Editing Bastille (section)

===Reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI (1723–1789)===

====Architecture and organisation====
[[File:Bastille profile, 1750.jpg|thumb|350px|A cross-section of the Bastille viewed from the south in 1750]]

By the late 18th century, the Bastille had come to separate the more aristocratic quarter of [[The Marais]] in the old city from the working class district of the faubourg Saint-Antoine that lay beyond the Louis XIV boulevard.<ref name=BNF1/> The Marais was a fashionable area, frequented by foreign visitors and tourists, but few went beyond the Bastille into the faubourg.<ref>Garrioch, p. 22.</ref> The faubourg was characterised by its built-up, densely populated areas, particularly in the north, and its numerous workshops producing soft furnishings.<ref>Garrioch, p. 22; Roche, p. 17.</ref> Paris as a whole had continued to grow, reaching slightly less than 800,000 inhabitants by the reign of Louis XVI, and many of the residents around the faubourg had migrated to Paris from the countryside relatively recently.<ref>Roche, p. 17.</ref> The Bastille had its own street address, being officially known as No. 232, rue Saint-Antoine.<ref>Schama, p. 330.</ref>

Structurally, the late-18th century Bastille was not greatly changed from its 14th-century predecessor.<ref>Funck-Brentano, p. 58.</ref> The eight stone towers had gradually acquired individual names: running from the north-east side of the external gate, these were La Chapelle, Trésor, Comté, Bazinière, Bertaudière, Liberté, Puits and Coin.<ref name="Chevallier, p. 148">Chevallier, p. 148.</ref> La Chapelle contained the Bastille's chapel, decorated with a painting of [[Saint Peter]] in chains.<ref>Coueret, pp .45–6.</ref> Trésor took its name from the reign of Henry IV, when it had contained the royal treasury.<ref name=CoueretP46>Coueret, p. 46.</ref> The origins of the name of Comté tower are unclear; one theory is that the name refers to the County of Paris.<ref>Coueret, p. 47; Funck-Brentano, pp. 59–60.</ref> Bazinière was named after Bertrand de La Bazinière, a royal treasurer who was imprisoned there in 1663.<ref name=CoueretP46/> Bertaudière was named after a medieval mason who died building the structure in the 14th century.<ref name=CoueretP47>Coueret, p. 47.</ref> Liberté tower took its name either from a protest in 1380, when Parisians shouted the phrase outside the castle, or because it was used to house prisoners who had more freedom to walk around the castle than the typical prisoner.<ref>Coueret, p. 47; Funck-Brentano, p. 60.</ref> Puits tower contained the castle well, while Coin formed the corner of the Rue Saint-Antoine.<ref name=CoueretP47/>

[[File:Bastille floor plan labelled.png|thumb|250px|left|Plan of the Bastille in the 18th century. A – La Chapelle Tower; B – Trésor Tower; C – Comté Tower; D – Bazinière Tower; E – Bertaudière Tower; F – Liberté Tower; G – Puits Tower; H – Coin Tower; I – Courtyard of the Well; J – Office wing; K – Large Courtyard]]

The main castle courtyard, accessed through the southern gateway, was 120 feet long by 72 feet wide (37 m by 22 m), and was divided from the smaller northern yard by a three-office wing, built around 1716 and renovated in 1761 in a modern, 18th-century style.<ref>Coueret, p .48; Bournon, p. 27.</ref> The office wing held the council room that was used for interrogating prisoners, the Bastille's library, and servants' quarters.<ref>Coueret, p. 48.</ref> The upper stories included rooms for the senior Bastille staff, and chambers for distinguished prisoners.<ref>Coueret, pp. 48–9.</ref> An elevated building on one side of the courtyard held the Bastille's archives.<ref>Coueret, p. 49.</ref> A clock was installed by [[Antoine de Sartine]], the lieutenant general of police between 1759 and 1774, on the side of the office wing, depicting two chained prisoners.<ref>Reichardt, p. 226; Coueret, p. 51.</ref>

