Project: Bastille Day 2016
21 parts Complete Bastille Day commemorates the freedom of the French citizens' rights, and the beginning of the French Revolution on July 14, 1789. It was a couple of days after the creation of the National Constituent Assembly by the Third Estate (the common people and lower clergy) and the dismissal and banishment of Jacques Necker, King Louis XIV's financial minister who supported the Third Estate. Outraged by Necker's mistreatment, as well as the pent up feelings of tax raises and food shortages, the citizens rebelled. They gathered stocked up on raided ammunition, food, and wine, as well as started mobs against the king; even the king's troops did not stop them. On July 14 itself, the citizens stormed into the Hôtel des Invalides and took over 20,000 muskets, but there was no gunpowder. This urged them towards the fortress; at the same time, negotiations for Bastille's surrender were underway. The crowd, however, eventually grew impatient to the extent of gathering a small party to climb over the walls and lower the drawbridge from the inside. Eventually, Bastille was captured and dismantled by the citizens a few days later, and the National Assembly gained more supporters including a significant portion of defected royal guards and the French Guards. King Louis XIV saw this as a revolution rather than a revolt, and headed back to Paris and Hôtel de Ville on the 17th of July and takes a tricolour cockade (the new flag of red, white and blue) presented to him, what follows are cries of "Long live the king. Long live the nation." In place of Bastille is a square commemorating the event known as Place de la Bastille, which is still present to this day.