When I held the key to the Bastille in my hand, testing its
cold heft, I could imagine the clank of the massive lock closing. Another person, having held the object, had
opined that the lock opened by this key would have been easily picked, but that
seemed hardly a weakness. Who would have
worried about break-ins at the heavily-guarded medieval fortress in the heart
of Paris? Breakouts would have been the
more logical concern, though by the time the fortress fell there were only
seven prisoners. When the vainqueurs, officially numbering 954,
decided to effect an entrance, the lock was surely an afterthought. Once the edifice was in flames the key, now
useless, was gifted to George Washington by the Marquis de Lafayette, a present
from French revolutionaries to the Americans who had inspired them.
But of course, this wasn’t the key to the Bastille. Ridiculous to think that such a priceless
artifact would accompany the representative of Mount Vernon to this teaching
seminar in Raleigh. This key was a cast
iron replica of the original which at that moment rested on display at
Washington’s home, an object that is apparently one of three original objects
that has remained at the house over the centuries. Whatever emotional associations I made with
the key I held in my hand were mine, it would seem, since unlike the original
it had never passed through Lafayette’s hands to Washington’s (with Thomas Paine
serving as an intermediary on one leg of the trip).
Holding this object brought to mind a scene from the Philip
K. Dick novel The Man in the High Castle,
as well as in the superb Amazon.com television series based on it. In the scene, which takes place in an
alternative world where the Axis powers triumphed in the Second World War, an
antiquities dealer discusses what makes a certain object more valuable than
some other, identical, object. He
displays two cigarette lighters, one of which had rested in the pocket of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt when he was assassinated (the turning point in this world’s
history) and another lighter, in all respects the same, except that it had no association with FDR.
What makes the one an object that his customers would pay
thousands of yen for and the other a mere trinket?
Historicity, we are told.
That Roosevelt had held the locket, that it had been in his pocket as he
died, imbued it with some essence lacking in other lighters. In the show the antiquities dealer tells us
this is all balderdash but that his Japanese clients believe in it is enough for
him, and allows him to make his living.
By extension, we can see that this applies to all sellers of
memorabilia. The baseball, or jersey, or
signed photograph or autographed first edition itself isn’t the draw…it’s the
personal connection to a sports hero, or movie star, or author. Touching these objects, collectors seem to
believe, will allow some of the power of the famous person to come through,
much as some cannibals believe they can gain the power of a vanquished foe or
the wisdom of a revered elder by eating their remains.
Of course, like my impressions of the storming of the
Bastille, this entire process occurs in our minds. There are countless millions for whom hefting
the replica of that famous key would have been nothing more than a physical
appraisal of the object; the thing itself need be no more valuable than the
iron it was made of. My momentary reverie only occurred because I know the story of the Bastille, and I knew that this key was a replica of the other, more famous one. So why bother?
Because I lied earlier—that object I held is really, literally, the key to the
Bastille. Though it was probably cast
within the last couple of decades, it is just as real and just as much the key
to the Bastille as the original displayed in Washington’s home. How is this possible? Staying in the present, this key was made
using the original as a model. It is made,
inasmuch as it is possible, of the same material. It looks the same, it feels the same (or so I
assume), it probably tastes the same, has the same weight, harmonics, etc. Were I to sneak into Mount Vernon in the dead
of night, and switch the two keys, no one would likely be the wiser.
If I destroyed the original I had stolen, who would know... or
even care to? Allowing the secret to die
with me, the world would go on believing that the key in the display case had been
touched by some anonymous vainqueur,
Lafayette, Paine, and Washington. The
key I placed in the display cabinet would, to all intents and purposes, be the original.
I also held the key to the Bastille in another, more direct sense. Having this replica, and the ability to
travel back in time, I should be able
to unlock the famous prison. Again, the
circumstances of its production are irrelevant; if it would unlock the
nefarious lock, it is the real key,
historicity be damned. And that’s a
damned peculiar thought, one sobering to a historian, or anyone concerned with grasping reality, whatever that is.
