bastille

The French word bastille comes from Old Provencal bastida, meaning 'fortress' or 'fortified building,' from bastir, 'to build.' In medieval France, any fortified tower could be called a bastille. The word was generic, architectural, unremarkable. Paris had several bastilles. But one of them -- the Bastille Saint-Antoine, built between 1370 and 1383 during the Hundred Years' War -- acquired the definite article and the capital letter, and the common noun became a proper name.

The Bastille was originally a defensive gatehouse on the eastern approach to Paris. Cardinal Richelieu converted it into a state prison in the 1600s, and it became the place where the French monarchy held people without trial through lettres de cachet -- sealed royal warrants. Voltaire was imprisoned there twice (1717 and 1726). The Marquis de Sade was held there from 1784 to 1789. The prison held an average of forty prisoners at any given time -- not many, but the symbolism was enormous.

On July 14, 1789, a Parisian crowd stormed the Bastille. They found seven prisoners inside. The strategic significance was minimal; the symbolic significance was total. The fortress of arbitrary royal power had been taken by the people. The Bastille was demolished over the following months, its stones sold as souvenirs. The date became France's national holiday. A building became a revolution became a word for tyranny's architecture.

English had borrowed 'bastille' by the fourteenth century as a general term for a fortress. After 1789, the word narrowed permanently. In English, 'bastille' now means only one thing: the prison that fell. The French still use Bastille Day (le quatorze juillet) as their national celebration. A generic word for 'fortified building' became a proper noun for 'the moment the old order ended.'