Bastille Day
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50 free Bastille Day trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Bastille Day is France's national day, and its story is stranger than the textbook version. The crowd that attacked the old fortress in the summer of 1789 was not there for the reason most people assume, the prison was close to empty, and the king's journal entry for the day has become a punchline. This quiz covers the storming and the people caught up in it, the long history of the Bastille as a state prison, and how a day of street fighting became an official holiday almost a century later. It also covers how France celebrates now: the military parade in Paris, the fireworks, the dances and the symbols of the republic. There are questions on Bastille Day parties far from France too, and on the films, songs and novels that borrowed the name. It suits a French class, a themed party or anyone who enjoys revolutionary history.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What giant animal did Napoleon plan in bronze for the Bastille site, built only as a plaster model?
An elephant
An elephant 24 metres tall stood on the square in plaster from 1813 to 1846. Victor Hugo made it the street urchin Gavroche's shelter in Les Misérables.
Q 02How many prisoners were actually inside the Bastille when Parisian crowds stormed the fortress in July 1789?
7
Just 7 prisoners were inside: four men held for faking documents, two judged insane and a count locked up at his own family's request.
Q 03What single word did Louis XVI write in his journal for the day the Bastille fell?
Nothing
Nothing, or Rien in French, was the whole entry. The journal mostly logged hunts and ceremonies, so the word noted a day with no kill, not a verdict on the uprising.
Q 04Which American president received the key to the Bastille as a gift from Lafayette?
George Washington
George Washington showed the key off at official events in New York and Philadelphia, then took it home to Mount Vernon, where it remains on display.
Q 05What were the Parisians who attacked the Bastille chiefly hoping to seize from inside the fortress?
Gunpowder
Gunpowder was the prize: 250 barrels had just been moved into the Bastille for safekeeping, and the crowd had seized muskets that morning with little to fire them.
Q 06The British band Bastille, of Pompeii fame, took its name because Bastille Day is what for singer Dan Smith?
His birthday
His birthday falls on the French national day, so Dan Smith borrowed its name in 2010 for what began as a solo project before three bandmates joined.
Q 07Which French emergency service traditionally throws public dance parties at its stations around Bastille Day?
Firefighters
Firefighters host the bals des pompiers in their own stations on the eve or the night of the holiday. The Paris brigade is an army unit and also marches in the parade.
Q 08Which queen's character threw Tastykake snack cakes at the mob in Philadelphia's yearly Bastille Day show?
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette pelted the crowd with the locally made cakes at Eastern State Penitentiary, a former prison that also staged a mock storming each year until 2018.
Q 09Which notorious writer was moved out of the Bastille ten days before it fell, after shouting to passers-by?
Marquis de Sade
Marquis de Sade had yelled from his cell that the inmates were being massacred. When the crowd broke in, the belongings he left behind under seal were looted.
Q 10Which mysterious prisoner of Louis XIV, later made famous by Alexandre Dumas, died in the Bastille in 1703?
The Man in the Iron Mask
The Man in the Iron Mask was buried under the name Marchioly, which led several historians to identify him as the Italian diplomat Ercole Mattioli.
Q 11On which date do the French celebrate their national day, known to English speakers as Bastille Day?
14 July
14 July marks both the storming of the fortress in 1789 and a festival of national unity held exactly one year later.
Q 12Which famous Paris avenue has hosted the Bastille Day military parade since the end of the First World War?
Champs-Élysées
The Champs-Élysées took over from a racecourse in the Bois de Boulogne with the victory parade of 1919, led by Marshals Joffre, Foch and Pétain.
Q 13Which anthem, written in 1792 as a war song for the Army of the Rhine, is played at the Bastille Day parade?
La Marseillaise
Q 21Which 1790 festival of national unity, held a year to the day after the storming, does Bastille Day also honour?
Fête de la Fédération
The Fête de la Fédération gave the lawmakers of 1880 a bloodless event to celebrate, which eased their doubts about honouring a day of street violence.
