Editing Bastille (section)

===19th–20th century political and cultural legacy===
[[File:Bastille foundations.jpg|thumb|The foundations of the Liberté Tower of the Bastille, rediscovered during excavations for the [[Bastille (Paris Métro)|Métro]] in 1899<ref>Amalvi, p. 184.</ref>]]

The Bastille remained a powerful and evocative symbol for French republicans throughout the 19th century.<ref>Amalvi, p. 181.</ref> [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] overthrew the [[French First Republic]] that emerged from the Revolution in 1799, and subsequently attempted to marginalise the Bastille as a symbol.<ref name=LusebrinkReichardtP220>Lüsebrink and Reichardt, p. 220.</ref> Napoleon was unhappy with the revolutionary connotations of the Place de la Bastille, and initially considered building his [[Arc de Triomphe]] on the site instead.<ref name=SchamaP3>Schama, p .3.</ref> This proved an unpopular option, and so instead he planned the construction of a huge bronze statue of an imperial elephant.<ref name=SchamaP3/> The project was delayed, eventually indefinitely, and all that was constructed was a [[Elephant of the Bastille|large plaster version]] of the bronze statue, which stood on the former site of the Bastille between 1814 and 1846, when the decaying structure was finally removed.<ref name=SchamaP3/> After the [[Bourbon Restoration in France|restoration of the French Bourbon monarchy]] in 1815, the Bastille became an underground symbol for Republicans.<ref name=LusebrinkReichardtP220/> The [[July Revolution]] in 1830 used images such as the Bastille to legitimise their new regime and in 1833, the former site of the Bastille was used to build the [[July Column]] to commemorate the revolution.<ref>Burton, p. 40; Lüsebrink and Reichardt, p. 222.</ref> The short-lived [[French Second Republic|Second Republic]] was symbolically declared in 1848 on the former revolutionary site.<ref>Lüsebrink and Reichardt, p. 227.</ref>

The storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 had been celebrated annually since 1790, initially through quasi-religious rituals, and then later during the Revolution with grand, secular events including the burning of replica Bastilles.<ref>Lüsebrink and Reichardt, pp. 155–6.</ref> Under Napoleon the events became less revolutionary, focusing instead on military parades and national unity in the face of foreign threats.<ref>Lüsebrink and Reichardt, pp. 156–7.</ref> During the 1870s, the 14 July celebrations became a rallying point for Republicans opposed to the early monarchist leadership of the [[French Third Republic|Third Republic]]; when the moderate Republican [[Jules Grévy]] became president in 1879, his new government turned the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille into a national holiday.<ref>Lüsebrink and Reichardt, p. 229.</ref> The anniversary remained contentious, with hard-line Republicans continuing to use the occasion to protest against the new political order and right-wing conservatives protesting about the imposition of the holiday.<ref>McPhee, p. 259; Lüsebrink and Reichardt, p. 231.</ref> The July Column itself remained contentious, and Republican radicals unsuccessfully tried to blow it up in 1871.<ref name="Burton, p. 40">Burton, p. 40.</ref>

Meanwhile, the legacy of the Bastille proved popular among French novelists. [[Alexandre Dumas]], for example, used the Bastille and the legend of the "Man in the Iron Mask" extensively in his [[d'Artagnan Romances]]; in these novels the Bastille is presented as both picturesque and tragic, a suitable setting for heroic action.<ref>Sacquin, pp. 186–7.</ref> By contrast, in many of Dumas's other works, such as ''Ange Pitou'', the Bastille takes on a much darker appearance, being described as a place in which a prisoner is "forgotten, bankrupted, buried, destroyed".<ref>Sacquin, p. 186.</ref> In England, [[Charles Dickens]] took a similar perspective when he drew on popular histories of the Bastille in writing ''[[A Tale of Two Cities]]'', in which Doctor Manette is "buried alive" in the prison for 18 years; many historical figures associated with the Bastille are reinvented as fictional individuals in the novel, such as Claude Cholat, reproduced by Dickens as "Ernest Defarge".<ref>Glancy, pp. 18, 33; Sacquin, p. 186.</ref> [[Victor Hugo]]'s 1862 novel ''[[Les Misérables]]'', set just after the Revolution, gave Napoleon's plaster Bastille elephant a permanent place in literary history. In 1889 the continued popularity of the Bastille with the public was illustrated by the decision to build a replica in stone and wood for the [[Exposition Universelle (1889)|Exposition Universelle]] [[World's fair|world fair]] in Paris, manned by actors in period costumes.<ref>Giret, p. 191.</ref>

Due in part to the diffusion of national and Republican ideas across France during the second half of the Third Republic, the Bastille lost an element of its prominence as a symbol by the 20th century.<ref>Lüsebrink and Reichardt, p. 235.</ref> Nonetheless, the Place de la Bastille continued to be the traditional location for left wing rallies, particularly in the 1930s, the symbol of the Bastille was widely evoked by the [[French Resistance]] during the [[Second World War]] and until the 1950s [[Bastille Day]] remained the single most significant French national holiday.<ref>Nora, p. 118; Ayers, p. 188; Lüsebrink and Reichardt, pp. 232–5.</ref>