This is Rue de Rivoli, down which a huge mob of peasants marched to storm the Bastille on July 14, 1789.

The night I was here, France had a popular vote on the EU constitution, and this street was packed with police and

police vans, because some political groups had threatened to re-create the famous march if the constitution was

accepted. It wasn't, as you probably know. I wasn't aware of any of this at the time.

"That's a lot of cops!", I thought, but I'm (perhaps justifiably) too afraid of French cops to ask them anything.