The Storming of the Bastille

[Duke]

146c

219 years ago today, revolutionaries and rebel soldiers stormed the bastille in Paris, today I bring you a lego representation of this!

Based around the following painting and probably lacking in historical accuracy..

The front view:

A statue looms over the bridge:

Experience the event as a revolutionary..

Or a loyalist..

The back:

The jail wall is removable to reveal prisoners:

I hope you like what you've seen here, and if you want more details then the rest of the gallery can be found HERE.

Edited February 25, 2010 by SlyOwl

[Lt. Col. Thok]

Very nice! As a suggestion, wouldn't it be better to have used guardsmen for the loyalists?

[Mister Phes]

Well this is quite an interesting creation and I particularly like the very varied use of mini-figure heads.

I think I'll tag this MOC as frontpage material.

[BlueBard]

Nice job, here! Specially because the clever use of the MFs

Nevertheless I have some little criticisms to make:

1. The soldiers uniforms. They were not in that colours at all (but they're Lego official torsos so there's no criticism here )

2. The flags. What are they supposed to represent? Red and yellow were never the colours of the kings of France...

3. The knight's statue? The Bastille was built in the Hundred Years war but they were no decorations in its walls, specially medieval.

4. The Bastille was not in the middle of Paris at the XVIIIth century, ok, but it was not at all in a green field with plants and flowers. I think a beige ground would work better here

5. Just a counsel: a bit of smoke would be great

[Norrington]

VIVA LE FRANCE!

Great MOC, definately front page material.

[Admiral Blockbeard]

:pir-wub: :pir-wub:

Nice creation there, and i like how you have posted on its anniversary!

The variation of bricks at first annoyed me, but then i found it very pleasing! it grew on me!

The use of mini figs and poses you made them in is great, good work!

Regards Cpt. PB

[Joey Lock]

I love the way you place the Pictures of the Revolutionary and Loyalist.

I like the way you made mini rooms instead of just one big wall.

And Bluebard dont be so picky!

[The Daphne Blue Strat]

Vive la revolution!

Vive le republique!

Vive le gens!

...it looks great!

[Mister Phes]

I went to visit my good friend Wikipedia and found an image of the painting Prise de la Bastille, by Jean-Pierre-Louis-Laurent Houel:

[snefroe]

pretty nice indeed! unfortunately, the Bastille was never taken by force like this. the Bastille was a prison-mental institution for rich people at the time, with only three well taken care off prisoners inside... However, the Bastille was a place with an armory, in case the army needed to defend the city against threats from the outside, so the mob went to the Bastille to get guns to fight the army, not to liberate people. after a while of banging on the door a few leaders of the mob were allowed in to negociate over dinner, but at some point the mob got restless, thinking their leaders had been locked up instead. Eventually, to avoid a bloodbath, the doors of the Bastille were opened and the mob got in, killing the officer who was in charge...

[MoWo]

I this MOC no matter the story!

Undersigned MoWo

[Duke]

Thanks for the comments everyone. In regards to realism and the torsos I chose to use. I wanted to base the MOC on the events, but it's made out of Lego.. it's going to lack in some historical accuracy ;)

As for the torsos, I was under the impression that Napoleon's army had blue uniforms, and therefore to use blue torsos to represent the loyalists in the Bastille would have been quite wrong. Instead I opted to use the still wrong but different red torsos.

Snefroe, the information I read on the subject (which was admittedly from wikipedia) suggested that there was a battle of sorts, only 1 defender died in the fighting whilst a handful of attackers did. The defenders however saw no point in the battle and surrendered. The captain was then killed, decapitated and had his head displayed somewhere.