Barricade - in History

In History

Barricades featured heavily in the various European revolutions of the late 18th to early 20th centuries.

The very first barricades in the streets of Paris, a feature of the French Revolution and urban rebellions ever since, went up on the Day of the Barricades, 12 May 1588, when an organized rebellion of Parisians forced Henri III from Paris, leaving it in the hands of the Catholic League. Wagons, timbers and hogsheads (barriques) were chained together to impede the movements of Swiss Guards and other forces loyal to the king. The idea originated from Spanish ambassador Bernardino de Mendoza, who gave the Parisians knowledge the Spanish had gained from years of street fighting in the Netherlands.

During the Parisian insurrection of June 1832, barricades were used. In Les Misérables, the building and defending of a barricade during this time was famously described. Barricades were also used at the end of the Paris Commune of 1871 and in May 1968 in France. A major aim of Haussmann's renovation of Paris under Napoléon III was to eliminate the potential of citizens to build barricades by widening streets into avenues too wide for barricades to block. Such terms as "go to the barricades" or "standing at the barricades" are used in various languages, especially in rousing songs of various radical movements, as metaphors for starting and participating in a revolution or civil war, even when no physical barricades are used.

Making an early appearance in a Royal Shakespeare Company production, the barricade is used in Les Misérables as a symbol of the whole, through its immense, almost frightening size and ultimately the site of all the highs in Les Misérables.