New kitchens and baths were built just outside the main gate to the Bastille in 1786.<ref name="Chevallier, p. 148"/> The ditch around the Bastille, now largely dry, supported a {{convert|36|ft|m|adj=on}} high stone wall with a wooden walkway for the use of the guards, known as "la ronde", or the round.<ref>Coueret, p. 57; Funck-Brentano, p. 62.</ref> An outer court had grown up around the south-west side of the Bastille, adjacent to the Arsenal. This was open to the public and lined with small shops rented out by the governor for almost 10,000 livres a year, complete with a lodge for the Bastille gatekeeper; it was illuminated at night to light the adjacent street.<ref>Schama, p. 330; Coueret, p. 58; Bournon, pp. 25–6.</ref>

The Bastille was run by the governor, sometimes called the captain-governor, who lived in a 17th-century house alongside the fortress.<ref name=DutrayP136>Dutray-Lecoin (2010a), p. 136.</ref> The governor was supported by various officers, in particular his deputy, the ''lieutenant de roi'', or lieutenant of the king, who was responsible for general security and the protection of state secrets; the major, responsible for managing the Bastille's financial affairs and the police archives; and the ''capitaine des portes'', who ran the entrance to the Bastille.<ref name=DutrayP136/> Four warders divided up the eight towers between them.<ref>Bournon, p. 71.</ref> From an administrative perspective, the prison was generally well run during the period.<ref name=DutrayP136/> These staff were supported by an official surgeon, a chaplain and could, on occasion, call upon the services of a local midwife to assist pregnant prisoners.<ref>Bournon, pp. 66, 68.</ref>{{refn|The Bastille's surgeon was also responsible for shaving the prisoners, as inmates were not permitted sharp objects such as razors.<ref>Linguet, p. 78.</ref>|group=upper-alpha}} A small garrison of "[[invalides]]" was appointed in 1749 to guard the interior and exterior of the fortress; these were retired soldiers and were regarded locally, as [[Simon Schama]] describes, as "amiable layabouts" rather than professional soldiers.<ref>Schama, p .339; Bournon, p. 73.</ref>

====Use of the prison====
[[File:Convulsionnaires in the Bastille.png|thumb|[[Jansenism|Jansenist]] [[Convulsionnaires of Saint-Médard|convulsionnaires]] exercising in the outer court]]

The role of the Bastille as a prison changed considerably during the reigns of Louis XV and XVI. One trend was a decline in the number of prisoners sent to the Bastille, with 1,194 imprisoned there during the reign of Louis XV and only 306 under Louis XVI up until the Revolution, annual averages of around 23 and 20 respectively.<ref name=BNF1/>{{refn|Using slightly different accounting methods, Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink suggests fractionally lower totals for prisoner numbers between 1660 and 1789.<ref name=LusebrinkP51>Lüsebrink, p. 51.</ref>|group=upper-alpha}} A second trend was a slow shift away from the Bastille's 17th-century role of detaining primarily upper-class prisoners, towards a situation in which the Bastille was essentially a location for imprisoning socially undesirable individuals of all backgrounds – including aristocrats breaking social conventions, criminals, pornographers, thugs – and was used to support police operations, particularly those involving censorship, across Paris.<ref>Denis, p. 38; Dutray-Lecoin (2010b), p. 24.</ref> Despite these changes, the Bastille remained a state prison, subject to special authorities, answering to the monarch of the day and surrounded by a considerable and threatening reputation.<ref>Dutray-Lecoin (2010b), p. 24.</ref>

