Home › Miscellaneous Curiosities › The Destruction of the Bastile of Paris

The Destruction of the Bastile of Paris

double range of stupendous flying buttresses and intervening piers, bristling with a perfect forest of pinnacles. The form of the church is a cross, and the arches are supported by a quadruple row of sixty-four columns, In the choir there are several stained windows belonging to the fourteenth century, which are regarded as unusually fine. Around the choir, against the columns, stand colossal figures of the Saviour, the Virgin Mary, and the twelve Apostles, sculptured in the same century; and in a small chapel behind the high altar stands the celebrated "Shrine of the Three Kings of Cologne," or Wise Men of the East, whose bones are supposed to repose therein. The other parts of the building have been completed with careful fidelity to the original design, and it is now, in its finished state, as was written of it many years ago, "at once the most regular and most stupendous Gothic monument existing."

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BASTILE OF PARIS. - This famous prison was originally the castle of Paris, and was built by order of Charles V., between the years 1370 and 1383 , by Hugo Aubriot, Provost of Paris, at the Porte St. Antoine as a defense against the English. Afterwards when it came to be used as a State prison it was provided during the 16th and 17th centuries with vast bulwarks and ditches. On each of its longer sides it had four towers of five stories each, over which ran a gallery which was armed with cannon. It was partly in these towers and partly in cellars under the level of the ground that the prison was situated. The unfortunate inmates of these abodes were so effectually removed from the world without as often to be entirely forgotten, and in some cases it was found impossible to discover either their origin or the cause of their incarceration.

The Bastile was capable of containing 70 or 80 prisoners, a number frequently reached during the reigns of Louis XIV. and XV. Though small compared with the number which an ordinary prison contains, these numbers were considerable when we reflect that they rarely ever consisted of persons of the lower ranks or such as were guilty of actual crimes, but of those who were sacrificed to political despotism, court intrigue, ecclesiastical tyranny, or had fallen victims to family quarrels. On the 14th of July, 1789, the fortress was surrounded by an armed mob, which the reactionary policy of the Court had driven into fury, and to the number of which every moment added. The garrison consisted of 82 old soldiers and 32 Swiss. The negotiations which were entered into with the King led to no other result than the removal of the cannon posted on the Faubourg St. Antoine, which by no means contented the exasperated multitude. Some one cut the chains of the first drawbridge, and a and a contest took place, in which one of the besieged and 150 of the people were killed or wounded; but the arrival of a portion of of a portion of the troops, which had already joined the people, with four field pieces, turned the fortunes of the conflict in favor of the besiegers. De Launay, the Governor, who had been prevented by one of his officers, when on the point of blowing the prison into the air, permitted the second drawbridge to be lowered, and the people rushed in, killing De Launay himself and several of his officers. The destruction of the Bastile commenced on the following day amid the thunder of cannon and the pealing of the Te Deum. This event in itself apparently of no great moment, leading only to the release of three unknown prisoners, one of whom had been its tenant for thirty years, broke the spirit of the Court party , and changed the current of events in France.

CLEOPATRA'S BARGE. - The vessel in which the lovely and luxurious Queen of Egypt floated upon the Nile, has been described by historians and portrayed by poets at various times.

We give Shakespeare's account of it: "The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne Burned on the water; the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the tunes of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, She beggared all description; she did lie On her pavilion (cloth of gold and tissue) O'erpicturing that Venus where we see The fancy outwork nature; on each side her Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, With divers-colored fans, whose wind did seem To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, And what they undid, did."

Cleopatra was the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, King of Egypt, and was co-heir to the throne. with her brother. She , and was co-heir to the throne with her brother. She was robbed of her possessions; but on appealing to Rome she was restored by Julius Cæsar. After his death she became the friend of Marc Antony, who left his wife, Octavia, for love of this bewitching woman. Antony having suffered defeat at Actium, Cleopatra ended her troubled life by allowing an asp to poison her.

She was in her thirty-ninth year when she died.

JEWISH HIGH-PRIEST. - While the Israelites had a remarkably high and pure conception of the spiritual attributes of Jehovah, and pure conception of the spiritual attributes of Jehovah, their forms of worship were full of material observances, and their great law-giver , Moses, laid down the most minute directions as to the garb and ornaments that were to be worn by those who ministered at the altar. The Roman Catholic Church has very largely borrowed from the more ancient forms. Nothing can be grander in appearance than the dress worn by the High- Priest of Israel, while its ornamentation is full of symbolism strongly to the imagination. This dress consisted of