The evening world., 1918-07-13
What the Bastille Meant
BY the Rev. Thomas B. Gregory

o IMAGINE eight massive round towers. connected by walls of tremendous
thickness the whole surrounded by a ditch twenty-five feet in depth, and
o. you have a mental picture Of the Basune, the gloomy pile the fall Of
which on July H. 1889. ushered in the great French Revolution.
Built BY Charles v. in 1859, the Bastno stood for more than 400 years
IN embodiment Of all that was hateful to French people.
"a Fr To- centuries the only argument used by the French Kings and
their henchmen in answer to the popular appeals for justice was the famous
order ITO the Bastinei" The argument as final, for behind It stood the
power that was as Irresistible a IT was remorseMss
" Did any one dare to protest against the doctrine that the people were
70 born to toll for the Kings and the aristocrats, he was instantaneOusy
hustled OF to the BasulIe there 10 change M. uird ~ 20 mad
Did genius utter some thought that had not been submitted to the cen
sor. the Bastlle opened its Jaws for the criminal. and he came not forth
until he had learned to keep t. himself tn. trust that ip,pred his soul
The MAN in the Iron Mask" was n o myth to the people of France. His
story "a that Of thousands. The MASK was merely the symbol OF the
complete loss Of identity that came to many of the unfortunans who were
hl-fated enough to be thrown into that damp and sunless prison.
To the French people the Basulle was the symbol OF the cruelty and
greed that made their life a living hell. BY the year 1858, the King and his
favorites had about starved France to death. Some $50 900 mobiles in state
and church owned the Nation. Three-aths of the land of France belonged
10 them m the remaining two-ffths were made ito pay all the taxes. The
100000 wre the masters. and the 25ooOooO we're but little better than
their slaves.
a acre produced seventy-tve francs, fifty went to ,le ta1-gatherer,
and the other third was halved between the landlord and the culuvator
Children helped feed their parents; women we're harnessed beside cattle
to do the ploughing. squalor and degradation we're everywhere.
Game was preserved for the great, while the poor man who killed a
rabbit to keep himself from starving a hanged.
The King spent $50 900 900 francs a year on his household and in making
presents o his favorites' many of whom were the recipients of princey sal
aries TO doing nothing.
Nobemen amused themselves by practising Workmanship upon work
men upon heir estates, and when the matter a reported to the King he
would simply throw himself back and laugh. The killing Of peasants by
noblemen seemed to his Majesty an ineIpressbly funny thing!
All of this came to a abrupt ending on that neverto-bc forgotten 18th
o July. 1883, when the maddened people stormed the Basulle. and M ae,
n motion that paroxysm of Truth clothed in hell fire" known a the
French Revolution.
Where the Bastlle stood during those four terrible centuries q rises
the beautiful column of the Place de Ia Bastile standing beside which one
may learn to be bravey hopeful for the future.
Truth is not FOREVER on the scanold," nor is wrong FOREVER
on ne throne" The poet who wrote those lines was. for the time being, sick
roets are healthier to-day and write in a moreo optimistic strain.
Truth has been on the scanold many times, and times havo thov
'red to strangle her, but without success. Truth cannot be stranSIeG
Truth is immortal.
Slowly. but steadily, Truth and her sister, Right are marching on and
"a million Bastlcs could not stop them.
The Bastile is dust Old King louis and all his pampercd ,,vor,,o.
arc also dust their graves and their memory deep covered with etcrnaI
.afamy. ~
And France? Franco, on this 18th anniversary of the Fall n, 10 Zoe,
nWe shoulder to shoulder with the free people OF Europe and America.
$ about to storm the last Bastlle-thc accurscd thing rigb,rv oama1
Prussian Autocracy. "' '""eu