July 14

On the 14th in 1789 a bunch of possibly irritated, but certainly irritating, French people stormed the Bastille in Paris. The nominal reason for this action was the desire to free those inside who, it was felt, were improperly imprisoned in its massive bulk. In reality, their reasons were somewhat more pragmatic. They wanted to seize the 30,000 pounds of gunpowder stored there. For all the uproar it caused I was rather disappointed to discover that the only prisoners being held in the Bastille at the time were four forgers, two lunatics and one ‘deviant’ aristocrat, Comte de Solages.

I suppose that I could take a stab at finding out what rendered de Solages a deviate, but I am just not that interested. Had he been able to secure the services of competent counsel I am reasonably certain that he would have been able to plead to reduced charges and, once the ankle monitor was affixed, he would go on his merry way, glumly destined to have to attend a seemingly unending series of simply fabulous dinner parties. Certainly, he would have to update his wardrobe because he now had a criminal record and he couldn’t run the risk of being pulled over by the Fashion Police.