each bearing a characteristic name, connected by massive walls, ten feet
thick, pierced with narrow slits by which the cells were lighted. In the
early times it had entrances on three sides, but after 1580 only one, with
a drawbridge over the moat on the side toward the river, which led to
outer courts and a second drawbridge, and wound by a defended passage to
an outer entrance opposite the Rue des Tournelles.

Close beside the Bastille, to the north, rose the Porte St. Antoine,
approached over the city fosse by its own bridge, at the outer end of
which was a triumphal arch built on the return of Henri II. from Poland in
1573. Both gate and arch were restored for the triumphal entry of Louis
XIV. in 1667; but the gate (before which Etienne Marcel was killed, July,
1358), was pulled down in 1674.

The Bastille was taken by the people, July 14, 1789, and the National
Assembly decreed its demolition.... The massive circular pedestal upon
which the Colonne de Juillet now rests was intended by Napoleon I. to
support a gigantic fountain in the form of an elephant, instead of the
column which, after the destruction of the Bastille, the "tiers etat" of
Paris had asked to erect "a Louis XVI., restaurateur de la liberte
publique." It is characteristic of the Parisians that on the very same
spot the throne of Louis Philippe was publicly burned, February 24, 1848.
The model for the intended elephant existed here till the middle of the
reign of Louis Philippe, and is depicted by Victor Hugo as the lodging of
"Le petit Gavroche."




The Pantheon and St. Etienne-Du-Mont