Bastille Day fills Paris with military parades along the Champs-Élysées, fireworks over the Eiffel Tower, and open-air bals in nearly every arrondissement. The holiday has been marked every July 14 since 1790 to remember the storming of the Bastille. Walk from the Place de la Bastille through the Marais to the river and you follow the story on foot. This local walking route helps you discover cities on foot while tracing walks with history through the actual streets where the revolution began.
Place de la Bastille
The fortress ordered by Charles V in 1370 protected the eastern edge of the medieval city. It later became a prison for political detainees. Voltaire was locked inside in 1717 after writing verses that offended the regent. The Marquis de Sade was held here in the 1780s until he was moved to the asylum at Charenton just days before the attack.
- On July 14, 1789, a crowd estimated at several hundred strong arrived from the Invalides carrying five cannons. They demanded the gunpowder stored in the cellars. Talks continued for hours. At approximately five in the afternoon the drawbridge came down. The crowd entered. The governor, Bernard-René Jordan de Launay, was captured and killed that same evening near the Hôtel de Ville. Only seven men were freed from the cells.
- The demolition began the next day. Stones from the walls were sold as relics or used in new construction projects, including parts of the Concorde bridge. On the square today, bronze lines embedded in the pavement trace the precise outline of the eight round towers and the walls that enclosed them. The lines are easy to miss unless you look down. The July Column, finished in 1840, stands where the fortress once rose and carries the names of the 504 people who died in the 1830 uprising.
Streets With History in the Marais
Head west from the column on Rue Saint-Antoine. This ancient thoroughfare connected the working faubourgs to the center and carried many of the people who took part in the events of 1789. The walk is direct. At a normal pace it takes fifteen to twenty minutes to reach a good point for a detour into the side streets.
Watch for Rue d'Ormesson on your right after you pass the larger intersections. Turn north and walk the short block into the Marais. The scale changes at once. Tall stone buildings from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries line the lane. Many of these hôtels particuliers housed the aristocracy and high officials before the revolution. When their owners fled or lost their property, the buildings were subdivided and the quarter gradually lost its fashionable status. That decline helped preserve the old fabric.
These quiet lanes and small squares count among the hidden gems that reward anyone willing to step off the beaten path for a few blocks. The Marais still reveals its age more readily than neighborhoods reshaped by later urban plans.
Place du Marché Sainte-Catherine
This small square was laid out as a market in the middle of the eighteenth century. Low houses with large windows surround a paved center planted with plane trees. Neighbors continue to use the benches. In the first years of the revolution, district assemblies met in squares and courtyards exactly like this one. People discussed the decrees arriving from Versailles and the National Assembly, set prices for bread, and formed units of the National Guard. The square offers a place to sit and absorb the quieter residential side of the Marais.
From the square, head south or southwest until you meet Rue Saint-Paul. Turn south on that street and continue for about ten minutes. The light brightens and the buildings step back as you near the water.
The Seine
Rue Saint-Paul ends at the river embankment. You have walked a little under two kilometers from the starting point at the Bastille column. Most people complete the route in forty-five minutes to an hour and a quarter when they pause to read the pavement markings, examine doorways, and rest on the benches in the square.
The Seine has carried the life of the city for centuries. In 1789 news of the Bastille's fall traveled quickly along the river and outward to the provinces. On Bastille Day the banks and bridges become natural viewing areas for the fireworks that burst over the Eiffel Tower after dark. The display begins around eleven at night and can be seen clearly from this eastern stretch of the right bank.
Local Dishes
Jambon-beurre is a fresh baguette split and filled with salted butter and slices of Paris ham.
Soupe à l'oignon gratinée is beef broth with deeply caramelized onions, topped with a slice of toasted bread and melted Gruyère cheese.
Croque-monsieur is a sandwich of ham and cheese on white bread, covered in béchamel and grilled until the surface turns golden and bubbly.