Place de la
Bastille
The Bastille Prison - Metro :
Bastille
France’s most famous prison has
not existed since the revolution of 1789, when royal power, and the
tyrannical values it had come to embody, was overturned. The
revolutionaries took it upon themselves to destroy this prison,
symbolising to those at the time the cruelty of the royal regime since
the reign of Louis XIII. Interestingly though, it housed only 7
prisoners on the day of its destruction. That, alas, didn’t dissuade
the sans-culottes from taking the head of its governor, marching it
around the city on the end of a stake. The heavy steel keys of the
Bastille can be found today in the Museum Carnavalet, and a good
portion of its stone walls went towards building the Pont de la
Concorde. In place of the prison today stands an enormous bronze column
named the July Column, erected by Louis-Phillipe following the fall of
Charles X in memory of those who died during the revolution and as a
representation of the freedom found as a result. Atop the column stands
the Genius of Liberty, wings open, representing a freedom that flies
away, breaking the chains of oppression. The new Bastille Opéra
was inaugurated for the bicentenary of the revolution of 1989, the
ultra-modern theatre become Paris’ second.
