Bernard-René de Launay
Bernard-René de Launay commanded the Bastille for one day that mattered and was killed by the crowd he had surrendered to. He was born inside the fortress - his father was its governor before him - and took the post in 1776. It was not a hard job. The Bastille in 1789 held seven prisoners: four forgers, two lunatics and an aristocrat detained at his family's request, and there had been proposals to demolish it as an expensive anachronism. What made it a target on 14 July was not the prisoners but the powder. Some two hundred and fifty barrels had been moved there days before, and a crowd that had already taken thirty thousand muskets from the Invalides needed it. He had eighty-two invalides and thirty-two Swiss soldiers, and he negotiated for most of the morning. When the crowd got into the outer courtyard by cutting the drawbridge chains, firing began, and about ninety-eight of the attackers were killed. He threatened to blow the magazine and then did not. In the late afternoon he surrendered on a promise of safety. The promise was not kept. He was beaten on the walk to the Hôtel de Ville, stabbed, and his head was cut off with a pocket knife by a cook named Desnot and carried on a pike. The fortress was demolished within months by a contractor who sold the stone as souvenirs, and 14 July became the national day of a republic that did not yet exist. His name survives mainly on the list of the vainqueurs de la Bastille, as the man they beat.
- Lived: 1740 CE – 1789 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: military
