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| The Bastille |
The claim to fame of Chevalier James F.X. Whyte (Dublin, 1730-Charenton, 179…), also known as Comte Whyte de Malleville, rests on his presence in the Bastille on the day the prison was stormed on July 14, 1789. In fact, he was one of only seven (or six, it depends on who you read) prisoners that the Revolutionaries “liberated” from the Bastille that day, and one of two certified lunatics. Whyte’s perilous mental state did not stop his liberators from parading him through the streets and proclaiming him a hero of the revolution. According to Richard Hayes’ Biographical Dictionary of Irishmen in France, “an eyewitness of the day’s events describes him as ‘a little feeble old man who exhibited an appearance of childishness and fatuity, tottering as he walked and his countenance exhibiting little more than the smile of an idiot.’” Another witness described Whyte as having “a beard almost a yard long”, and as “wearing the smile of an idiot”. When released, he is said to have declared himself “majeur de l’immensité”. A sympathetic citizen gave Whyte shelter for the night, but the Irishman pillaged the house of his benefactor. The following day, the hero of the Revolution was locked up again – this time in the lunatic asylum in Charenton, where he was to spend the rest of his days. Ironically, before the Revolution, Whyte’s family had tried to avoid having him placed in Charenton because of the harshness of the regime there. So much for ‘liberté, fraternité’ etc…But at least in Charenton, he would have hooked up with his acquaintance, the Marquis Sade, who had been shipped to Charenton from the Bastille on July 4, 1789.
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Hero of the Revolution |
Whyte had followed a military career in France after leaving Ireland and rose to the grade of captain in Lally’s regiment of the Irish Brigade. He suffered a mental breakdown in 1781 and was confined in a hospital in Vincennes and then to the Bastille three years later (along with the Marquis de Sade) when the institution in Vincennes was closed. In March 1789, he was deprived of his civil rights and his property was transferred to his daughters.
Other Irishmen played a role in the events of July 1789 in Paris. One of the two titular chaplains at the Bastille was a certain Thomas MacMahon from Eyrecourt, Co. Galway. Fr. MacMahon, who was 70 years old in 1789, resided close by the Bastille in the rue Saint Antoine (4th arrondissement) and is believed to have said one of the last masses in the prison chapel. Ironically enough, the revolutionaries later granted Fr. MacMahon a pension of 500 livres.
A boot-maker of Clare descent based in Lille, Joseph Kavanagh was one of 60 district representatives who met at the Hôtel de Ville on July 13, 1789, and one of only six sent forward to demand that municipal representatives establish a National Guard. He is also said to have planned and led the assault on the Bastille the following day, managing to gather a mob by spreading the rumour that Royalist troops were advancing on the city. Kavanagh’s role was celebrated in a pamphlet printed shortly entitled Les exploits glorieux du célèbre Cavanagh. Cause première de la liberté française. Kavanagh became an influential police official during the Terror and may have been involved in the September 1792 massacre carried out at La Force prison (no longer extant, situated in present-day 4th arrondissement), during which a number of Irishmen, including the soldier Arthur Dillon, were murdered. In April 1793, he arrested Philippe Egalité, the Duke of Orléans, who was guillotined shortly after, and later the same year was involved in the investigations that followed the assassination of revolutionary leader Marat by Charlotte Corday. Kavanagh wisely disappeared from circulation (or was killed) after the fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794.
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Site of the lunatic asylum in Charenton
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A complice of Kavanagh’s in the storming of the Bastille was one James Bartholomew Blackwell (Ennis, Co. Clare, 1763 (or 1765)-Paris, 1820 (or 1825)), who had studied at the Irish College before joining one of the Irish regiments of the French army. Blackwell was a friend of a number of leading revolutionaries, most notably Camille Desmoulins and Georges Jacques Danton. On July 14, 1789, Blackwell led revolutionary forces in the Faubourg Saint Antoine section of the city and is credited with leading one of the decisive assaults on the prison. During the Restoration, Blackwell was put in charge of military organisation in the town of Bitche in Alsace. He died in Paris and was buried in the cemetery of Père Lachaise. Unfortunately, all trace of his sepulchre disappeared in 1992 when the authorities decided to recoup the plot where he had been buried and which had been left in a state of abandon.
Finally, one of the heads of the newly formed National Guard on July 14, 1789 was Count Robert O’Shee (Cloneen, Co. Tipperary, 1736-Paris, 1806), who was to become a benefactor of the family of Wolfe Tone a few years later.
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