Place de la Bastille

You are walking toward a site defined entirely by what is missing. The massive, eight-towered fortress that once dominated this space was a medieval military structure built in the fourteenth century to guard the eastern entrance of Paris. By the seventeen hundreds, it had been repurposed into a state prison for political detainees, becoming a hated symbol of royal power where individuals could be held indefinitely by a simple signed order from the king. Today, the prison itself is completely gone. Its systematic demolition began just two days after the infamous mob action of July fourteenth, seventeen hundred and eighty-nine. Contractors broke it down stone by stone, eventually selling the rubble as souvenir relics of the revolutionary struggle. If you look closely at the ground, you can find a subtle trace of its presence in the form of a line of paving stones that marks the original footprint of the fortress wall.