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With the Bastille being destroyed in the background, a member of the Third Estate breaks his shackles. Here, the clergy and nobility recoil in fear, thereby emphasizing the conflict between the estates.

This engraving of the attack highlights the heroism of the people charging determinedly into the billowing clouds and firing relentlessly in the face of strong resistance emanating from the fortress.

The petitions from rural communities focused in part on the abuse of seigneurial dues owed by peasants to lords for which, in principle, they received protection and supervision. But by 1789, these excerpts demonstrate that peasants considered their…