Hello, and welcome to Western Sieve. Episode four hundred and ninety, The Storming of the Bass Deal. On June the twentieth, seventeen eighty nine, a dramatic confrontation unfolded. The Deputies of the Third Estate, who had already begun calling themselves the National Assembly, arrived at their meeting hall at Versailles, only to find it locked, ostensibly for preparations for a royal session. To them, however, it felt like an insult, perhaps even
a plot to dissolve them. So they marched, as we know, to a nearby indoor tennis court. They are in the echoing space. Jean Silban Bailey, their president, stood before the deputies, who pressed shoulder to shoulder with arms raised. They swore a solemn collective vow. We will not separate, and we will reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the
Kingdom is established and fixed upon solid foundations. This sermon Depieum or tennis court oath, was immortalized by the painter Jacques Louis da Vide, though in reality the deputies were less statuesque and more weary, sweating men in rumpled coats. Still, the significance was clear. They had declared themselves the sovereign
body of the nation. Count Mirebeau the fiery order captured the mood when days later he resisted an order from the King's envoy to disperse, saying, go tell those who sent you that we are here by the will of the people, and we will only be driven out by the force of bayonets. The revolution, still fragile, had drawn its first line in the sand. Sixteenth. Was no tyrant by instinct, gentle, hesitant, fond of hunting and locks more
than politics, he was now thrust into a storm. On June the twenty third, at the Seance Royal, he attempted to reassert control. He annulled the National Assembly's decrees and demanded that the states meet separately. Yet the tide had already shifted. Even some clergy and nobles defied the king's orders and joined the Assembly. Within days, Louis yielded, instructing all the orders to unite. This concession, however, was accompanied
by ominous gestures. By early July, rumors spread that the king was massing troops around Paris, perhaps twenty thousand soldiers encamped nearby Camille des Muren, a young lawyer, later recalled the feeling, why are all these groups if not to disperse the National Assembly to crush liberty at its birth. At the same time, red prices in Paris were soaring a loaf cost as much as a laborer's daily wage. Hunger sharpened political awareness, and the streets grew reckless. Jacques
Neckaire tried to ride to the rescue. He was the popular finance minister who had long been seen as the friend of reform. His dismissal back on July the eleventh, seventeen eighty nine, by the King's conservative advisors was like a spark in the tinder. The moment that he was dismissed again, crowds gathered in the Palais Royale gardens, where des Molent leapt into a cafe table and shouted citizens, Nickaire is dismissed. The foreign regiments are advancing to massacre us.
To arms to arms, witnesses remembered him seizing a greenleaf to pin to his hat, crying that it would be their badge of freedom. The city positively irerupted. Barricades were thrown up, gun shops looted, bells rang alarm. The people of Paris, fearing repression, sought weapons to defend themselves. The Hotel de Valaides, a veterans hospital, was stormed on July
the fourteenth, yielding thousands of muskets but no powder. For that, the new insurgents turned their eyes toward the Bastille, the medieval fortress prison whose thick walls loomed over the eastern quarter of the city. The Bastial was more symbolic than practical. By seventeen eighty nine, it held only seven total prisoners. Four were forgers, two were lunatics, and then there was
one nobleman who had been imprisoned by his family. To the Parisian it embodied royal despotism, a place of arbitrary imprisonment. As the crowds surged toward it, their shouts mingled with a century's worth of resentment. Negotiations dragged on between the governor of the Bastille, Bernard Renie de l'aunay, and the crowd.
Attentions quickly escalated, Shots rang out, and after hours of battle, cannon fire, musket volleys and smoke, the Bastille fell to the storming crowds of Paris de Lunae was dragged through the streets and killed, his head paraded on a pike. That evening, the Duke of le Roqueford approached Louis the sixteenth at Versailles. The King, having been out hunting, reportedly asked, it is it a revolt, to which the Duke replied, no, sire, it is a revolution. In Paris, bells rang and the
crowds cheered. In the countryside, news spread like wildfire, sparking both joy and fear. The Bastile's fall marked the end of absolute monarchies aura for the people. It proved that united action could topple even the king's most intimidating fortress. Thus, within less than a month, the revolution had traveled from the solemn words of the Tennis Code Oarth to the bloody capture of the Bastile. The deputies had declared themselves the nation. The people of Paris had armed themselves as
its defenders. France was now a nation in motion, a nation moving toward an unknown future. Even as Paris rejoiced, the countryside seethed bread Brice's sword, and harvest prospects remained poor. Rumors swept through villages, wild stories that brigands hired by nobles were destroying cromps, or that foreign armies would march against the people. The wave of panic, known as le grand Pierre the Grand Fear, spread in late July and
August like a fever. Peasants armed themselves, raided manor houses, and torched feudal records. In the village of Lufec, a report noted that peasants storms the lord's chateau, shouting, we are no longer serfs, we are free men. Sometimes violence spilled over. Noble families fled, adding to a sense of a nation in upheaval. Back in Versailles, the deputies of the National Assembly, as they were styling themselves, watched the events with alarm. To restore home, they took a radical step.
