In London, Paine made his home at the house of Thomas Rickman, a publisher. Rickman has given us an intimate glimpse into the life of the patriot, and told us among other things that Paine was five feet ten inches high, of an athletic build, and very fond of taking long walks. Among the visitors at Rickman's house who came to see Paine were Doctor Priestly, Home Tooke, Romney, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the Duke of Portland and Mary Wollstonecraft. It seems very probable that Mrs. Wollstonecraft, as she styled herself, read to Paine parts of her book, for very much in his volume parallels hers, not only in the thought, but in actual wording. Whether he got more ideas from her than she got from him will have to be left to the higher critics. Certain it is that they were in mutual accord, and that Mrs. Wollstonecraft had read "Common Sense" and "The Rights of Man" to a purpose. It was too much to expect that a native-born Englishman could go across the sea to British Colonies and rebel against British rule and then come back to England and escape censure. The very popularity of Paine in certain high circles centered attention on him. And Pitt, who certainly admired Paine's talents, referred to his stay in England as "indelicate." England is the freest country on earth. It is her rule to let her orators unmuzzle their ignorance and find relief in venting grievances upon the empty air. In Hyde Park any Sunday one can hear the same sentiments for the suppression of which Chicago paid in her Haymarket massacre. Grievances expressed are half-cured, but England did not think so then. The change came about through thirty years' fight, which Paine precipitated. The patience of England in dealing with Paine was extraordinary. Paine was right, but at the same time he was as guilty as Theodore Parker was when indicted by the State of Virginia along with Ol' John Brown. "The Rights of Man" sold from the very start, and in a year fifty thousand copies had been called for. Unlike his other books, this one was bringing Paine a financial return. Newspaper controversies followed, and Burke, the radical, found himself unable to go the lengths to which Paine was logically trying to force him. Paine was in Paris, on a visit, on that memorable day which saw the fall of the Bastile. Jefferson and Adams had left France, and Paine was regarded as the authorized representative of America; in fact, he had been doing business in France for Washington. Lafayette in a moment of exultant enthusiasm gave the key of the Bastile to Paine to present to Washington, and as every American schoolboy knows, this famous key to a sad situation now hangs on its carefully guarded peg at Mount Vernon. Lafayette thought that, without the example of America, France would never have found strength to throw off the rule of kings, and so America must have the key to the detested door that was now unhinged forever.