FRANCE CELEBRATES NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6972, 27 July 1929, Page 17 (Supplement)

FRANCE CELEBRATES NATIONAL HOLIDAY

PALL OF THE BASTILLE. Prance this month, celebrated the one hundred and fortieth anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. On July 14, 1759, Paris was strangely agitated—following the triumphant violence which had been shown after the National Assembly had been called together, and the masses felt that a change was coming fast. To them the Bastille, tliu very centre of repressive authority, was the sign of all that was tyrannous and hateful. Aloreover, rumour had it that most of the arms had been conveyed to the Bastille, where tho commander had orders to lire upon the people if need be. This was the spark which lit the flame of rebellion, which ultimately led to tho French Later in the day a vast concourse gathered beneath the battlements of the Bastille, and tho commander, do Launay, opened lire. In reply, tho people planted live cannon in front of the great drawbridge and do Launcy gave himself up as lost. He threatened to blow lip the whole place if a capitulation was not accepted, and on the strength of the besiegers’ promise to agrpe to this, the keys of tho fortress were surrendered, and an immense crowd surged into the courtyard. The lenders of the multitude did all they could to prevent harm from befalling do Launay, but it was all in vain. On the way to the Hotel dc Yillc, to where be was being escorted, a furious crowd bore down on him with the inevitable result. Thus did the citizens capture the hated Bastille—which stood not only to Paris ad to France, but to Europe a.s well, as a symbol of oppression and injustice. And what of the Bastille, that haunt of despotism, what was to be found there to atono for the atrocities of vRe past? Alas, for tho deception of the people, their investigation of the hatred fortress revealed nothing remotely in the vision of their imaginations — no skeletons or corpses were to be found, no captives in chains, no oubliettes, no torture chambers. True, an iion corselet was discovered, “invented to restrict man in all his joints and to fix him in perpetual immobility," but this proved to be an ordinary suit of armour. Equally disappointing were the prisoners found —seven all told, including two lunatics.