The French Revolution and the storming of the Bastille

The French people were getting nervous about what the king would do. Some people thought the king would send his soldiers to kill them all. They decided they needed weapons. They were going to get the weapons from the Bastille. The Bastille was a prison / fortress. The French did not like the Bastille, so on July 14, 1789 they attacked it. At first they could not get in, but then, people came with cannons and pointed them at the gate. Then the people inside the Bastille surrendered. When they got all of the weapons they needed and let the prisoners out they destroyed the Bastille.
That day became a special day in France, they call it Bastille day.
Not long after they destroyed the Bastille, other French people were mad because they still did not have a Constitution. They did not have to wait long. Soon they signed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and a Constitution.

Marquis De Lafayette and the beginning of the French Revolution

After the American Revolution, in France, the Marquis de Lafayette wanted rights for the people in France. He came up with the idea when he was in the United States fighting for freedom for us from the British. He talked about this with Thomas Jefferson. After the war, Thomas Jefferson was the Ambassador to France. Then...
King Louis XVI of France wanted to raise taxes. He didn't have any money because he fought a really expensive war with Britian. In order to raise taxes he called for the Estates General for permission. The Estates General are three groups. The First Estate is the clergy, the second is made up of the nobles, the third is everyone else. At that time, there were 28 million people in france. The third estate had 27.5 million people. The third estate had other ideas. They wanted a piece of power and a Constitution. King Luis XVI did not like that, so the third estate gave themselves a new name, the National Assembly. They invited other people from the other estates to join them. Louis got mad and locked them out of the meeting. The National Assembly went to a nearby tennis court and had their meeting there. They made a promise that they would stay together until they got a constitution. The Marquis de Lafayette joined the National Assembly.