Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 01.djvu/541

BASTIA 441 BASTILLE mate, must at least be born after the lawful marriage; it does not require that the child shall be begotten in wedlock, but it is indispensable that it should be born after marriage, no matter how short the time, the law presuming it to be the child of the husband. The only in- capacity of a bastard is that he can- not be heir or next of kin to anyone save his own issue. In England the niaintenance of a bastard in the first instance devolves on the mother, while in Scotland it is a joint burden upon both parents. The mother is entitled to the custody of the child in preference to the father. Charles V., between 1370 and 1383, by Hugo Aubroit, Provost of Paris, at Porte St. Antoine, as a defense against the English. Afterward it was provided vsith vast bulwarks and ditches. On each of its longer sides the Bastille had four towers, of five stories each, over which there ran a gallery, which was armed with cannon. It was partly in these towers, and partly in cellars xmder the level of the ground, that the prisons were situated. The Bastille was capable of containing 70 to 80 prisoners. On July 14, 1789. it was surrounded by an armed mob enraged by the reactionary policy of the court. The garrison con- ^sa ,^p^ THE BASTILLE BASTIA. the former capital of Corsica, in the N. E. part of the island, 95 miles N. N. E. of Ajaccio. Antimony raining, boat building, iron founding, tunny and coral fishing are carried on; besides, there is some trade in oil, wine, and fruit. Population about 30,000. Bastia was founded in 1388 by the Gen- oese Leonello Lomellino, and was the seat of the Genoese governors for 400 years. It has several times been in the hands of the English, who, under Ad- miral Hood, last captured the town in 1794. BASTILLE (bas-tel'), formerly, in France, a general term for a strong for- tress defended by towers or bastions, and in this sense it was used in England after the Norman Conquest. The famous prison to which the name was latterly appropriated was originally the Castle of Paris, and was built by order of sisted of 82 old soldiers and 33 Swiss. Negotiations with the governor of the prison having failed, the mob cut the chains of the drawbridge and a contest took place, in which one of the besieged and 150 of the people were killed or se- verely wounded. The arrival of a por- tion of the troops which had already joined the people, with four field-pieces, turned the fortune of the conflict in favor of the besiegers. Delaunay, the governor — who had been prevented by one of the officers when on the point of blowing the fortress into the air — per- mitted the second drawbridge to be low- ered, and the people rushed in, killing Delaunay himself and several of his offi- cers. The destruction commenced on the following day, amid the thunder of cannon and the pealing of the Te Deunu This event, in itself apparently of no great moment, leading only to the re-