I suspect the Storming of the Bastille looked a lot like the mob attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6. This historical comparison may offer some lessons on the nature of American democracy.
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Are we a populist democracy, or an orderly republic? This question created tremendous tension between the Constitution's framers, esp. Hamilton + Washington, and the anti-Federalists, esp. Jefferson ...
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Jefferson was in France when the U.S. Constitution was created (+ when the Bastille was stormed). He missed the Convention's lengthy debates reconciling the tension between populism and (small-r) republicanism, on how to transform a revolution into a functional government.
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When the other Founders mostly had matured and moved on to the practical business of creating and running a country, Jefferson remained a raw-dog revolutionist.
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E.g., Jefferson thought the Whiskey Rebellion was a healthy demonstration of democratic vigor (it's what inspired his "water the tree of liberty" line); Washington considered it anarchy + crushed it militarily. Washington and Jefferson were permanently alienated over this.
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And Jefferson thought the French Revolution was wonderful; Hamilton, who understood that there were as many Thenardier-types as patriots in every populist mob, considered it dangerous to the true cause of liberty. Anecdotes suggest Hamilton had a point:
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And of course, the subsequent rise of Robespierre and the Jacobins, the Reign of Terror, and the collapse of the Revolution into Napoleon's dictatorship prove that Washington and Hamilton, not Jefferson, were correct. Mobs are not healthily "democratic":
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"The mob in Paris consisted largely of destitute sans-culottes ('without knee breeches'), who maintained themselves by a mixture of crime, prostitution, begging, and odd jobs. Robespierre and his followers incited them to action whenever political expediency called for it. ...
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"... But even when unincited, having nothing better to do, they formed the crowd that watched the public executions, jeered and abused those about to die, rejoiced at the severed heads, adulated the leaders temporarily in power, and cursed them after they fell. ..."
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"... Like flies, they were everywhere as the Revolution went on its bloody way." https://www.city-journal.org/html/why-robespierre-chose-terror-12935.html
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Even Trump seems to have some vague awareness of the flawed nature of populist mob he instigated:

"Trump expressed disgust on aesthetic grounds over how 'low class' his supporters looked. 'He doesn’t like low-class things,' the adviser said." https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/capitol-riot-senior-trump-official-calls-him-a-fascist.html
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Personally, I'm ready to cancel Jefferson. He wrote a great sentence in one document ("all men are created equal"), but his youthful fame and massive privilege, immunizing him from consequences, allowed him to romanticize the mob.
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But obviously many people on both sides feel differently: the Right just invaded the Capitol bearing nooses, and some on the Left proudly proclaim themselves Jacobins even today despite the original Jacobins' terrifying history.
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tl;dr: The blurry line between popular democracy and mob populism that the U.S. and France (and Brazil, and Mexico, and Haiti, and and and) struggled with over two centuries ago are alive and well, and is implicated in the violence of Jan. 6. ...
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I hope some real historian takes the time to unpack these historical precedents and parallels at length, to help us understand our own times.
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