Bastille Day

For the Battlestar Galactica episode, see Bastille Day (Battlestar Galactica).

Bastille Day is the French national holiday, celebrated on 14 July each year. It is called Fête Nationale (National Holiday) in France. It commemorates the 1790 Fête de la Fédération, held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789; the Fête de la Fédération was seen as a symbol of the uprising of the modern French "nation", and of the reconciliation of all the French inside the constitutional monarchy which preceded the First Republic, during the French Revolution.

Current festivities

14 July is the French national day, simply called 14 juillet or less commonly but more officially Fête nationale (though it is generally referred to as Bastille Day in English). Many cities hold fireworks during the night. Many dancing parties are organised (bals du 14 juillet) and it is customary that firefighters organise them (bals des pompiers). Those celebrations take place from July 13 at night to July 14.

The day officially celebrates the 1790 Fête de la Fédération, though it is often associated, even in France, with the Storming of the Bastille.

Military parades are held on the morning of 14 July, the largest of which takes place on the Champs-Élysées avenue in Paris in front of the President of the Republic.

The parade opens with cadets from certain schools (École Polytechnique, Saint-Cyr, École Navale, and so forth), then other infantry troops, then motorised troops; aviation of the Patrouille de France flies above. In recent times, it has become customary to invite units from France's close allies into the parade; for instance, in 2004 during the centenary of the Entente Cordiale, British troops (the band of the Royal Marines, the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, Grenadier Guards and King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery) led the Bastille Day parade in Paris for the first time, with the Red Arrows flying overhead.^*.

The parade also involves the French Republican Guard, and occasionally (non-military) police units; it always ends with the much-cheered and popular Paris Fire Brigade (which, exceptionally, has military status in France). Traditionally, the students of the École Polytechnique set up some form of joke.

The president then gives an interview to members of the press, discussing the situation of the country, recent events and projects for the future. He also holds a garden party at the Palais de l'Elysée.

Bastille Day also falls during the running of the Tour de France, and is traditionally the day upon which French riders will make a special effort to take a stage victory for France.

Famous Bastille Day celebrations

1989 : France celebrates 200th anniversary of French Revolution, notably with a monumental show on the Champs-Elysées in Paris, directed by French designer Jean-Paul Goude
1998 : Two days after the French football team becomes world champions, huge celebrations took place nationwide
2002 : A would-be assassin's bullet misses French president Jacques Chirac during Bastille Day celebrations in Paris.

History of the celebration

On 30 June 1878, a feast had been set in Paris by official decision to honour the Republic (the event was immortalised by a painting by Claude Monet). On the 14 July 1879, another feast took place, with a semi-official aspect; the events of the day included a military review in Longchamp, a reception in the Chambre of Deputies, organized and presided by Léon Gambetta, and a Republican Feast in the pré Catelan with Louis Blanc and Victor Hugo. All through France, as Le Figaro wrote on the 16, "people feasted a lot to honour the Bastille".

On the 21 May 1880, Benjamin Raspail presented a law proposal to have "the Republic choose the 14 July as a yearly national holiday". The Assembly voted the text on 21 May and 8 June. The Senate approved on 27 and 29 June, favouring 14 July against 4 August (honouring the end of the feudal system on 4 August 1789). The law was made official on 6 July 1880, and the Ministry of the Interior recommended to the prefects that the day should be "celebrated with all the brilliance that the local resources allow". Indeed, the celebrations of the new holiday in 1880 were particularly magnificent.

In 1989, 199 years after the fête, President Mitterrand hosted world leaders to that year's Bastille Day event which was designated by the French government as a commemoration of the bicentennial of the French Revolution, being 200 years since the Bastille storming.

Discourse by Henri Martin to the Senate

Discourse by Henri Martin, Chairman of the Senate, 29 June 1880

(...) Do not forget that behind this 14 July, where victory of the new era over the ancien régime was bought by fighting, do not forget that after the day of 14 July 1789, there was the day of 14 July 1790.

