Furthermore, the Parisian populace, as a whole, idealized Jacques Necker, the King's Finance Minister, who they believed had the ability and courage to change their desperate situation as well as that of the nation. Therefore when the King, listening to the advice of some of his wife's aristocratic friends, decided to have Necker fired, pandemonium broke loose. In conjunction with the King's repressive actions towards the Assembly, the move to fire the popular minister (as well as other liberal members of the Cabinet and replace them with backers of an absolute monarchy)was interpreted to be the beginning of a "Saint Bartholemew's Day Massacre for the patriots" as Camille Desmoulins said. The increasing number of troops, foreign mercenaries for the main part, that had begun to occupy Paris in the few weeks before lent an air of credibility to even the wildest rumors that troops were intending to raze Paris
On July 12, the King forced Jacques Necker, along with other liberal ministers Saint Priest and Montmorin, to resign and replaced them with a new ministry headed by the very reactionary Baron de Breteuil. This news spread rapidly throughout Paris and became the soul topic of conversation at the cafés and other public places where it is believed that Necker's sacking represents the end of the National Assembly. In the afternoon, Camille Desmoulins leaps on top of a chair outside the Café du Foy and advocates that the people of Paris take up arms against the German mercenaries, warning that if they do not it will be a "Saint Bartholemew's Day Massacre for the patriots." Desmoulins then took a sprig of green leaf from a tree and asked all those sympathetic to the cause to do likewise. (Green started out as the color of the Revolution as it was the color of "hope"-but it was later replaced by red and blue, the colors of Paris, when it was realized that green was the color of the King's reactionary brother the Comte d'Artois.) The crowd, growing as newcomers, also disturbed by the news of Necker's dismissal, joined in, then rushed to the wax museum to get busts of Necker and the Duc d'Orleans, which they veiled in black to represent mourning for liberty. On the Place de Vendome, a clash between the crowd, the Royal German Regiment and the French Guard results in the death of a French Guardsmen.
Meanwhile at the Champs Elysees, a nervous Colonel Besenval maintained troops and ordered Prince de Lambesc to move the crowd into the Tuileries Garden. The horses charged and trampled women and children. The angry mob charged off to find weapons to fight the mercenaries, storming the Hotel de Ville where they believed the city officials were stashing a secret arsenal. The assembly which had been meeting their non-stop since Necker's dismissal could not prevent the mob from grabbing a few rifles, but did not for the most part give its support to the mob. Meanwhile, the French Guard, looking for reveange for the German Regiment's killing of one of its members, escaped from the barracks and kills three German Regiment soldiers. The French Guard, telling its officers it will not fire on the people, had gone over to the crowd. Besenval didn't dare move his troops as rioters looted and burned the city. The sky grew dark with a decidedly red glow.
At Versailles, The National Assembly, who were distinctly bourgeois in composition remember, were extremely distress by word of the rioting in Paris and sent a message to the King begging him to recalls the dismissed ministry. The King, who misinterpreted the gravity of the situation, refused to take orders from the Assembly. The Assembly decided to stay in session continuously until the rioting was over.
Meanwhile, as the tocsins rang early in the morning, the mob felt itself to be in danger of military reprisals by the King's mercenaries and thus looted armories and the Saint Lazare prison seeking weapons. Freed prisoners joined the crowd which swelled around the city. The frightened Parisian middle class built barricades in the streets, and set up a militia and a counsel desperately trying to maintain some semblance of domestic order.
The day started with wild rumors that 15,000 troops were heading to slaughter the mob at Saint-Antoine. Other rumors, some contradictory, fueled the already intense ambiance that existed among the crowd. To arms! became the sole unifying creed of the Parisians. The crowd headed to the Hotel des Invalides where, by 6 am a few thousand people had gathered. The Governor, Charles Virot de Sombrieul, attempted to negotiate but was swamped with a surge of people who scowered the Invalides in search of weapons. Weapons were found in abundance-32,000 rifles without ammunition, and several cannons were taken. Seeking gun powder, the crowd moved towards the old monarchic prison of the Bastille, whose defenses had recently been beefed up to include 250 barrels of gunpowder. Meanwhile the troops under Besenval's command refused to take action against the marauders and such behavior was interpreted as a sign of tacit consent by the French Guard
By 10 am, a huge crowd had gathered around the ancient fortress of La Bastille, demanding materials with which to make cartridges. The crowd, seeing cannons pointed in its direction, sent several of its members in to the Bastille to discuss with the Governor. The Governor invited them in readily and invited them to lunch. Meanwhile, waiting outside, the people became restless. Rumors spread that the envoys had been taken hostage. A second delegation headed by a lawyer named Thuriot went in and told the crowd that the cannons were not loaded and that the Governor had promised not to open fire if the Bastille was not attacked. The people were not persuaded with this, and shouts of "Down with the army! We want the prison!" came from the crowd. Later that afternoon, a few youths cut the strings that attached the drawbridge. People rushed into the courtyard only to be met with a volley of gunfire. Convinced that this was "treason", the crowd now refuses to be simply satisfied with the surrender of the Bastille and subsequent delegations sent by city hall and the increasingly scared bourgeois counsel fail to stop the violence. Although the Governor had offered "capitulation" on a sheet of paper to the crowd, they were still not satisfied and instead kill the defending invalids of the Bastille liberate the prisoners (all 7 of them---one of whom thought he was Julius Caesar) and then parade through the Parisian streets, triumphant. The Governor de Launay was brutally murdered, his head stuck on pike having first been used as a sort of kickball. A Revolution had begun.
Although the court at first mistook the uprising in Paris as a mainly controllable affair, it soon became clear that the Bastille would be a turning point in the nation's history. Louis XVI, whose journal for July 14 would read "nothing", was awaken by the Duc de La Rochefoucauld who told him of the events in Paris. "It is a revolt?" The king asked. "No, Sire, it is a Revolution." And indeed it was. A Paris Commune was established. The National Assembly, though bourgeouis, was given much more power over the course of affairs by the rioters' actions. The French Revolution was underway. The Bastille itself was torn down on July 16, accompanied by singing and dancing all day and all night. Later, Napoleon would build a huge bronze elephant over the place where the symbol of absolute monarchy had stood.
