With its eight towers, 100 feet (30 metres) high, linked by walls of equal height and surrounded by a moat more than 80 feet (24 metres) wide, the Bastille dominated Paris. The first stone was laid on April 22, 1370, on the orders of Charles V of France, who had it built as a bastide, or fortification (the name Bastille is a corruption of bastide), to protect his wall around Paris against English attack. The Bastille, in fact, was originally a fortified gate, but Charles VI turned it into an independent stronghold by walling up the openings. In 1557 its defensive system was completed on the eastern flank by the erection of a bastion. In the 17th century a transverse block was built, dividing the inner court into unequal parts.

Cardinal de Richelieu was the first to use the Bastille as a state prison, in the 17th century; the yearly average number of prisoners was 40, interned by lettre de cachet (cachet, lettre de), a direct order of the king, from which there was no recourse. Prisoners included political troublemakers and individuals held at the request of their families, often to coerce a young member into obedience or to prevent a disreputable member from marring the family's name. Under Louis XIV the Bastille became a place of judicial detention in which the lieutenant de police could hold prisoners; under the regency of Philippe II, duc d'Orléans, persons being tried by the Parlement were also detained there. Imprisonment by lettre de cachet remained, however, in force, and prohibited books were also placed in the Bastille. The high cost of maintaining the building prompted talk of demolition in 1784.

On the morning of July 14, 1789, when only seven prisoners were confined in the building, a crowd advanced on the Bastille with the intention of asking the prison governor, Bernard Jordan, marquis de Launay, to release the arms and munitions stored there. Angered by Launay's evasiveness, the people stormed and captured the place; this dramatic action came to symbolize the end of the ancien régime. The Bastille was subsequently demolished by order of the Revolutionary government.