BASTILLE, lxis-tel' (Fr.. fortress, from OF. bastir, to build). A name originally applied in France to any building constructed of masonry, with towers or bastions adapted for defense. These fortresses were once very numerous, espe cially at Paris; but Cardinal Mazarin, as a part of his anti-feudal policy, allowed only a few of them to remain standing, among these being the Castle of Paris, to which the name Bastille was at last exclusively applied. This castle devel oped from two towers on either side of the road which entered Paris by the Faubourg Saint Antoine. By the orders of Charles V., Hughes Aubriot conTertcd the towers into a castle of four bastions, connected by thick walls; the whole being surrounded by a moat 25 feet deep. The number of bastions was subsequently doubled, and the area of the whole correspond ingly increased. The Bastille, from its com manding position, was closely connected with im portant affairs in French hilqory, and was occu pied by the Guises in 1538; by Henry IV. in 1594; the Frondeurs in 1649; and Conchs in 1652. During its entire history it was utilized as a State prison, there being cells and dungeons for as many as SO prisoners — a limit often reached. There was undoubtedly considerable severity exercised at different times, but whether the treatment there was any more strict than the customary prison discipline of the age, it is hard to determine. It seems es tablished that many of the noble prisoners, at least, were treated with considerable lenity; but accounts of cruelty, some of which were probably well founded and others exaggerated, and the association of the Bastille with the use of the lettres-de-cachet tq.v.), which kept so many in
confinement without trial, caused this prison to be regarded as the symbol of oppression. It was natural, therefore, that the Bastille should be one of the first objects of attack at the out break of the Revolution. On July 14, 1739, the populace of Paris, recruited chiefly from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, attacked the fortress and stormed it after a half-hearted resistance by the Governor, De Launay, and a handful of Swiss. The Governor and seven of his men were killed, the archives of the prison scattered, and the prisOners, seven in number, were carried through the streets and hailed as victims of tyranny, and martyrs in the people's cause. The build ing itself was torn down. The anniversary of the taking of the Bastille is celebrated every year as the national holiday of France. A bronze column now marks the site of the Bas tille.
Consult: Arnold, Histoire de in Bastille (Paris, 1345-59) ; Bingham, The Bastille (Lon don, 1SSS) ; Davenport. History of the Bastille (London, 1837) ; Funck-Brentano, The Bastille, Eng. trans. (New York, 1900). The document ary records which escaped destruction are con tained and explained in Ravaisson, Les archives de la Bastille (6 vols., Paris, 1866-73).