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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fireworks were prepared by the famous Ruggieri brothers.
Everyone expected a historic moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The surrounding streets were under construction, and carriages blocked the exits.
People were trampled, crushed, suffocated.
Terrified horses worsened the chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The result: a massacre.
Official archives report 132 deaths.
But some sources mention\u2026 hundreds, even several thousand victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This tragedy remains the deadliest pyrotechnic disaster in French history. 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-non-classe-en"],"yoast_head":"\n
It would be called: the Great Suffocation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"