Bastille
Rien. (Nothing.)
Diary entry by King Louis XVI on July 14, 1789
When the revolutionary mob stormed the French prison they were surprised to find most of the cells empty but for the miserable scratchings of prisoners on the walls. Only seven prisoners were resident, under the relatively (for his time) lenient penal policies of King Louis XIV. Among those inmates, Marquis de Sade is believed to have triggered the assault by crying that people were being executed inside.
Three of the prisoners were old men, legitimately incarcerated; two of these had become insane, no doubt because of the horrible conditions in the cells. The other four prisoners had been in the Bastille for only four years each, for various crimes such as forgery. The seven were paraded through the streets as heroes, though the revolutionaries must have been disappointed that they did not have more to show off.
It was widely believed at the time and for years afterwards, that the wasted body of the celebrated Man in the Iron Mask had been found there, with the mask still on his skull.
Held for over forty years in various prisons during the reign of King Louis XIV, the Man in the Iron Mask was an unknown prisoner. When travelling from prison to prison, he always wore a mask of velvet, not iron. He was buried as ‘M. de Marchiel’, but his true identity has never been revealed. One suggestion was that he was the Duc de Vermandois, an illegitimate son of Louis XIV.
Alexandre Dumas in his romantic novel suggested that he was an illegitimate elder brother of the king, with Cardinal Mazarin his father – a suggestion originally made by Voltaire.
Lord Acton, the British historian, suggested a minister of the Duke of Mantua, who, in his negotiations with the king, was found to be treacherous and imprisoned at Pignerol.
Whenever he was moved, he was diguised with a velvet and whalebone mask, though it entered the popular imagination that this mysterious, unknown character, was masked with iron. He died on November 19, 1703. His dungeon was scraped to the stone, and his doors and windows burned, lest any inscribed message get out to the world and thus reveal his identity, and Louis's great cruelty to the representative of another state.
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
Bastille Day (Fête Nationale), France (public holiday)
Célêbraté with Frênçh rècipés
Bastille Day e-cards
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