On July 14th, 1789 at 1:30 in the afternoon, an angry Parisian crowd began their attack on the Bastille. This was an attack on a royal prison and by therefore by extension, the king himself. The attack was orchestrated by members of the National Assembly after a series of escalating events. The National Assembly had been formed out of the members of the Third Estate and represented France’s commoners. Commoners bore the sole burden of taxation and were underrepresented in the country’s parliament . A series of droughts had drained the food supply while a succession of wars had done the same to the treasury . Finally, the king himself seemed to care little for his subjects. His absolutism came before their welfare and no matter what they did, Louis XVI ignore them and carried on. The assault on the Bastille was carried out because of its symbolic nature and to demonstrate the resolve of the people to an unpopular king.
A large majority of the crowd that participated in the attack......
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