Bastille Day celebrated every year on July 14^th, marks storming of the prison that housed those who spoke against the Monarchy in 1789. Known as the Writer’s Prison, the Bastille was the home of Voltaire for a while and also the infamous Marquis de Sade (who was also a writer). Others included François de La Rochefoucauld, Rene Auguste Constantin de Renneville, and Louis Pierre Manuel. The famous French prison also made a good fictional setting for The Man In The Iron Mask by Alexander Dumas and Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. There’s an interesting article by Nancy Mattoon at http://www.berfrois.com/2010/12/the-writers-prison.