4. The Storming of the Bastille
Those who dumped boxes of tea into the water of Massachusetts Bay were far from the only ones harboring ambitions of changing the way that society was ordered in the late 18th century. Back in the Old World, there were rumblings too.
In France, the example of the United States was fairly well known – in fact, the French had fought alongside the Americans against the British – and the ideas that had underpinned the Revolution of 1776 were about to return to Europe for the Revolution of 1789.
Before the French Revolution, French society was divided between the so-called Three Estates: the First, made up of the Catholic Church and its clergy, the Second, comprising the King and his nobility and the Third Estate, basically everyone else. The First Estate owned basically all the land, the Second Estate, owned pretty much everything else and the Third Estate, despite being by far the poorest, paid all the taxes. No taxation without representation, then, seemed as good an idea to most of the French as it had to the Americans.
Furthermore, France was broke. Indulging in wars in America and elsewhere had not done much for the national finances and with neither the nobles or the Church willing to pay any taxes, the King resolved to tax the Third Estate more. An Estates-General, where all three met, was called, but the Third Estate received far less voting power than the other two: in fact, despite representing nearly all the people, the entire Third Estate got one vote while each individual member of the First and Second Estates got one for themselves. In response, the Third Estate split away and formed the National Assembly.
They met in a nearby tennis court – no joke, the door to the Salle d’Etats meeting room was locked and they couldn’t find the key to open it – and swore to create a constitution. When the King threatened the National Assembly, the people of Paris rose in their defense, storming the fortress of the Bastille and setting the stage for the French Revolution. Granted, the act of storming the Bastille was not that important strategically – there were only 7 prisoners inside, including one who thought he was Julius Caesar – but the symbolism of the people smashing the historic bastion of the Ancien Regime was one that would make a lasting impression on French and European politics forever.