The Escape from the Bastille

The Escape from the Bastille

Produced for:	Fantomen 25/1978
# of pgs:	32
Writer:	Norman Worker
Artist:	Jaime Vallvé
Original colorist:	N/A
Producer:	Semic Press

"The Escape from the Bastille" is a 1978 Team Fantomen story, written by Norman Worker, with art by Jaime Vallvé.

Plot synopsis

Sitting in the skull cave, Rex and Tom-Tom ask if the Phantom has any other hideaways except Walker's Table and the Vacul Castle. The Phantom start to tell the story of an additional place that he himself has never visited.

The 12th Phantom had visited England and was on his way to Paris to meet Ramon, the son of prince Aga of the Misty Mountains, at this time studying medicine in Paris. At the beginning of 1789 he arrives at the city gates of Paris. He is allowed to pass through but one man follows to check what his business in Paris is. Ramon turns out to have a room in a run down part of Paris. Outside the door to his house the Phantom gives a coin to a beggar. The landlady says that Ramon has gone and warns the Phantom to ask about Ramon again. At that moment guards show up and arrest him. The guards take him to a dark dungeon with a torture chamber.

The cardinal Gregoire introduces himself, explaining that Ramon is a revolutionary planning to overthrow the king. The cardinal wants a full confession from the Phantom that he is a foreign agent. The Phantom would rather not and a fight ensues; the Phantom manages to escape with the help of the beggar that he had tossed a coin to earlier. He is taken to a house where a group of revolutionaries, the Tricolor society, are meeting. Ramon has been arrested and is a prisoner at the Bastille. The Phantom hatches a plan to get into the Bastille to free the prisoners.

With the help of a stolen prison wagon the revolutionaries can make their way into the Bastille, defeating the guards and freeing Ramon and the other prisoners.They escape through the sewers. Knowing that armed guards will be looking all over for them, they hide in a small room above the church bells in the cathedral Notre Dame. The next morning they dress like monks and steal the cardinal's barge. The guards do not dare to stop and search the cardinal's own barge, making it easy for the men to follow the Seine downriver.

Ramon wants to finish off the marquess de Fontainoy before leaving France. At his castle the marquess will hold a masquerade ball in the presence of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. Helping them is Ramon's fiance Janine, stepdaughter to the marquess. Robbing a count and his wife of their clothes, the Phantom and Janine pretend to be invited guests to the ball. At the ball the Phantom takes off his disguise and robs the guests of their jewellery. By starting a firework they create enough confusion to make a getaway.

The revolutionaries and the Phantom manage to escape to Barcelona in Spain. Soon after they return to Paris to help the people storm the Bastille on July 14, 1789. As a token of gratitude the revolutionaries grant an honorary citizenship to the Phantom and leaving the room in the Notre Dame at his disposal. Finishing the story, the Phantom explains that nobody in the family has visited the secret room in the Notre Dame since.