This ^* day cannot be blamed for having shed a drop of blood, for having divided the country. It was the consecration of unity of France. Yes, it consecrated what the old monarchy had prepared.

The old monarchy had, one could say, been the essence of France, and we did not forget it; Revolution, on this day of the 14 July 1790, made, I shall not say the soul of France—None but God holds the soul of France—but Revolution gave France the counsciousness of itself. It revealed its own soul to France. Remember then that on this day, the most beautiful and the purest of our history, from one end of the country to the other, from the Pyrenees to Alps and Rhine, all the French were holding hands. Remember that, from all parts of the national territory, delegations of the National Guard and of the Army came to Paris to celebrate the deeds of '89. Remember what was in that Paris: a whole People, without distinctions of age nor sex, of rank nor wealth, was associated from all its heart, had participated with its own hands to the fantastic preparations of the Fête de la Fédération; Paris had worked to erect around the Champ-de-Mars this truly sacred amphitheatre which was razed by the Second Empire.

(...)

If some of you might have scruples against the first 14 July, they certainly hold none aginst the second. Whatever difference which might part us, something hovers over them, it is the great images of national unity, which we all desire, for which we would all stand, willing to die if necessary.

Historical background

The Storming of the Bastille

Main article: Storming of the Bastille. On 5 May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates-General to hear their grievances. The deputies of the Third Estate representing the common people (the two others were clergy and nobility) decided to break away and form a National Assembly.

On 20 June the deputies of the Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath (named after the hall where they had gathered which was frequently used for playing "jeu de paume", an ancestor of tennis), swearing not to separate until a Constitution had been established. To show their support, the people of Paris stormed the Bastille, a prison where people were jailed by arbitrary decision of the King (lettre de cachet). The Bastille was, in particular, known for holding political prisoners whose writings had displeased the royal government. Thus the Bastille was a symbol of the absolutism of the monarchy.

There were only 7 inmates housed at the time of the siege. The storming of the Bastille was more important as a rallying point and symbolic act of rebellion than a practical act of defiance. No less important in the history of France, it was not the image typically conjured up of courageous French patriots storming the Bastille and freeing hundreds of oppressed peasants. However, it did immediately inspire preparations amongst the peasants for the very real threat of retaliation. Despite the mythology of freeing revolutionaries, the storming of the Bastille, which housed only a handful of common prisoners, was actually done to raid the prison's supply of arms and ammunition against a false rumor that the king's troops were moving on Paris from Versailles.

Shortly after the storming of the Bastille, on 26 August, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was proclaimed.

The Fête de la Fédération

Main article: Fête de la Fédération The Fête de la Fédération of the 14 July 1790 was a huge feast and official event to celebrate the uprising of the short-lived constitutional monarchy in France and what people of the time considered to be the happy conclusion of the French Revolution.

The event took place on the Champ de Mars, which was at the time outside of Paris. The place had been transformed on a voluntary basis by the population of Paris itself, in what was recalled as the Journée des brouettes ("Wheelbarrow Day").

A mass was celebrated by Talleyrand, bishop of Autun. The very popular General La Fayette, as both captain of the National Guard of Paris and confidant of the king, took his oath to the Constitution, followed by the King Louis XVI.

After the end of the official celebration, the day ended in a huge four day popular feast.

Other references

"Bastille Day" is the name of a song by Rush released on their 1975 album Caress of Steel.
"Reflections on the Revolution in France" is a famous contemporary commentary on the French Revolution, by the renowned Anglo-Irish parliamentarian Edmund Burke.
"Bastille Day" is the name of a musical piece composed by John Tesh
The third episode of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica TV series is called "Bastille Day". The episode contains themes of political imprisonment and individual rights.
In the Cursive song "Ceilings Crack," Bastille Day is mentioned in the line "Drunk on Bastille day"
In "The Day of the Jackal", the assassin chooses this day to assassinate Charles De Gaulle.

External links

senat.fr Tout savoir sur le 14 Juillet
www.kidzworld.com Bastille Day - The Basics

French Revolution | Parades

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