The Bastille became the focus of the opening of the French Revolution. Why? The Bastille had been transformed from being used as a military fortress to protect the Eastern wall of Paris in the 14th Century to it's less imposing role as a prison by the 17th Century . The walls were over eighty feet high and it held weapons arsenals from its glory days as a military fortress . Acting under King Louis XIII, Cardinal Richelieu …showed first 75 words of 1279 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1279 total…to a radical republic. Bibliography Jones, Colin. The Cambridge Illustrated History of France. Cambridge University Press, 1994. Lecture Notes: History 201: From 10/3/05 at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Rude, G. (1970) Paris and London in the 18th Century: Studies in Popular Protest, London: Collins Schama, 'Buried Alive? Myths and Realities in the Bastille' from Citizens, 1989 Thompson, Steve, (2003) Area of Study Summary Notes: The French Revolution, from http://vcehistory.info/france/pdf/france-summary.pdf, Accessed on the 27th of March