The Bastille Falls

Simon Schama is famous both as a great scholar and as one of the UK’s greatest popularizers of history, whose books and TV series have enthralled huge audiences through their gripping storytelling. Citizens, his award-winning account of the French Revolution, has continued to be one of Penguin’s most popular history titles since it was first published in 1989. This extract takes us into the heart of the revolution’s ferment as the angry crowd storms the Bastille prison.