On the night of August fourth, seventeen eighty nine. Noble deputies, many with theatrical gestures, rose one after another to renounce their feudal privileges, hunting rights, feudal dues, clerical tithes all were cast aside. In a sweeping moment of revolutionary theater. The Duke de Allen, one of the wealthiest nobles, declared, quote the most effective means of establishing peace and public order is to abolish feudal whites. Deputies cheered, many in tears.
One chronicler would later label it quote a night of patriotic drunkenness end quote. Within days, decrees went out formalizing the abolition of feudalism. Though many details would take months to resolve, the symbolic break that happened that night in August of seventeen eighty nine was totally decisive. It was clear that the at least the old regime's social hierarchy,
if nothing else, was dissolving. When from this fervor came the Declaration of the Rights of Man as it's called, it's actually the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen, which was adopted a couple weeks later, on August twenty sixth, seventeen eighty nine. The declaration did not emerge in a vacuum. By late spring seventeen eighty nine, France was convulsed by change. The Bass Deal had fallen, feudal dues had been renounced, and the National Assembly was already in the process of
dismantling the old regime. Yet the Deputies wanted not only to sweep away the past, but to also set down the foundations for a New Order Abbey Emmanuel Joseph Siez, whose pamphlet What is the Third Estate had electrified France earlier that year, arguing that a constitution must be anchored by a declaration of principles. Others pointed to precedents abroad.
The American Revolution loomed Lard and Lafayette, fresh from fighting with Washington, was eager to introduce something like Virginia's Bill of Rights. In seventeen seventy six, even consulted with Thomas Jefferson than the American minister in Paris, while drafting proposals. And so, with that being said, let us now turn for a moment to the figure who straddled two revolutions, a young nobleman who styled himself the hero of two worlds,
Guilbert de Montier, Marquis de Lafayette. He wasn't yet thirty two years old in July of seventeen eighty nine, but already his life had carried him from the salons of Paris to the battlefields of America, and now he sat at the epicenter of France's own revolution. Mary Joseph Paul Yves Roch de Guerbert Mimentier was born on September sixth, seventeen fifty seven, into one of France's oldest aristocratic families
in the province of Avergnez. His father, a colonel in the French army, was killed at the Battle of Menden in seventeen fifty nine, when Lafayette wasn't quite two years old. His mother died when he was twelve, leaving him an orphan but the heir to the great wealth and title. Educated at the College de preci in Paris, he was
groomed for service at court and in the military. In seventeen seventy four, at the age of sixteen, he married Adrianne Denis, daughter of one of France's most influential noble families, tying him to the heart of Versailles aristocracy. Yet lafayette restless spirit sought more than privilege. The American Revolution provided the stage for his first great act in life. In seventeen seventy six, as news of colonial resistance to Britain spread,
Lafayette was inspired by the cause of liberty. Despite the opposition of his family and the French crown, officially allied with Britain at that time, he resolved that he would fight for the Americans. In seventeen seventy seven, he secretly purchased a ship, the Law Victory, the Victory, and sailed for the New World. He was only nineteen years old when he presented himself to the Continental Congress in America.
