In the 1780s France was the richest nation on Earth. It also boasted an exploding national debt and an increasingly restless middle class. On July 14, 1789, a ragtag mob of Parisians stormed the fortress of the Bastille to seize the King's arms and ammunition. This set loose a decade of revolutionary ideals and a murderous cycle of carnage - the French Revolution, that would shake the very foundations of monarchy, destroy the last vestiges of feudalism, plant the seeds for modern politics, diplomacy and nationalism - and plunge an entire continent into endless warfare for a generation to come. France - History - 1789-1799, Revolution. France - Anecdotes. 944.04 FRE