Place de la Bastille Paris : Paris Tourism

Place de la Bastille
75012 Paris

La Bastille is a place of importance for all of French history. It was built between 1370 and 1382 in order to protect Paris from potential invaders.
Richelieu transformed La Bastille into a prison which rapidly became the symbol of the old arbitrary monarchy. Famous people passed by this prison : politicians like Fouquet, authors like Voltaire or Sade, who screamed from his window that the “prisoners were executed”. Simple orders under the king’s seal sent all these men to jail.

La Bastille entered into history on the 14th of July. It was besieged by revolutionaries and hundred allied “gardes-francaises”.

As a memory for the deaths of the “Trois Glorieuses” of July 1830, a column topped by the “Génie de la Liberté” was erected on the square of La Bastille on order of Louis-Philippe.

The workers went on strike four months after the birth of the Second Republic. As a symbol, the workers started their march from La Bastille, which is now the starting point of every workers` union protest march.