It is very perplexing to me, how a mob even as large as the one that stormed the Bastille was able to get inside. Wouldn't it simply have been a matter of raising the drawbridge? Was this not done, or did they have help on the inside, or is there some other explanation?
Thank you, you guys are the best.
The mob only managed to lower the outer drawbridge, which took place during the negotiations between the representatives of the third estate and the governor of the Bastille - this seems to have happened out of sheer luck, or because the fortress itself was poorly defended (82 invalides and 32 Swiss grenadiers, although the fortress did have 30 artillery pieces).
Once in the inner courtyard, the mob was dispersed by artillery and musket fire from the battlements, and probably would not have made it inside the Bastille proper - that is, until a number of defectors from the French Guards, carrying up to five artillery pieces with them, joined the siege.
This situation led to the governor of the Bastille, Bernard-René Jourdan de Launay, to surrender the fortress. It is unclear what compelled him to do so: The attackers were in the majority and supported by regular troops, the food and water stores of the fortress were low, and a relief column was an impossibility (since those French Guards who had not joined in the assault would not have acted against the populace of Paris). Jourdan de Launay apparently tried to lit the gunpowder stores, but was stopped by the garrison and eventually forced to capitulate (which would result in his death during the celebrations/riots that followed).
Hope that helps!
Sources:
- Braesch, Frédéric; 1789: l'année cruciale, Paris, Editions Gallimard, 1941.
- Flammermont, Jules; (ed.), La Journée du 14 juillet 1789. Fragment des mémoires inédits de G. Pitra, électeur de Paris en 1789, Société d'Histoire de la Révolution française, Paris, 1892.
- Schama, Simon; Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, New York, Random House,1989.