An angry Paris mob, having already seized 30,000 muskets from Les Invalides that morning, marched on the Bastille seeking gunpowder. After a chaotic afternoon siege and the killing of the governor, the medieval fortress fell, and its fall became the era's defining symbol of tyranny overthrown, still marked as France's national holiday.
The Bastille held only seven prisoners that day, none of them political martyrs, but its eight looming towers had for centuries symbolized royal absolutism. When rumors spread that the fortress's cannons might be turned on the city, a crowd of several hundred armed Parisians converged on it demanding its gunpowder stores.
Negotiations broke down mid-morning. Firing erupted, and by the time governor Bernard-René de Launay surrendered around 5 p.m., roughly 98 attackers and one defender lay dead. Launay was dragged through the streets and murdered, his head hoisted on a pike—an early sign of the revolution's coming violence.
Within days, workers began demolishing the fortress entirely, selling stones and miniature Bastille models as souvenirs of liberty. Lafayette sent a key from the prison to George Washington, who displayed it at Mount Vernon. The date became Bastille Day, France's most sacred civic anniversary, commemorating not the Bastille's military significance—it had none—but the moment ordinary Parisians proved royal power could be broken.