Bastille Day in French Language

Introduction

July 14 is a day of fireworks, parades, and revelry in France. This date became Bastille Day in France, the national day of celebration of its birth as a republican nation during the French Revolution. It is the day the French celebrate the ideas of freedom, equality, and fraternity and the triumph of the republic. The storming of the Bastille is also the day when the modern French began shaping their long-held reputation as a people always eager to defend themselves and defend the republic, their sovereignty, and their identity.

The symbolism of the date does not escape the 21st century French, either. Today, Bastille Day, at the unified national level, nurtures within the French the personal experience of a national holiday, often in highly individual ways. Two-thirds of the country's towns and villages have some public celebration when local heroes are honored for their individual and collective contributions to the national destiny. At the local level, Bastille Day is essentially a family day for old and young alike, when everybody participates and the historical meaning of the day - popular unity - does not wholly engulf the personal experience. The French display a pronounced communal spirit when it comes to Bastille Day. Besides the shared national features of the holiday - the balls and fireworks, the magnificent parades of soldiers in Paris and the flybys of the French air force jets - Bastille Day is celebrated in a host of profoundly personal and often quirky ways, which unfold in cities, towns, villages, and hamlets throughout the country.

Historical Background of the French Revolution

To understand the historical significance of Bastille Day, it is important to understand the French Revolution more generally. In the years leading up to 1789, the French people were facing socio-economic challenges associated with over a century of excessive war and the stresses of empire. This burden was not felt by all French people equally. The king had wealthy nobles and clergy exempt from taxation for historical reasons, while in some cities under royal administration, powerful city governments were also exempt from paying for governance. For some time, philosophers, drawing on the ideas of the Enlightenment, had advocated that the ancient privileges of the few elites should be curtailed, and that more people should be given political rights and representation. The nobility, though, also wanted greater political power. Like many other Europeans, some of them had been inspired by the case of the people of America, who at this time were fighting the War of Independence against their English king, which they won, establishing themselves as the first republic on the modern model. More generally, a rising tide of revolution was in the air, inspired among other things by discussions about human rights and how they should be protected by law.

Meanwhile, the French king was struggling to effectively manage both his revenues and his parliament. The king tried getting money from the people through what was known as the Estates General, a set of parliaments copied from a practice developed in 14th century England, where these estates were defined as being the professional warriors, or knights, the Cardinal and the rest, or clergy, and the rest of the countrymen. In France, this meant the clergy, the common people, and the nobility of the realm. It had not had a meeting for 150 years in France and was intended to mostly be an advisory council. But as a result of the financial crisis, King Louis XVI called a meeting of the Estates General in 1789, and a representative of the common men, Jean-Sylvestre Bailly, declared it a National Assembly. One of the people who agreed with him and joined this National Assembly was the finance minister, Jacques Necker. In response, the king sent aggressive soldiers to surround the assembly to exert pressure on members not to resist him. This was the major situation that led to the storming of the Bastille prison, which had long been used as a symbol of royal tyranny exerted against the common people. In discussions on the throne, Louis XVI had used words such as rebels, so from the middle of June up until July 4th, the people of Paris and people in other towns in France began to arm themselves and storm artillery buildings and castles, often fighting soldiers or taking brave soldiers and their weapons over to their side. Thus, in a decentralized chain throughout France, citizens took weapons from or stormed citadels, soon to clearly signify that the king was being overthrown.

Storming of the Bastille and its Impact

When the French stormed the 14th-century prison-fortress of the Bastille that housed only 7 inmates on July 14, 1789, it caused a chain reaction that came to symbolize the end of absolute rule and the beginning of the people’s rule. By early July, rumors revealing more taxes and less pay in an economy suffering the aftereffects of bad harvests led to serious disturbances. When troops arrived in Paris on the morning of July 14, they found rioting and fires all over the city. They did not know that this had been made possible by the treachery of their officers in not informing anyone that more than 2,000 guns and 30,000 pounds of powder had been distributed to the insurgents by a disloyal and equally ineffectual governor of the Bastille.

The Bastille had symbolized the oppression of royal authority over Paris from the perspective of the participants in the revolt. For the next few hours, Paris was controlled not by the king but by the people of Paris. The immediate effect of the fall of the Bastille was, first of all, that the prisoners were freed. There were only 7 of them, none of whom fit into the category of intellectual men of letters that romanticized posterity is interested in. But all the prisoners freed right away by the mob and its liberators that day in the Bastille had aristocratic, anti-republican, and anti-revolutionary connections that turned them into symbolic enemies of the Revolution. The news of the fall of the Bastille was the first example of a modern press-covered avalanche of events that then appeared almost simultaneously all over France as permanent skirmish warfare between the royal government and the Revolution from 1789 to 1799. The fall of the Bastille was one of the first well-covered news events in any country in modern times.

Modern Celebrations and Traditions

In modern times, the celebrations of Bastille Day have adapted and evolved to fit the requirements and needs of a completely different society. The main attraction of the day is the largest event on the French public calendar: the military parade on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. This symbol of power and strength is followed by fireworks that light up the skies of all French cities and towns. Throughout France, public dances and gatherings are held in village squares and gardens, embracing the principles of peace, freedom, and fraternity. The celebration of Bastille Day has once again become a real meeting place where citizens of all ages, classes, and cultures come together amid the conviviality of community events. Many French people tormented by memories and secrets have contributed to Bastille Day events being celebrated in every town. In fact, Bastille Day celebrations are a reflection of France in all its grandeur and maintain the values of an advanced, unified, and benevolent society according to French aspirations and principles.

It is also an opportunity for the army and security forces to renew their oath of loyalty to the Republic. At dawn, the military parade on the Champs-Élysées, opened by motorbikes swooping down the avenue in a vibrating salute, marks a highly popular moment in the republican tradition. In the evening, the President of the Republic addresses the French nation from the Elysée Palace. Many musical and artistic whims color the Bastille Day spirit throughout the summer. Their attraction is so great that millions of inhabitants, on holiday or at home, are happy to forget their daily chores and come together with the rest of their city or country in a village ball, a major concert, or a classical dance. In cities with a large number of inhabitants, the celebrations end with a grand firework display. These fireworks are a time to meet and share the same sense of belonging as well as a moment of rejoicing with the youngsters. A great political movement and extensive lobbying activities are also carried out, embodied in various regional, communal, village, family, departmental, and regional calendars. Thus, the struggle for independence and the opposition to foreign forces represent the essence of French history and people's heritage.

Bastille Day in the Context of French Identity

Bastille Day, the French national holiday commemorating the start of the French Revolution, is not just a historical tradition that the French people honor each year. Despite symbolizing the beginning of regime change in 1789, Bastille Day is still close to the hearts of the French and is the most significant event in the French national identity. This is the concluding section of an essay that reflects on the connections between Bastille Day and the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and adds new and up-to-date information on how the celebrations have evolved in the period since the essay was published.

Many contemporary issues in France are only fully understandable in the context of the historical memories that are brought to the forefront of national consciousness on Bastille Day. Indeed, some of the most important debates in French society concern the nature of French culture and national history. France is one of the most vocal opponents of the growing presence of cultural globalization in the world. Among the central questions in the national debates about multiculturalism in France, perhaps the most important is this: what does it mean to be French? I want to suggest that, in fact, one possible answer to the question of what it means to be French is to argue that being French means viewing oneself simultaneously as a product of multiple world cultures and yet also as tied together with other French citizens by one's commitment to upholding French Republican values, an experience that is displayed and/or induced by the July 14 celebrations.

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