It's Bastille Day...Vive la France!

Americans have The 4th of July. The French have their Fête Nationale, which most French people simply call Quatorze juillet, and the English-speaking world calls Bastille Day. ~~~~~ On 19 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 the Catholic Church and nobility), decided to break away and form a National Assembly. The Third Estate took the "Tennis Court Oath," swearing not to separate until a constitution had been established. They were gradually joined by delegates of the other estates. Louis XVI started to recognize their validity on 27 June. The assembly renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly on 9 July, and began to function as a legislature and to draft a constitution. In the wake of the 11 July dismissal of Minister Necker who was sympathetic to the Third Estate, the people of Paris, fearful that they and their representatives would be attacked by the royal army, and seeking to gain ammunition and gunpowder for the general populace, on July 14, 1789, stormed the Bastille, a fortress and prison where important political prisoners were held. Shortly thereafter, King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette took refuge in Versailles as the violent peasants pillaged and burned châteaux, and destroyed records of feudal dues -- this reaction is known as the grande peur (great fear). For the peasant class, the Bastille stood as a symbol of the hypocrisy and corruption of the aristocratic government - controlled mostly by nobility and clergy. This important event marked the entry of the popular class into the French Revolution. The French recognize Bastille Day as the end of the monarchy and beginning of the modern republic. The lasting significance of the event was in its recognition that power could be held by ordinary citizens, not in the king or in God. ~~~~~ Today, Parisians celebrate their national holiday with the oldest and largest military parade in Europe. Its participants -- representing every group of the French military from the Foreign Legion to the mounted Republican Guard to motorcycke gendarmes, and often regiments from invited foreign militaries -- march up the Champs Elysées past the reviewing stand where the French President and representatives of the governments of every French-speaking nation are assembled. Quatorze juillet later is celebrated by family and neighborhood and village outings with picnics, barbeques, music and fireworks. The magnificent Paris fireworks display is at the Eiffel Tower. ~~~~~ A very happy independence Day to our French friends. Vive la France!