At the end of February 1791, a mob of more than a thousand workers from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, encouraged by members of the Cordeliers Club and led by Antoine Joseph Santerre, marched out to the chateau, which, rumour had it, was being readied on the part of the Crown for political prisoners, and with crowbars and pickaxes set about demolishing it, as the Bastille had recently been demolished. The work was interrupted by the marquis de Lafayette who took several ringleaders prisoners, to the jeers of the Parisian workers. It played no part during the remainder of the Revolution. From 1796, it served as an arsenal. Chateau de Vincennes is a massive 14th and 17th century French royal fortress in the town of Vincennes, to the east of Paris