Under Louis XV, around 250 Catholic [[Convulsionnaires of Saint-Médard|convulsionnaires]], often called [[Jansenism|Jansenists]], were detained in the Bastille for their religious beliefs.<ref>Schama, p. 331; Lacam, p. 79.</ref> Many of these prisoners were women and came from a wider range of social backgrounds than the upper-class Calvinists detained under Louis XIV; historian Monique Cottret argues that the decline of the Bastille's social "mystique" originates from this phase of detentions.<ref>Cottret, pp. 75–6.</ref> By Louis XVI, the background of those entering the Bastille and the type of offences they were detained over had changed markedly. Between 1774 and 1789, the detentions included 54 people accused of robbery; 31 of involvement in the 1775 Famine Revolt; 11 detained for assault; 62 illegal editors, printers and writers – but relatively few detained over the grander affairs of state.<ref name=LusebrinkP51/>

Many prisoners still continued to come from the upper classes, particularly in those cases termed ''désordres des familles'', or disorders of the family. These cases typically involving members of the aristocracy who had, as historian Richard Andrews notes, "rejected parental authority, disgraced the family reputation, manifested mental derangement, squandered capital or violated professional codes."<ref>Andrews, p. 270; Prade, p. 25.</ref> Their families – often their parents, but sometimes husbands and wives taking action against their spouses – could apply for individuals to be detained at one of the royal prisons, resulting in an average imprisonment of between six months and four years.<ref>Andrews, p. 270; Farge, p. 89.</ref> Such a detention could be preferable to facing a scandal or a public trial over their misdemeanours, and the secrecy that surrounded detention at the Bastille allowed personal and family reputations to be quietly protected.<ref>Trout, pp. 141, 143.</ref> The Bastille was considered one of the best prisons for an upper-class prisoner to be detained at, because of the standard of the facilities for the wealthy.<ref>Gillispie, p. 249.</ref> In the aftermath of the notorious "[[Affair of the Diamond Necklace]]" of 1786, involving Queen [[Marie Antoinette]] and accusations of fraud, all the eleven suspects were held in the Bastille, significantly increasing the notoriety surrounding the institution.<ref>Lüsebrink and Reichardt, pp. 25–6.</ref>

[[File:Bastille 1789.jpg|thumb|left|350px|The Bastille and the Porte Saint-Antoine, seen from the east]]

Increasingly, however, the Bastille became part of the system of wider policing in Paris. Although appointed by the king, the governor reported to the lieutenant general of police: the first of these, [[Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie]], made only occasional visits to the Bastille, but his successor, [[Marc-René de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson (1652–1721)|Marquis d'Argenson]], and subsequent officers used the facility extensively and took a close interest in inspections of the prison.<ref>Funck-Brentano, p. 72; Dutray-Lecoin (2010a), p. 136.</ref> The lieutenant general reported in turn to the secretary of the ''[[Maison du Roi]]'', largely responsible for order in the capital; in practice together they controlled the issuing of the ''lettres'' in the king's name.<ref>Denis, p. 37; ''[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.</ref> The Bastille was unusual among Parisian prisons in that it acted on behalf of the king – prisoners could therefore be imprisoned secretly, for longer, and without normal judicial processes being applied, making it a useful facility for the police authorities.<ref>Denis, p .37.</ref> The Bastille was a preferred location for holding prisoners who needed extensive questioning or where a case required the analysis of extensive documents.<ref>Denis, pp. 38–9.</ref> The Bastille was also used to store the Parisian police archives; public order equipment such as chains and flags; and illegal goods, seized by order of the crown using a version of the ''lettre de cachet'', such as banned books and illicit printing presses.<ref>Funck-Brentano, p .81; ''[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.</ref>

