Plate from the 'Attic Miscellany', i. 41.
A satire on the much advertised and rival theatrical performances of the storming of the Bastille offered to the public during the autumn of 1789 at Astley's Amphitheatre and at Hughes's Royal Circus in St. George's Fields.
Library's copy trimmed within plate mark.
Affixed to the verso of another print, "Le roi esclave ou les sujets rois/ Female patriotism" (see Peel 1670).
Print shows a stage representation of the fall of the Bastille. At the back of the stage is the gate of a fortress flanked by pinnacled turrets, each with a cock on the summit. Next it is a flimsy timber drawbridge inscribed 'This is a Drawbridge'. In front of the gate and behind a low battlement stands the governor (de Launay), a flag inscribed 'France' over his shoulder, but holding out a cloth inscribed 'D--n you what do you want. In the foreground are the assailants of the Bastille with muskets, one of whom fires a toy cannon. They are carrying a 'Standard of Liberty', and one man holds up a cloth which reads 'No Bastile.' On the floor at the front of the stage is a paper reading: Mr Centaur can assure the publick since his return from Paris [engraved above 'Dublin'] that this here Bastile is the most exactest of any of the Bastiles existin.