or BASTILE (from the French *bastir*, bâtir, to build), denotes a small antique castle, fortified with turrets. Such was the famous Bastille of Paris, which seems to have been the last castle that retained the name. It was commenced in 1370, by order of Charles V., and finished in 1382, under the reign of his successor. This building was strongly fortified, with numerous massive towers, which were united by a wall eight feet in thickness. The whole was surrounded by a ditch twenty-five feet in depth; and at subsequent intervals other additions were made to the fortifications, so as to render it an almost impregnable fortress. When Charles VII. retook Paris from the English in 1436, all his opponents in the city took refuge in the Bastille, which they were prepared to defend with vigour, but the want of provisions obliged them to capitulate. In 1588 the Duke of Guise took possession of the Bastille, and gave the command of it to Buszy-Leclerc. Soon afterwards he shut up the whole parliament within its walls, for having refused their adherence to the League. When Henri IV. became master of Paris he committed the command of the Bastille to Sully, and there he deposited his treasures, which at the time of his death amounted to the enormous sum of 1,870,000 livres.

On the 11th of January 1649, the Bastille was invested by the forces of the Fronde, and, after a short cannonade, capitulated on the 13th of that month. The garrison consisted of only twenty-two men. The Frondeurs concluded a peace with the court on the 11th of March; but it was stipulated by treaty that they should retain possession of the Bastille, which in fact was not restored to the king till the 21st of October 1651. In that year took place the famous fight of the Porte Ste Antoine, between Condé and Turcenne, on which occasion the forces of Condé owed their safe retreat into Paris to the cannon of the Bastille.

The chief use of the Bastille, however, was for the custody of state prisoners, or, more properly speaking, for the clandestine atrocities of a corrupt and cold-blooded despotism. Nowhere else upon earth, even in the dungeons of the Inquisition, had human misery by human means been rendered so lasting, so complete, and in many cases so irremediable, as in the Bastille. Of this one striking instance related by M. Mercier may serve as an example.

Upon the accession of Louis XVI. to the throne, the ministers then in office, anxious to obtain popularity by an act of clemency and justice, began their administration by inspecting the registers of the Bastille, and setting many prisoners at liberty. Amongst these was an old man, who had been a prisoner for forty-seven years. The sudden change from the solitude of his cell to the light and bustle of the outer world was too great for him; and finding that of the friends of his youth none now survived, he begged to be restored to the dungeon which had become his only home. The offence which had been visited by so terrible a punishment consisted in some unguarded expressions respecting Louis XV. These had been reported, very probably exaggerated, by some informer or enemy; a lettre-de-cachet had been issued; and the offender seized, committed to the Bastille, and forgotten.

Among the more distinguished personages who were confined in this fortress during the reigns of Louis XIV., XV., and XVI., were the famous *Man of the Iron Mask*, the Marshal Richelieu, Le Maistre de Sacy, De Renneville, Voltaire, De Latude, Le Prévost de Beaumont, Labourdonnais, Lally, Cardinal Rohan, Linguet, and La Chalotais. But, besides the numerous illustrious prisoners who at various times occupied the Bastille,—of whom many were more or less guilty,—its dreadful dungeons became the tombs of thousands of obscure victims, whose very names were made to perish out of record, having been designedly defaced in the registers of the governors, or committed to loose leaves, that no trace of their fate might survive to satisfy the anxiety of friends or the curiosity of posterity. Thus in the reign of Louis XIV. the Bastille was a receptacle for innumerable innocent victims of religious tyranny; and, under the more degrading sway of his successor, for the fathers and brothers of the unhappy inmates of the *Pare aux Cerfs*.

At the breaking out of the French revolution, the Bastille was attacked by the Parisians, and, after a vigorous resistance, taken and razed to the ground. This memorable event occurred on the 14th July 1789. At the time of its capture only seven prisoners were found in it. A very striking account of this siege will be found in Carlyle's *French Revolution*, vol. i.

The site of the Bastille is now marked by a lofty column of bronze, dedicated to the memory of the patriots of July 1789 and 1830. It is crowned by a gilded figure of Mercury, spreading its pinions in the act of flight.

See the *Histories* of the Bastille by Renneville (7 tom. 12mo, 1713–24); Fougeret (8vo, 1833); Dufey de l'Yonse (8vo, 1884); Arnould (7 tom. 8vo, 1843–44); and the *Mémoirs* of Linguet (12mo, 1821, new ed.); Carra (3 tom. 8vo, 1787); Charpentier (3 tom. 8vo, 1789); and Latude (edited by Thierry, 3 tom. 18mo, 1791–92).