What was the first violent incident of the French Revolution?

Answer 1

None at all that you could call 'tragic'. It would be another 3 to 4 years before the start of the tragic period called The Terror with its mass executions under the Guillotine.

The only dramatic (rather than tragic) occurrence in the first months of the Revolution was the storming of the Bastille by a crowd of Parisians. It was a reaction to rumors that the king was calling in soldiers to forcibly disband the meeting of the National Assembly that had been established a month before. Also, rumors went that the King had been locking up all kinds of political enemies and probably also some champions of the new democracy in the Bastille.

The rumors about the soldiers were at least much exaggerated. Louis XVI was - if anything - a much too kindly man for his own good. Plus, he had just fired his Finance minister for trying to misinform the Assembly and was seriously trying to work things out with them.

As to the assumed political prisoners: the Bastille was a semi-open institution, guarded by a small contingent of mostly elderly soldiers. It turned out to contain 8inmates, six convicted for serious crimes and two that had been put there because of serious psychiatric problems. One of them was the infamous Marquis De Sade (name-giver of the word sadism) who had been shouting daily from his Bastille windows into the street below that his imprisonment was a conspiracy against him by his family and the authorities. It was probably he who gave people the idea that the Bastille was a dark and cruel place.

Answer 2

At the beginning of July 1789, the people of Paris is exasperated by the price of bread and fears that the king's regiments may sever the lines of supply of Paris. Rioting erupts at the Paris barriers. On the 11, the king fires some ministers considered favorable to the people, among them Necker, finance minister. Paris learn the news of the firing on the 12. The journalist Desmoulins speaks to the crowd assembled and explain that the people have to defend themselves, as the firing of Necker is an hostile act against the Parisians. A Parisian mob clashes in the Tuileries gardens and in the Invalides with the soldiers from the "Royal-Allemand" regiment, who are accused by the crowd to have killed demonstrators.

On the 13 of July, 40 out of the 54 toll barriers are set on fire. The convents' reserves of wheat are pillaged. A militia is formed.

The accepted date for the first serious incidents is nevertheless the 14th of July. In the morning insurgents capture cannons and firearms from the Invalides' arsenal, but there is no powder. The frustrated mob turns towards the prison of the Bastille, where it thinks it could find powder. Another crowd is already there. De Launay, the castle's governor, wants to resist the invasion but agrees to a committee and lets the crowd in the first yard. He then changes his mind and orders the garrison to fire in the crowd. The cannons taken at the Invalides are brought in by the insurgents and De launay orders that the garrison surrender. He is taken prisoner, marched to the town hall, but killed on the way, beheaded and his head fixed on a pike. Other Bastille guards, taken prisoner, are also killed. At the town hall, the crowd seizes Jacques de Flesselles, Prévôt des archands (akin to mayor), lynches him as traitor and beheads him, and fixes his head on another pike. The death toll among the insurgents is about 100 killed during the firing in the castle.

Answer 3

As Thomas Jefferson was preparing to leave Paris, the Bastille prison was attacked by the Paris mob. Tragedy began the Revolution. One such instance was the death of Governor DeLaunay. Although the riotors promised him and his men safe passage out of Paris, it was not to be. He and his men were killed and the mob paraded their heads on spikes throughout Paris.