Marquis de launay biography of barack

De Launay: Bernard, Marquis de Launay (1740-1789), the governor of the Bastille de Sainte Antoine, the royal fortress-prison, was slain during his march through the city to the Hôtel-de-Ville after agreeing to the hand over of the Bastille.

When a Parisian mob of perhaps a thousand advanced on the prison on the morning of 14 July 1789, their intention seems not to have been so much the release of prisoners (of whom there were only seven) but to acquire the considerable cache of arms and gunpowder stored there.

However, the old soldier who was the Bastille's governor, Bernard René Jourdan, Marquis de Launay, antagonized the mob by his defiant response. The Marquis de Launay was the son of another Marquis de Launay who had also been governor of the Bastille St.

Antoine; in fact, Bernard René Jourdan was born within the fortress's forbidding walls.

With the possibility of a mutual massacre suddenly apparent Governor de Launay ordered a cease fire at 17:00. A