Bastille giving colourful accounts of the events in the castle. Stories and pictures about the rescue of the fictional Count de Lorges – supposedly a mistreated prisoner of the Bastille incarcerated by Louis XV – and the similarly imaginary discovery of the skeleton of the "Man in the Iron Mask" in the dungeons, were widely circulated as fact across Paris. In the coming months, over 150 broadside publications used the storming of the Bastille as a theme, while the events formed the basis for a number of theatrical plays. Despite a thorough search, the revolutionaries discovered only seven prisoners in the
Bastille Bastille, rather fewer than had been anticipated. Of these, only one – de Whyte de Malleville, an elderly and white-bearded man – closely resembled the public image of a Bastille prisoner; despite being mentally ill, he was paraded through the streets, where he waved happily to the crowds. Of the remaining six liberated prisoners, four were convicted forgers who quickly vanished into the Paris streets; one was the Count de Solages, who had been imprisoned on the request of his family for sexual misdemeanours; the sixth was a man called Tavernier, who also proved to be mentally ill and, along