Place de la Bastille many worse prisons in France, including the dreaded Bicêtre, also in Paris. However, in terms of popular literary accounts, the Bastille was a place of horror and oppression, a symbol of autocratic cruelty. The confrontation between the commoners and the Ancien Régime ultimately led to the people of Paris storming the Bastille on July 14, 1789, following several days of disturbances. At this point, the prison was nearly empty, with only seven inmates: four counterfeiters, two madmen, and a young aristocrat who had displeased his father. The regular garrison consisted of about 80 'invalides' (veteran soldiers no longer capable of
The House in Paris wrote in a letter to Bowen, "I wonder if you realize how un-English it is?" Alfred A. Knopf published the novel for American audiences one year later. In 1972, Penguin released an edition of the novel with an introduction by A.S. Byatt, and re-released it in 1987; this edition was republished in 2002 by Anchor Books. An early admirer of "The House in Paris" was Virginia Woolf, a good friend of Bowen's. In a letter about the book, Woolf wrote, "I had the feeling that your world imposed itself on my world, while I read, which only happens when one