The future Place de la Concorde was packed with people.
The marriage of the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI, to Marie-Antoinette was being celebrated.
For the occasion, a spectacular fireworks display was announced.
Up to 300,000 people gathered to watch the show.
The fireworks were prepared by the famous Ruggieri brothers.
Everyone expected a historic moment.
But the evening turned into a nightmare.
The first launches failed.
A rocket fell back onto the fireworks platform.
A fire broke out.
The crowd panicked.
The surrounding streets were under construction, and carriages blocked the exits.
People were trampled, crushed, suffocated.
Terrified horses worsened the chaos.
The result: a massacre.
Official archives report 132 deaths.
But some sources mention… hundreds, even several thousand victims.
This tragedy remains the deadliest pyrotechnic disaster in French history.
It would be called: the Great Suffocation.
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