after the Treaty of Amiens (1802), instead of founding bursaries 'which experience had taught him, proved of little value to the Irish mission', he devised what he called 'annual pensions of encouragement.' Shortly after entering Collège des Lombards however, Blackwell discovered that he had no vocation to the priesthood, and we find him studying medicine at the Bicêtre Hospital. "Irishmen were particularly strong in the medical faculty," Swords informs us. "[They] also achieved prominence in court circles: John MacSheehy and John O'Reilly were both physicians to Louis XVI. As well as theology and law, medicine and surgery could be studied by burse-holders in the Irish college and Irish doctors had established a number of substantial foundations there expressly for these disciplines." Military career The officers serving in the Irish regiments in the French army were the other Irish community of significance that sought the services of the Irish colleges. General Count Daniel O'Connell and Charles Edward Jennings de Kilmaine, later General Kilmaine, were among the many officers for whom the Irish college issued certificates. "Many of the students who entered the Irish college at a tender age did not persevere to the priesthood and some opted for a military career," Swords continues. Presumably this is what happened to James Blackwell as in 1786 he subsequently joined the Regiment de Walsh, part of the Irish Brigade (France) in the French army, becoming, at the same time, a naturalized citizen of his adopted country, a fact that undoubtedly saved his life later on. He remained with this regiment until it was finally disbanded in 1791. The French Revolution According to the Irish historian Richard Hayes (politician), "Before the outbreak of the Revolution, Blackwell had associated himself with the reform party, becoming an intimate friend of Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins and the other leading spirits of the clubs who helped to precipitate the insurrection of the fourteenth of July 1789." On that morning twelve cannons and 40,000 muskets were seized from Les Invalides for the new militia. The Bastille, a state prison, containing a sizeable quantity of ammunition, including 250 barrels of powder, too, posed an irresistible temptation for the militant minded of the revolutionaries. In the popular mind the Bastille was conceived as a symbol of royal despotism, as attested to by Eoghan O Néill's comment: 'Whatever the designs of the founders the use of it is in the end a disgrace