Legends of the Bastille

The Bastille is one of history's most potent symbols: a fortress of darkness where innocent victims rotted in chains, awaiting rescue by revolutionary heroes. Frantz Funck-Brentano, writing in the 1890s, explodes this mythology with forensic precision. Drawing on prison records and the testimony of former inmates themselves, he reveals that most prisoners lived in comparative comfort, pursued hobbies, received visitors, and often emerged healthier than when they entered. The legends of squalor and torture, he shows, were largely amplified by a handful of dramatic accounts, particularly from prisoners like Latude and Linguet, who had every incentive to inflate their suffering. The result is a revisionist masterpiece that forces us to question how nations build their founding myths, and what gets lost when history becomes propaganda.