Bastille Day 14 July

Back in 1789, on this day, 14 July, 600-odd disgruntled Frenchmen, wearing silly hats, assembled at the Hôtel des Invalides with the intention of attacking the notorious Parisian gaol, the Bastille. Although this act was an important development in, and later a symbol of, the French Revolution, the main aim of the attackers at the time was to obtain large quantities of arms and ammunition that were stored there. Apart from the armaments, the gaol was nearly empty with only seven residents - four forgers, two "lunatics" and one "deviant" aristocrat, the Comte de Solages (there’s always one!). As the day wore on, ninety-eight attackers died and just one defender; nevertheless, at around 17.30, the governor, De Launay, realising that he couldn’t hold out for much longer surrendered. De Launay was stabbed repeatedly and his head was then sawn off and fixed on a pike and paraded through the streets. Thus was Liberté, égalité, fraternité and the age of enlightenment born.
Two years later, in 1791, On July 14, in not-particularly-revolutionary Birmingham, the Constitutional Society of Birmingham arranged a dinner to celebrate the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. Members of the Lunar Society, including Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin, James Watts and Joseph Priestley attended the dinner. A well-organised mob, orchestrated by the Church and the British government, chose the occasion to attack the homes of several of the diners. This event became known as the Priestley Riots. Sadly, Joseph Priestley lost all his material possessions in the riots and the labour of years was gone with them. Despite this setback, we have Priestley to thank for discovering 9 gases including nitrous oxide. He invented soda water, (which is handy for those of us who like a fizzy drink after a hot summers day storming grubby French prisons), refrigeration, and gum erasers for which he coined the term "rubber". He discovered photosynthesis and he contributed towards the discovery of oxygen, which he referred to as ‘dephlogisticated air’ (Phlogisticated substances are those that were thought to contain ‘phlogiston’ and are "dephlogisticated" when burned. Priestley, when he discovered oxygen, thought it was ‘dephlogisticated air’ because it was capable of combining with more phlogiston and thus supporting combustion for longer than ordinary air). After the Priestley Riots, Priestley left England and emigrated to Pennsylvania where he built a home and laboratory and collected a 1600 volume library, which was then among the largest in America. He is regarded as a founder of liberal Unitarian thinking. A lasting legacy, if another were needed, of his philosophy and insight was that he persuaded his friend Thomas Jefferson to initiate what Americans call a liberal arts education.
An interesting addendum to the tale takes us back to revolutionary France. In the spirit of the now burgeoning age of enlightenment, in September of 1774, Priestley took his ‘dephlogisticated air' to a leading French scientist called Lavoisier. Lavoisier proved that air contained a new element, oxygen, which combined with hydrogen to make water and, in the process disproved the phlogiston theory. Controversially, a Swedish apothecary Carl Wilhelm Scheele claimed to have beaten Priestley by 2 years but was deprived of credit because Lavoisier denied receiving a letter Scheele claims to have sent in September 1774 describing his 1772 discovery of "fire air". History favoured our hero Priestley - until Scheele's missing letter was found in 1992 in Paris, 218 years late. Lavoisier received it on Oct 15, 1774. Incroyable! Crapaud français! (trans: Incredible French clamping plate).