At first, skeptical Americans were wary of another European adventurer seeking fortune, but Lafayette offered to serve without pay, and his sincerity won them over General George Washington nearly twenty five years his senior took a liking to the young Frenchman, calling him quote my adopted son end quote. Lafayette quickly distinguished himself at the Battle of Brandywine, where he was wounded,
but refused to quit the field. He fought at Monmouth and helped secure the Franco American alliance at Yorktown in seventeen eighty one. His command of division was instrumental in cornering Lord Cornwallis and bringing the war to the end. By the end of the Revolution, he was celebrated both in America and France as a champion of liberty. Now back in France, Lafayette's American service made him a very
popular figure. He corresponded with George Washington, John Adams, and Jefferson, cultivating a reputation as a bridge between the old world and the new. At court, however, he remained regarded as a bit of an idea and something of an eccentric, more devoted to the abstract concept of liberty than to royal protocol. In seventeen eighty seven, as France entered its
financial and political crisis, Lafayette began to speak out. He was a member of the Assembly of Notables convened by Louis the sixteenth, and there he proposed a declaration of rights modeled on America's example. His proposal was dismissed at the time, but it foreshadowed his later rule. When the Estates General was called in seventeen eighty nine, Lafayette was elected as a representative of the nobility from Avarney, where he was from. Though a nobleman, he sided with the reformers,
quickly supporting the National assemblies push for constitutional government. On July the eleventh, when the Assembly considered a draft of the Declaration of Rights of Man, Lafayette presented his own version, written with the advice of Thomas Jefferson, declaring liberty, equality, and the rights of man are the foundation of government. As tensions in Paris mounted after the dismissal of the Finance Minister Neckaer, Lafayette was chosen vice president of the Assembly.
On July the fifteenth, the day after storming the Bastille, he was appointed commander of the newly formed National Guard. To symbolize unity. It was he that designed the Tricolor cockade, combining Paris's blue and red with the white of the monarchy, which will, of course eventually be the French flag still in use today. Lafayette woul ultimately be instrumental in the early events of the revolution and drafting the Rights of Man.
In the words of Deputy Jean jove S Monier, a declaration of rights is the only way to halt the abuse of power and establish the foundations of liberty. So with Lafayette introduced, let's turn back to that declaration of Rights of Man. The drafting was neither simple nor unanimous.
In August of seventeen eighty nine, the Assembly debated line by lane, sometimes word by word, should the declaration emphasize natural rights or the sovereignty of the nation should property be included as a sacred right or subordinated to public necessity. The final text, adopted on August the twenty sixth, reflected compromise, but also a clear spirit of Enlightenment thought philosophers such as Rousseau, Montesquieu and Locke seemed to echo in its articles,
though refracted through the urgency of revolutionary France. Seventeen articles laid out the framework of a new political and social order. There would be natural rights. The very first article declared quote men are born and remain free and equal in rights. The sweeping statement struck at the very heart of aristocratic privilege, again forcing to topple the old regime. And there were concepts of sovereignty. Article three proclaim this principle of sovereignty
resides essentially in the nation. Hence power no longer flowed from the king by divine right, but from the people as a whole. In terms of law and equality, Article six stated law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally or through his representative. In its formation, here was Rousseau's philosophy transmuted into law. There were rights to liberty, property, and security, Article two identified these as the natural and imprescriptible rights
of man. Article seventeen property is inviable and sacred those subject of course to expropriation for public necessity, but with compensation, and there were limits, for the first time placed on authority. The declaration defined liberty not as absolute license, but as bounded by law. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else. The language was deliberately universal.
It spoke of man and citizen, not a Frenchman, specifically suggesting these were rights belonging to all humanity at once. The declaration was hailed as a turning point. In Paris, newspapers printed it in full, and copies spread to towns and villages. Foreign observers, too, recognized its importance. Thomas Jefferson wrote that it was the single best statement of the rights of man ever produced. Man means something from Thomas Jefferson.
The Marquis de Concordette called it the Catechism of free men. Now, of course, have also drew some criticism. Some conservatives feared it undermined monarchy and religion. Others pointed out its silences.
Olimpe de Use, the playwright famously perioded it in seventeen eighty nine with her Declaration of the Rights of Women and Female citizens, asking why woman is born free but denied citizenship and of course, in the French colonies enslaved people in San domine K, which is modern da Haiti invoked its principles to challenge slavery, though the Assembly initially excluded them. While the Assembly debated lofty principles, other things
we weren't going so well. Paris was hung bread remained scarce, and the king lingered at Versailles, seemingly distant from the people's needs. Rumors spread that the court plotted to resist the revolution, perhaps with foreign help. Matters got worse in early October. On the first day of October, at Versailles, the royal bodyguards hosted a banquet for the officers of
the Flanders Regiment. Accounts of the feast, exaggerated or not, spread quickly to Paris that royalists had trampled the tricolor cockade, toasted the white flag of the Bourbons, and cheered the Queen Marie Antoinette with open scorn for the revolution. Camille de Misien fumed in his pamphlet Revolutions de Paris at Albrabant quote, they drink, they sing, They call for the destruction of the National Assembly. While the people starve for bread. Next week they'll just go get it.