Bastille Day

Bastille Day is France’s national holiday, which commemorates the storming of the Bastille fortress by the citizens of Paris on July 14, 1789. The storming of the Bastille was the symbolic beginning of the French Revolution and the rebellion of common citizens against the nobility.

Special Collections has a few first-hand accounts of the storming of the Bastille, including a political pamphlet entitled La capitale delivrée par elle-même and a celebratory poem, Les nouvelles philippiques, ou, Le Te Deum des françois, après la destruction de la Bastille. These and other primary source materials related to the French Revolution can be found by performing a subject search in the HBLL catalog, using the search string “France History Revolution 1789-1799”.