Throughout this period, but particularly in the middle of the 18th century, the Bastille was used by the police to suppress the trade in illegal and seditious books in France.<ref name=BirnP51>Birn, p. 51.</ref> In the 1750s, 40% of those sent to the Bastille were arrested for their role in manufacturing or dealing in banned material; in the 1760s, the equivalent figure was 35%.<ref name=BirnP51/>{{refn|Jane McLeod suggests that the breaching of censorship rules by licensed printers was rarely dealt with by regular courts, being seen as an infraction against the Crown, and dealt with by royal officials.<ref>McLeod, p. 6</ref>|group=upper-alpha}} Seditious writers were also often held in the Bastille, although many of the more famous writers held in the Bastille during the period were formally imprisoned for more anti-social, rather than strictly political, offences.<ref>Schama, p .331; Funck-Brentano, p. 148.</ref> In particular, many of those writers detained under Louis XVI were imprisoned for their role in producing illegal pornography, rather than political critiques of the regime.<ref name=LusebrinkP51/> The writer [[Laurent Angliviel de la Beaumelle]], the philosopher [[André Morellet]] and the historian [[Jean-François Marmontel]], for example, were formally detained not for their more obviously political writings, but for libellous remarks or for personal insults against leading members of Parisian society.<ref>Funck-Brentano, pp. 156–9.</ref>

====Prison regime====
[[File:Bastille Courtyard 1785.jpg|thumb|A sketch of the main courtyard in 1785{{refn|This picture, by [[Jean-Honoré Fragonard]], shows a number of elegantly dressed women; it is uncertain on what occasion the drawing was made, or what they were doing in Bastille at the time.<ref>Dutray-Lecoin (2010c), p. 148.</ref>|group=upper-alpha}}]]

Contrary to its later image, conditions for prisoners in the Bastille by the mid-18th century were in fact relatively benign, particularly by the standards of other prisons of the time.<ref>Schama, pp. 331–2; Lüsebrink and Reichardt, pp. 29–32.</ref> The typical prisoner was held in one of the octagonal rooms in the mid-levels of the towers.<ref>Schama, pp. 331–2.</ref> The ''calottes'', the rooms just under the roof that formed the upper storey of the Bastille, were considered the least pleasant quarters, being more exposed to the elements and usually either too hot or too cold.<ref name=SchamaP331>Schama, p. 331.</ref> The ''cachots'', the underground dungeons, had not been used for many years except for holding recaptured escapees.<ref name=SchamaP331/> Prisoners' rooms each had a stove or a fireplace, basic furniture, curtains and in most cases a window.  A typical criticism of the rooms was that they were shabby and basic rather than uncomfortable.<ref>Schama, p. 332; Linguet, p .69; Coeuret, p. 54-5.</ref>{{refn|Prisoners described the standard issue furniture as including "a bed of green serge with curtains of the same; a straw mat and a mattress; a table or two, two pitchers, a candleholder and a tin goblet; two or three chairs, a fork, a spoon and everything need to light a fire; by special favour, weak little tongs and two large stones for an [[andiron]]." Linguet complained of only initially having "two mattresses half eaten by the worms, a matted elbow chair... a tottering table, a water pitcher, two pots of Dutch ware and two flagstones to support the fire".<ref>Linguet, p. 69; Coeuret, p. 54-5, citing Charpentier (1789).</ref>|group=upper-alpha}} Like the ''calottes'', the main courtyard, used for exercise, was often criticised by prisoners as being unpleasant at the height of summer or winter, although the garden in the bastion and the castle walls were also used for recreation.<ref>Bournon, p. 30.</ref>

