In This Month: July

The Storming of the Bastille
French King Louis XVI wrote in his diary on the 14th July 1789: "Nothing". But just a few miles from his palace in Versailles a momentous event had taken place which would change the course of France forever – the storming of the Bastille in Paris. Although only seven prisoners were being held in the medieval fortress at the time, the Bastille had become an icon of the despotic nature of the Ancien Regime and the monarchy.

Just three days earlier, Louis XVI had dismissed his finance minister, Jacques Necker, who had reformed the French tax system. Widely held to be sympathetic to the French middle and lower classes, his dismissal was interpreted as a decisive move by the King to crush the masses. The storming of the Bastille led to further revolution and by 1792 the monarchy had been abolished completely.