Bastille Day is to France as the Fourth of July is to the United States. But the revolution behind the tricolour was far different from the one behind the stars and stripes. On the morning of July 14, 1789, Parisians flocked en masse to the Bastille. This was the real start of the French Revolution.

Revolution had been brewing in France since the 1770s. Louis XV emptied his country’s coffers during the Seven Years’ War, and he’d paid more attention to his mistresses than his subjects. When Louis XVI — a mere teenager — took the throne in 1774, he wasn’t prepared to lead a nation in a financial crisis. His extravagant wife Marie Antoinette compounded problems at court with her lavish spending. The resurrected Estates General thought they could negotiate with the king to form a three-chambered parliament. This would guarantee the French people (not just the nobility and clergy) a voice. The National Assembly vowed to write a constitution for the people of France, and they thought Louis might support it. But then he dispatched troops to the streets of Paris and cut loose his finance minister, who’d been supportive of the people’s cause.

The city erupted in a fury, and a mob headed for the Bastille. This 14th-century fortress held prisoners of state and gunpowder — and the crowds were after both. Storming the Bastille, the people killed the guards, set the prisoners free and gathered gunpowder. They razed the Bastille, and as this massive symbol of the ineffectual monarchy crumbled to pieces, it became clear that the revolution had arrived.

NPR has a wonderful collection of “Revolutionary Sounds: A Bastille Day Music Mix” on its Web site. You can listen as you read more about revolutionary France.

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