The governor received money from the Crown to support the prisoners, with the amount varying on rank: the governor received 19 livres a day for each political prisoner – with [[Councillor of State (France)|conseiller]]-grade nobles receiving 15 livres – and, at the other end of the scale, three livres a day for each commoner.<ref name=SchamaP332>Schama, p. 332.</ref> Even for the commoners, this sum was around twice the daily wage of a labourer and provided for an adequate diet, while the upper classes ate very well: even critics of the Bastille recounted many excellent meals, often taken with the governor himself.<ref>Schama, p. 333; Andress, p.xiii; Chevallier, p. 151.</ref>{{refn|Linguet noted that "there are tables less lacking; I confess it; mine was among them." Morellet reported that each day he received "a bottle of decent wine, an excellent one-pound loaf of bread; for dinner, a soup, some beef, an entrée and a desert; in the evening, some roast and a salad." The abbé Marmontel recorded dinners including "an excellent soup, a succulent slice of beef, a boiled leg of capon, dripping with fat and falling off the bone; a small plate of fried artichokes in a marinade, one of spinach, a very nice ''cresonne'' pear, fresh grapes, a bottle of old Burgundy wine, and the best Mocha coffee. At the other end of the scale, lesser prisoners might get only "a pound of bread and a bottle of bad wine a day; for dinner...broth and two meat dishes; for supper...a slice of roast, some stew, and some salad".<ref>Chevallier, pp. 151–2, citing Morellet, p. 97, Marmontel, pp. 133–5 and Coueret, p. 20.</ref>|group=upper-alpha}} Prisoners who were being punished for misbehaviour, however, could have their diet restricted as a punishment.<ref>Funck-Brentano, p. 107; Chevallier, p. 152.</ref> The medical treatment provided by the Bastille for prisoners was excellent by the standards of the 18th century; the prison also contained a number of inmates suffering from [[mental illness]]es and took, by the standards of the day, a very progressive attitude to their care.<ref>Lüsebrink and Reichardt, p. 31; Sérieux and Libert (1914), cited Lüsebrink and Reichardt, p. 31.</ref>

[[File:Bastille Interior 1785.jpg|thumb|left|The council chamber, sketched in 1785]]

Although potentially dangerous objects and money were confiscated and stored when a prisoner first entered the Bastille, most wealthy prisoners continued to bring in additional luxuries, including pet dogs or cats to control the local vermin.<ref>Schama, pp. 332, 335.</ref> The [[Marquis de Sade]], for example, arrived with an elaborate wardrobe, paintings, tapestries, a selection of perfume, and a collection of 133 books.<ref name=SchamaP332/> Card games and billiards were played among the prisoners, and alcohol and tobacco were permitted.<ref>Schama, p. 333.</ref> Servants could sometimes accompany their masters into the Bastille, as in the cases of the 1746 detention of the family of [[James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton|Lord Morton]] and their entire household as British spies: the family's domestic life continued on inside the prison relatively normally.<ref>Farge, p. 153.</ref> The prisoners' library had grown during the 18th century, mainly through ad hoc purchases and various confiscations by the Crown, until by 1787 it included 389 volumes.<ref>Lefévre, p. 157.</ref>

The length of time that a typical prisoner was kept at the Bastille continued to decline, and by Louis XVI's reign the average length of detention was only two months.<ref name=LusebrinkP51/> Prisoners would still be expected to sign a document on their release, promising not to talk about the Bastille or their time within it, but by the 1780s this agreement was frequently broken.<ref name=DutrayP136/> Prisoners leaving the Bastille could be granted pensions on their release by the Crown, either as a form of compensation or as a way of ensuring future good behaviour – [[Voltaire]] was granted 1,200 livres a year, for example, while [[Jean Henri Latude|Latude]] received an annual pension of 400 livres.<ref>Funck-Brentano, p. 99.</ref>{{refn|Comparing 18th century sums of money with modern equivalents is notoriously difficult; for comparison, Latude's pension was around one and a third times that of a labourer's annual wage, while Voltaire's was very considerably more.<ref name="Andress, p. xiii">Andress, p. xiii.</ref>|group=upper-alpha}}

====Criticism and reform====
[[File:Bastille 1719.jpg|thumb|180px|[[Dragon]]s destroy the Bastille on the title page of Bucquoy's ''Die Bastille oder die Hölle der Lebenden''.]]

