Paris in the 18th century were both used for high-ranking political prisoners, and had relatively luxurious conditions. The last three prisoners at the Chateau de Vincennes, the Marquis de Sade and two elderly and insane noblemen, were transferred to the Bastillle in 1784. The Bastille, begun in 1370, never held more than forty inmates; At the time of the Revolution, the Bastille had just seven prisoners; four counterfeiters, the two elderly noblemen, and a man named Tavernier, half-mad, accused of participation in an attempt to kill Louis XV thirty years earlier. Priests and other religious figures who committed crimes or other offenses were tried by
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