Editing Bastille (section)

===14th century===
[[File:Bastille reconstruction 1420.jpg|thumb|300px|Historical reconstruction showing the moat below the walls of Paris (left), the Bastille and the [[Porte Saint-Antoine]] (right) in 1420]]

The Bastille was built in response to a threat to Paris during the [[Hundred Years' War]] between England and France.<ref name=LandsdaleP216>Lansdale, p. 216.</ref> Prior to the Bastille, the main royal castle in Paris was the [[Louvre]], in the west of the capital, but the city had expanded by the middle of the 14th century and the eastern side was now exposed to an English attack.<ref name=LandsdaleP216/> The situation worsened after the [[Ransom of John II of France|imprisonment of John II]] in England following the French defeat at the [[Battle of Poitiers]], and in his absence the [[Provost of Paris]], [[Étienne Marcel]], took steps to improve the capital's defences.<ref>Bournon, p. 1.</ref> In 1357, Marcel expanded the city walls and protected the [[Porte Saint-Antoine]] with two high stone towers and a {{convert|78|ft|m|adj=mid|-wide}} ditch.<ref>Viollet, p. 172; Coueret, p. 2; Lansdale, p. 216.</ref>{{refn|An alternative opinion, held by Fernand Bournon, is that the first bastille was a completely different construction, possibly made just of earth, and that all of the later bastille was built under [[Charles V of France|Charles V]] and his son.<ref>Bournon, p. 3.</ref>|group=upper-alpha}} A fortified gateway of this sort was called a ''bastille'', and was one of two created in Paris, the other being built outside the [[Porte Saint-Denis]].<ref>Coueret, p. 2.</ref> Marcel was subsequently removed from his post and executed in 1358.<ref name=ViolletLandsdaleP218>Viollet, p. 172; Landsdale, p. 218.</ref>

In 1369, Charles V became concerned about the weakness of the eastern side of the city to English attacks and raids by mercenaries.<ref>Viollet, p. 172; Landsdale, p. 218; Muzerelle (2010a), p. 14.</ref> Charles instructed [[Hugues Aubriot]], the new provost, to build a much larger fortification on the same site as Marcel's ''bastille''.<ref name=ViolletLandsdaleP218/> Work began in 1370 with another pair of towers being built behind the first ''bastille'', followed by two towers to the north, and finally two towers to the south.<ref name=CouereteBournonP3>Coueret, p. 3, Bournon, p. 6.</ref> The fortress was probably not finished by the time Charles died in 1380, and was completed by his son, [[Charles VI of France|Charles VI]].<ref name=CouereteBournonP3/> The resulting structure became known simply as the Bastille, with the eight irregularly built towers and linking curtain walls forming a structure {{convert|223|ft|m}} wide and {{convert|121|ft|m}} deep, the walls and towers {{convert|78|ft|m}} high and {{convert|10|ft|m}} thick at their bases.<ref>Viollet, p. 172; Schama, p 331; Muzerelle (2010a), p. 14.</ref> Built to the same height, the roofs of the towers and the tops of the walls formed a broad, [[crenellated]] walkway all the way around the fortress.<ref name="Anderson, p. 208">Anderson, p. 208.</ref> Each of the six newer towers had underground ''cachots'', or [[dungeon]]s, at its base, and curved ''calotte'', literally "shell", rooms in their roofs.<ref>Coueret, p. 52.</ref>

Garrisoned by a captain, a knight, eight squires and ten crossbowmen, the Bastille was encircled with ditches fed by the River [[Seine]], and faced with stone.<ref>''[http://classes.bnf.fr/classes/pages/pdf/Bastille1.pdf La Bastille ou « l'Enfer des vivants »?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514183208/http://classes.bnf.fr/classes/pages/pdf/Bastille1.pdf |date=14 May 2011 }}'', [[Bibliothèque nationale de France]], accessed 8 August 2011; Funck-Brentano, p. 62; Bournon, p. 48.</ref> The fortress had four sets of drawbridges, which allowed the Rue Saint-Antoine to pass eastwards through the Bastille's gates while giving easy access to the city walls on the north and south sides.<ref>Viollet, p. 172.</ref> The Bastille overlooked the Saint-Antoine gate, which by 1380 was a strong, square building with turrets and protected by two drawbridges of its own.<ref>Coueret, p. 36.</ref> Charles V chose to live close to the Bastille for his own safety and created a royal complex to the south of the fortress called the [[Hôtel Saint-Pol]], stretching from the Porte Saint-Paul up to the Rue Saint-Antoine.<ref>Lansdale, p. 221.</ref>{{refn|The Bastille can be seen in the background of [[Jean Fouquet]]'s [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Entr%C3%A9e_de_Charles_V_%C3%A0_Paris.jpg 15th-century depiction] of [[Charles V of France|Charles V]]'s entrance into Paris.|group=upper-alpha}}

Historian [[Sidney Toy]] has described the Bastille as "one of the most powerful fortifications" of the period, and the most important fortification in late medieval Paris.<ref>Toy, p. 215; Anderson, p. 208.</ref> The Bastille's design was highly innovative: it rejected both the 13th-century tradition of more weakly fortified [[quadrangular castle]]s, and the contemporary fashion set at [[Château de Vincennes|Vincennes]], where tall towers were positioned around a lower wall, overlooked by an even taller keep in the centre.<ref name="Anderson, p. 208"/> In particular, building the towers and the walls of the Bastille at the same height allowed the rapid movement of forces around the castle, as well as giving more space to move and position cannons on the wider walkways.<ref>Anderson pp. 208, 283.</ref> The Bastille design was copied at [[Château de Pierrefonds|Pierrefonds]] and [[Tarascon castle|Tarascon]] in France, while its architectural influence extended as far as [[Nunney Castle]] in south-west England.<ref>Anderson, pp. 208–09.</ref>

{{wide image|Bastille towers profile.jpg|600px|A 1750 plan of the Bastille's eight medieval towers showing the ''[[Dome|calottes]]'' in the roofs and the infamous ''[[Dungeon|cachots]]'' within the foundations}}