During the 18th century, the Bastille was extensively criticised by French writers as a symbol of ministerial [[despotism]], which ultimately resulted in reforms and plans for its abolition.<ref name="Reichardt, p. 226">Reichardt, p. 226.</ref> The first major criticism was by [[René Auguste Constantin de Renneville|Constantin de Renneville]], who had been imprisoned in the Bastille for 11 years and published his accounts of the experience in 1715 in his book ''L'Inquisition françois''.<ref>Lüsebrink and Reichardt, p. 10; Renneville (1719).</ref> Renneville presented a dramatic account of his detention, explaining that, despite being innocent, he had been abused and left to rot in one of the Bastille's ''cachot'' dungeons, enchained next to a corpse.<ref>Lüsebrink and Reichardt, p. 11.</ref> More criticism followed in 1719 when the {{ill|Jean Albert d'Archambaud|lt=Abbé Jean de Bucquoy|fr|Jean Albert d'Archambaud}}, who had escaped from the Bastille ten years previously, published an account of his adventures from the safety of [[Hanover]]. He gave a similar account to Renneville's and termed the Bastille the "hell of the living".<ref>Coueret, p. 13; Lüsebrink and Reichardt, p. 12; Bucquoy (1719).</ref> Voltaire added to the notorious reputation of the Bastille when he wrote about the case of the "[[Man in the Iron Mask]]" in 1751, and later criticised the way he himself was treated while detained in the Bastille, labelling the fortress a "palace of revenge".<ref>Lüsebrink and Reichardt, pp. 14–5, 26.</ref>{{refn|[[Voltaire]] is usually considered to have exaggerated his hardships, as he received a string of visitors each day and in fact voluntarily stayed on within the Bastille after he was officially released in order to complete some business affairs. He also campaigned to have others sent to the Bastille.<ref>Lüsebrink and Reichardt, pp. 26–7.</ref>|group=upper-alpha}}

In the 1780s, prison reform became a popular topic for French writers and the Bastille was increasingly condemned as a symbol of arbitrary despotism.<ref>Schama, p. 333; Lüsebrink and Reichardt, p. 19.</ref> Two authors were particularly influential during that period. The first was [[Simon-Nicholas Henri Linguet|Simon-Nicholas Linguet]], who was arrested and detained at the Bastille in 1780, after publishing a critique of [[Emmanuel-Félicité de Durfort de Duras|Maréchal Duras]].<ref name=SchamaP334>Schama, p. 334.</ref> After his release, he published his ''Mémoires sur la Bastille'' in 1783, a damning critique of the institution.<ref>Schama, p. 334; Linguet (2005).</ref> Linguet criticised, sometimes inaccurately, the physical conditions in which he was kept, but went further by capturing in detail the more psychological effects of the prison regime upon an inmate.<ref>Schama, pp. 334–5.</ref>{{refn|The accuracy of all of Linguet's records on the physical conditions have been questioned by modern historians, for example Simon Schama.<ref name=SchamaP334/>|group=upper-alpha}} Linguet also encouraged Louis XVI to destroy the Bastille, publishing an engraving depicting the king announcing to the prisoners "may you be free and live!", a phrase borrowed from Voltaire.<ref name="Reichardt, p. 226"/>

Linguet's work was followed by another prominent autobiography, Henri Latude's ''Le despotisme dévoilé''.<ref name=SchamaP335>Schama, p. 335.</ref> Latude was a soldier who was imprisoned in the Bastille following a sequence of complex misadventures, including the sending of a letter bomb to [[Madame de Pompadour]], the King's mistress.<ref name=SchamaP335/> Latude became famous for managing to escape from the Bastille by means of climbing up the chimney of his cell and then descending the walls with a home-made rope ladder, before being recaptured in Amsterdam by French agents.<ref>Schama, pp. 336–7.</ref> Latude was released in 1777, but was rearrested following his publication of a book entitled ''Memoirs of Vengeance''.<ref>Schama, pp. 337–8.</ref> Pamphlets and magazines publicised Latude's case until he was finally released in 1784.<ref name=SchamaP338>Schama, p. 338.</ref> Latude became a popular figure with the [[Académie française]], or French Academy, and his autobiography, although inaccurate in places, did much to reinforce the public perception of the Bastille as a despotic institution.<ref>Schama, p. 338; Lüsebrink and Reichardt, p. 31; Latude (1790).</ref>{{refn|Latude's inaccuracies include his referring to a new fur coat as "half-rotted rags", for example. Jacques Berchtold observes that Latude's writing also introduced the idea of the hero of the story actively resisting the despotic institution – in this case through escape – in contrast to earlier works which had portrayed the hero merely as the passive victim of oppression.<ref>Lüsebrink and Reichardt, p. 31; Berchtold, pp. 143–5.</ref>|group=upper-alpha}}

