Bastille

Bastille (lit. the Building) is a fortress in Paris, the capital city of France. It has a great historical importance. It served as a State prison during 17th-18the centuries. It was built originally as a fortress of defence to the city, by order of Charles V., between 1369 and 1382, but used as a place of imprisonment from the first. It has a square structure, with towers and dungeons for the incarceration of the prisoners, the whole surrounded by a moat, and accessible only by drawbridges. The fortress was considered a "tyranny's stronghold", and was attacked by a mob on 14th July 1789, taken chiefly by noise, overturned, as "the city of Jericho, by miraculous sound"; demolished, and the key of it sent to Washington; the taking of it was the first event in the French Revolution. The storming of the fortress marked the beginning of the French Revolution. See Carlyle's "French Revolution" for the description of the fall of it.