Q 22At which Paris site did some 260,000 citizens gather in 1790 to mark one year since the Bastille fell?
Champ de Mars
The Champ de Mars lay far outside the city then, and thousands of Parisians turned up with wheelbarrows to finish levelling the ground in time.
Q 23Which bishop of Autun, later Napoleon's foreign minister, said mass at the 1790 festival marking the Bastille's fall?
Talleyrand
La Marseillaise got its nickname from volunteers from the southern port who sang it as they marched into Paris, though it was written in Strasbourg.
Q 14Which Paris landmark is the centrepiece of the capital's Bastille Day fireworks, launched from around its base?
Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower show is fired from the monument itself, from the Pont d'Iéna at its foot and from the Trocadéro across the river.
Q 15A stage win on Bastille Day is a special prize for French competitors in which annual sporting event?
Tour de France
The Tour de France runs through July, and French teams often put in extra effort on the holiday. David Moncoutié took the 2005 stage that fell on it, at Digne-les-Bains.
Q 16Which American president was so taken with a Bastille Day parade in Paris that he pushed for one of his own?
Donald Trump
Donald Trump was Emmanuel Macron's guest in 2017, a century after American troops joined the First World War, and wanted a military parade at home to top it.
Q 17Which female figure in a red Phrygian cap personifies the French Republic in town halls and on stamps?
Marianne
Marianne has stood for liberty since the 1789 uprising, and her profile also appears on French euro coins and the government's official logo.
Q 18Which Dickens novel shows wine-shop owners the Defarges helping to lead the storming of the Bastille?
A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities has Ernest Defarge hurry to search the old cell of Dr Manette, who had been buried alive in the prison for 18 years.
Q 19Which French army corps marches last among the foot troops on Bastille Day because of its slower pace?
Foreign Legion
The Foreign Legion marches at 88 paces a minute against 120 for other French units, so it always brings up the rear of the troops on foot.
Q 20Which French regime made Bastille Day an official national holiday in 1880, nearly a century after the storming?
Third Republic
The Third Republic passed the law in July 1880 after weighing rival dates, among them the anniversary of Louis XVI's execution.
Talleyrand said the mass in pouring rain, before Lafayette and then Louis XVI swore their oaths to the constitution.
Q 24At which Napoleonic monument does the Bastille Day military parade route in Paris begin?
Arc de Triomphe
The Arc de Triomphe is where the president arrives with a Republican Guard escort and is told that the troops are ready for inspection.
Q 25On which Paris square, at the far end of the route, does the French president watch the Bastille Day parade?
Place de la Concorde
The Place de la Concorde holds the reviewing stand, where the government and foreign ambassadors join the president to watch the troops arrive.
Q 26Cadets of which elite school march first among the military academies at the Bastille Day parade in Paris?
École Polytechnique
École Polytechnique leads by seniority, ahead of the army and naval officer schools, although most of its engineering graduates go on to civilian careers.
Q 27In which foreign capital did General de Gaulle review the first Free French Bastille Day parade in 1940?
London
London saw de Gaulle review the first Free French troops on 14 July 1940, less than a month after his radio appeal to keep fighting.
Q 28Which French musician drew a crowd of a million to a Bastille Day concert in Paris in 1979?
Jean-Michel Jarre
Jean-Michel Jarre set an audience record with the open-air show, which became the blueprint for the giant city concerts he later staged around the world.
Q 29What kind of building opened on the Place de la Bastille in July 1989, on the eve of the storming's bicentenary?
An opera house
An opera house designed by Carlos Ott rose where a disused train terminus had stood, and François Mitterrand opened it before 33 foreign leaders.
Q 30Which newly created multinational army unit opened the 1994 Bastille Day parade, bringing German soldiers back to Paris?
Eurocorps
Eurocorps marched at François Mitterrand's invitation, a gesture meant to show that France and Germany, the two old enemies, were reconciled.