The Key to the Bastille

The Key to the Bastille resides at Mt. Vernon. The Marquis de Lafayette served under George Washington during the American Revolution and when the prison fell in 1790, he sent the key to his former commander with these words: “Give me leave, my dear General, to present you with a picture of the Bastille, just as it looked a few days after I had ordered its demolition- with the main key of the fortress of despotism. It is a tribute which I owe, as a son to my adoptive father, as an Aid-de-Camp to my General, as a Missionary of Liberty to its Patriarch.”