Storming the Bastille (a day early) in Fairmount

It was the best of times; it was the silliest of times. It was the season of urban street festivals; it was the season of steamy weather and intermittent showers. It was the epoch of cancan dancers on Fairmount Avenue and people dressed as giant baguettes. It was the epoch of Marie Antoinette on the roof of Eastern State Penitentiary.

It was the day, of course, when Fairmount's historic prison sponsors an "entirely accurate, historically anachronistic reenactment" of the storming of the Bastille, the event that launched the French Revolution in 1789.

And since every revolutionary reenactment needs a mob, a theatrical performance was organized at the prison Saturday by the satirical Bearded Ladies Cabaret, the street was closed to traffic, and - Voilà! - a mob of spectators appeared to fulfill its part in the drama. This frequently involved firing squirt guns at complete strangers.

It was the 19th year that Bastille Day has been celebrated at the prison, which is the Philadelphia building that most resembles Paris' hated Bastille prison. Although a day early, the event was marked as usual with a street fair and appearance by Marie Antoinette, a.k.a. Terry McNally, owner of the London Grill, and the event's cofounder.

For this year's finale, Marie amended her famous dismissal, "Let them eat cake" to "Let them eat Tastykake," and then showered the crowd with 3,000 cakes from the roof of the prison.

Partly thanks to the popularity of the recent movie version of Les Miserables, the mob seemed reasonably familiar with the history behind the French holiday. Many wore period dress, although the vast majority of those in costume chose the wardrobe of the sans-culottes - the 99 percent of the era - over the silks and satins of the aristocracy.

"I thought it was too hot and too expensive to be an aristocrat," conceded Siobhan DiGiuseppe, 20, who paraded through the crowd in a black corset dress, white peasant blouse, and tricolor cockade. A costume designer who works at the Art Museum, she heard about the event Friday and whipped up her costume Saturday morning.

While there was a clear bias against the period's One Percent, one aristocrat stood out among the mob: the Marquis de Brie. He wore a yellow silk jacket and breaches, white gloves, and rings.

"I don't care about this rabble," declared the Marquis, who confided that his given name was Tim Callahan. "All they complain about is bread, bread, bread."

The Bearded Ladies Cabaret, which entertained the crowd, provided both bread and circus, milking every possible French double entendre and historical reference with politically laced humor.

Joan of Arc, who made an anachronistic appearance to a version of Alicia Keys' "Girl on Fire," was "the hottest French fry of all."

Ben Franklin also did a skit, wowing the crowd with his break-dance moves, before boiling down the differences between the American and French Revolutions to this: "We created an actual democracy that still kinda, sorta works."

At the end of the staged revolution, the mob decided against sending Marie Antoinette to the guillotine. Instead, they took her wig.

Then they all streamed down to the Fairmount Avenue restaurants for after-the-beheading after parties.