[[File:Memoires sur la Bastille.jpg|thumb|left|Linguet's ''Mémoires sur la Bastille'', depicting the fictional destruction of the Bastille by Louis XVI]]

Modern historians of the period, such as Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink, Simon Schama and {{ill|Monique Cottret|fr|Monique Cottret}}  concur that the actual treatment of prisoners in Bastille was much better than the public impression left through those writings.<ref>Schama, p. 334; Lüsebrink and Reichardt, p. 27.</ref> Nonetheless, fuelled by the secrecy that still surrounded the Bastille, official as well as public concern about the prison, and the system that supported it, also began to mount, prompting reforms.<ref>Lüsebrink and Reichardt, p. 27.</ref> As early as 1775, Louis XVI's minister [[Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes|Malesherbes]] had authorised all prisoners to be given newspapers to read, and to be allowed to correspond with their family and friends.<ref>Funck-Brentano, pp. 78–9.</ref> In the 1780s, [[Louis Auguste Le Tonnelier de Breteuil|Breteuil]], the [[Secretary of State of the Maison du Roi]], began a substantial reform of the system of ''lettres de cachet'' that sent prisoners to the Bastille: such letters were now required to list the length of time a prisoner would be detained for, and the offence for which they were being held.<ref>Gillispie, p. 247; Funck-Brentano, p. 78.</ref>

Meanwhile, in 1784, the architect [[Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart|Alexandre Brogniard]] proposed that the Bastille be demolished and converted into a circular public space with [[colonnade]]s.<ref name=SchamaP338/> Director-General of Finance [[Jacques Necker]], having examined the cost of running the Bastille, amounting to well over 127,000 livres in 1774, proposed closing the institution on the grounds of economy alone.<ref>Funck-Brentano, pp. 81–2.</ref>{{refn|Comparing 18th century sums of money with modern equivalents is notoriously difficult but, for comparison, the Bastille's 127,000 livres running costs in 1774 were around 420 times a Parisian labourer's annual wages or, alternatively, roughly half the cost of clothing and equipping the Queen in 1785.<ref name="Andress, p. xiii"/>|group=upper-alpha}} Similarly, Pierre-François de Rivière du Puget,<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.cairn.info/revue-de-la-bibliotheque-nationale-de-france-2010-2-page-25.htm |title=Un geôlier réformateur. Du Puget, lieutenant de roi de la Bastille |doi=10.3917/rbnf.035.0025 |access-date=4 August 2021 |archive-date=4 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210804211005/https://www.cairn.info/revue-de-la-bibliotheque-nationale-de-france-2010-2-page-25.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> the Bastille's ''lieutenant de roi'', submitted reports in 1788 suggesting that the authorities close the prison, demolish the fortress and sell the real estate off.<ref>Funck-Brentano, p. 83.</ref> In June 1789, the [[Académie royale d'architecture]] proposed a similar scheme to Brogniard's, in which the Bastille would be transformed into an open public area, with a tall column at the centre surrounded by fountains, dedicated to Louis XVI as the "restorer of public freedom".<ref name=SchamaP338/>

The number of prisoners held in the Bastille at any one time declined sharply towards the end of Louis's reign. It contained ten prisoners in September 1782 and, despite a small increase at the beginning of 1788, by July 1789 only seven prisoners remained in custody.<ref>Funck-Brentano, p. 79.</ref> Before any official scheme to close the prison could be enacted, however, disturbances across Paris brought a more violent end to the Bastille.<ref name=SchamaP338/>