Will the storming of the US Capitol be seen by historians as the same as the storming of the Bastille?
As France, and Francophiles around the world, mark Bastille Day this week, its a good opportunity to remember one of the great quotes about the French Revolution  one which may have ominous undertones for our own times. On Richard Nixons trip to China to cement detente between Washington and Beijing in 1972, his host was Zhou Enlai, Maos right-hand man. A veteran of the bitter Chinese civil war, he had shared the hardships of the Long March and been at the heart of the seismic political upheavals that had torn his country apart, from the Great Leap Forward to the Cultural Revolution. Zhou was also an intellectual known for his interest in revolutionary history. Asked over dinner what he thought the main consequences of the French Revolution had been, Zhou is said to have paused, peered into the distance, and finally replied: Its too soon to say.