The Storming of the Jardin du Luxembourg (1789) was a major event on the eve of the French Revolution that occurred in the Luxembourg Garden in Paris, France. A crowd of hundreds of starving peasants assaulted the mansion of the Marquis de Bullion and killed the marquis and several guests and guards, one of the first signs of revolution.
Background[]
With the Little Ice Age occurring from the 14th century to the 19th century, crops were frozen and the people of Europe starved. Potatoes were usually the solution, as they were grown underground and were not able to be frozen by snow that fell to the top layer of the ground. However, the tubers were thought unclean by the people of the Kingdom of France, who began to starve as other European nations found easy solutions to the chill and famine.
In the 1780s, after the success of the American Revolutionary War between the rebellious colonists and Great Britain (which the United States was born from), the Kingdom of France - who had played a very active role from 1777-1783, spending most of their economy on the war - began to feel the effects of the revolution in their homeland. The starving people were inspired by the revolt of colonists that won independence for the United States, and revolutionary fervor began to rise.
The nobles of France were still living great lives, consuming large meals every day and living in wealthy mansions. The Marquis de Bullion oppressed the people of Paris, who were the most fervent about a revolution, living in the Jardin du Luxembourg. In 1789, on the eve of the French Revolution, a crowd of hundreds of poor men and women began to riot in front of the chateau, but it was heavily guarded on the inside and outside.
Storming of the Chateau[]
Urbain Minard's death
The revolutionary agitator Arno-Victor Dorian wanted to stop the struggle of the people, and headed to the front of the crowd. He found a line of French troops under Captain Urbain Minard levelling muskets at the people in the crowd, so he charged behind the line infantry and stabbed Minard in the chest with hidden blades. The people of the crowd surged forth and cut down the guards at the front of the chateau, and began to throw objects through the windows.
Bullion cowering
Dorian and a team of his fellow members of the Assassins' Guild of Paris snuck through the windows of the chateau and climbed into the rooms, picking a lock to a door around a hallway that was heavily-guarded. They avoided a fight, and stealthily corner-assassinated a guard who was preoccupied with looking at a lady attending the party. On the balcony above the main room, the assassins witnessed an elderly guest announcing that the party would go on despite the bad sports outside, but the window broke and a vase hit her in the back of the head. The guests were panicked, and the assassins made their attack. Dorian and his acquaintances slew the guards, and Bullion attempted to escape, but found the door locked. He confronted the assassins, saying that they could work together, and pleading that the people outside were "only peasants".
Bullion dead
Angered by this plea, the assassins had him thrown out of the window to the mansion. He was still alive, so the citizens assaulted him and killed him, beheading him and mounting his head on a pike to spread a message to the other oppressive nobles.
Aftermath[]
The response to the death of the Marquis de Bullion and the citizens' storming of the mansion was grim; shortly after, people in the city stormed the Bastille prison to steal the gunpowder and guns to take over the city of Paris. King Louis XVI of France was deposed and forced to become a puppet king, but in 1793 (after the king attempted to abandon his people by escaping to the Austrian Netherlands), the king and almost all of the nobles, old generals, veteran officers, and people who did not completely follow revolutionary standards were executed by the guillotine.