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Jefferson recalls liberation of Bastille prisoners

Today France celebrates the 220th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, perhaps the only national holiday I'm aware of in any country celebrating a prison break. (Really, the mob was after gunpowder stored in the garrison and releasing the prisoners was an afterthought, but that's the popular portrayal.) As Thomas Jefferson described the spectacle in a letter to John Jay:The mob, now openly joined by the French guards, force the prisons of St. Larare, release all the prisoners, and take a great store of corn, which they carry to the corn market. Here they get some arms, & the French guards begin to to form & train them. ...?[At the Bastille] They took all the arms, discharged the prisoners & such of the garrison as were not killed in the first moment of fury, carried the Governor & Lieutenant governor to the Greve (the place of public execution) cut off their heads, & sent them through the city in triumph to the Palais royal...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on July 14, 2009 (boomark / email).