A lot of heads rolled during the French Revolution. Many powerful people met their death in the modern day Place de la Concorde, among them, Marie Antoinette. But she wasn’t executed until October 16, 1793, but for the purposes of yesterday’s Bastille Day celebration at Eastern State Penitentiary.
This is a yearly event here in Philly, this year being the 12th Annual. It’s a mishmash of French Revolution history done Philly style and I can’t describe it any other way. Pennsylvania has tons of American Revoutionary and Civil War re-enactors with Philly and Gettysburg being central places respectively. I’m sure many brought along similar garb for this re-enactment, but there were also lots of French peasants and French aristocracy in full garb as well. So read on and check out how we roll in Philly. How did you spend your Bastille Day?
There were tons of people there in traditional dress. I have no idea how accurate the clothing was, but I gotta give them credit for getting all dolled up in the sticky Philly heat. People in several layers, carrying muskets, tri-corner hats… It was quite a sight.
As the story goes, after the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, rumors were spread that the royals, hiding out in Château de Versailles, were hording all of the grain [which makes the bread]. Several reenactors were holding loaves.
<img src="http://www.dragonballyee.com/blogpics/2006/07July/DSC_5844.jpg" alt="marie antoinette"
So Marie Antoinette [the owner of the London Grill one block down the street] got up on top of the castle wall and spoke to the peasants below. The angry peasants attributed the quote “Let them eat cake” [in place of not having bread] to Marie, the most hated of the French royals to further stir up the hatred. And so, “Let them eat Tastykake” is what is cried out from atop the Penitentiary each summer here in Philly. But Tastykake refuses to donate the 2,000 Butterscotch Krimpets for the occassion, so, in protest, ESP uses Twinkies.
And that’s the first volley of Twinkies. Have you ever had 2,000 Twinkies hurled at you from a height of about fifty feet or so? It’s actually frightening. The thuds as they hit the ground were quite loud. If they had a slightly more solid construction, they could’ve done some serious damage, but they’re not and they didn’t. I couldn’t catch anything though. I got my hand on one which sailed behind me. Having a camera with a large lens in my right hand didn’t help things. Scott snagged a few.
I’m sure there are tons of history buffs out there, take apart the French Revolution!
I’ve put up a flickr set of shots from the day.
